A visit to the Valley Oaks Quilt Guild (Tulare, CA)

 

NOTE: I will probably miss another 2 weeks of both blog posts and newsletters. I will be in judge training next week and Empty Spools the following week. I’ll be baaaack! It is an exceptionally busy year.
ALSO: I’ve got two posts this week; you can view my post on the Large Quilt Room of my guild’s show here.

I visited the Valley Oaks Quilt Guild in Tulare, CA last week and had a bang up time! Tulare is right next to Visalia; I kind of think of them as twin cities. I had never been to that area of California before.

WOW! I arrived the day before the daytime meeting and had a wonderful dinner in Visalia at Bravo Farms; yummmm! The Visalia Main Street is maybe 12 blocks long? It goes on and on, filled with all local shops, no chains. It was lovely to walk it end-to-end, seeing all manner of shops from bridal to interesting restaurants to old time barber shops and more:

The guild meeting was the next morning and there was great crowd:

I presented my “The Beauty of the Imperfect” talk and it made an impact, based on the feedback I got. Perfection is so overrated!

After the lecture I had some time. If I’d thought about it earlier I could have visited the Sequoia National Park, which looks to be amazing. I have seen the Redwoods, but not the Giant Sequoias. That is now a Bucket List item.

Instead, I drove to the entrance of the park, to Three Rivers, described as “a small, creative Sierra Nevada foothill village, with businesses and residences following the five forks of the Kaweah River”. Five forks converge there but it’s called Three Rivers….don’t ask me why.

What a gorgeous drive!! It provoked this remark from me: “I didn’t know California could be beautiful in another way!”. It was rainy on and off, and the sky provided its own spectacle in addition to the verdant hills and orchards:

At the convergence of the rivers is a restaurant with some great views. There was a tremendous flow of snow melt the day I was there:

Yeah, you noticed that outrageously colored tree to the left in the upper photo? Here’s another view:

After pondering this, and looking at a close-up of that scene, it has to be fake. The leaves are all the exact same color, the same size and shape and my close up revealed some sort of what appears to be extension cord?? I know, how could they put an extension cord across the river. It’s a mystery, but I saw what I saw. Cool!

Class the next day was phenomenal. The room was vibrating with creativity, including from reluctant students who were either brand new to free motion quilting or “not an artist”.

Let me give you a preview of what they accomplished. I provided a kit of sheers to work with. A wide variety of sheers is helpful and there are no one-stop shopping sites for sheers:

Creating translucency! I’ve not seen anyone try this before.

A printed background; also new one on me.

“I like sparkly!”. Oh yes! Creative use of the background on some of the sheers that is usually cut out.

That fabric was perfect for a vase. I love how the flower has some white showing and is three colored.

It’s the little things: the perky curve of the grasses, the dandelion seed type design and I love how the blue flower overlaps the grass.

A butterfly! And a lovely combination of the briiiight red with the strong blue and more subtle “striped” flower.

The net over the vase is interesting. She used one of my  machine embroidered fluffy sheers that was probably designed for bridesmaids maybe? (the purple flowers). And she added the dimensional flowers plus the charming droopy daisy.

This just makes me smile! The butterflies, the frilly blue fantasy flower and the vibrant colors on the right.

I had included some dimensional flowers and it can be tricky to incorporate them into a piece. And how can you resist polka dot grass?? She also added a pink background behind the dimensional flower on the left, another new-to-me design element.

A really nice composition with the leaves flopping over the vase, polka dot grass and a biiig flower to the left.

Nice touch to add a Ranunculus (my interpretation of the yellow flower) with a spiral center. The red flower goes almost Poinsettia! And who doesn’t love a yellow and orange striped flower😊

I’ve never seen anyone use a black background before and I was afraid that the black would muddy the colors. Not! This is bright and colorful and look at that cute row of marching dimensional flowers at the top of the vase. She wants to remove the two elements to the lower right which were to be dropped petals, but kind of went another direction. Love that polka dotted purple vase!

I love the creativity of this group! This class (“Sheer Bliss”) is always fun; everyone enjoys it. Even brand new free motion quilters can do this. The vibe is always lighthearted and fun.

I’ll be linking up:
Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday