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Let’s look at the Big Quilt Room of the Folsom Quilt and Fiber Guild Show: A Toby Lischko design. Nancy put it on point and chose a brown colorway to hang in her nature-inspired home in Tahoe. Susan redesigned the pattern for her daughter’s Cal King. Beautiful quilting enhances the design. Kaffe stripes and an off-handed remark in a Christine Barnes workshop gave Marie the inspiration to create this beauty. The block pattern go back to 1800/early 1099’s. Esther is a superb hand quilter and but did a fabulous job machine quilting this on a domestic machine. Exquisite applique. Pattern…
The Folsom Quilt and Fiber Guild Show 2020 – Part 1, Small Quilt Room, Wearables and other treasures
I love my home guild (the Folsom Quilt and Fiber Guild)! Every year I get excited about our Feb show, which is the first show of the year in my neck of the woods, so I call it Quilting New Year. See what I mean? All those happy quilters – gotta love it. I’m splitting my posts in two, one this week with the “Small Quilt Room”, Wearables and some of my happy purchases and winnings. Next week I’ll post the “Big Quilt Room”. The Emma Allebes Art Quilt Challenge this year was “City of Trees”, a moniker for Sacramento.…
NOTE: I may not post next week – it’s a busy week as you will read below. I wish I had more time in my life to play with wearable art. It is in my blood, but during this season of life I don’t think I’ll get much time to play with wearables. So I was super excited to visit the Haute Couture Societe and see their Show ‘n Tell. I didn’t take nearly enough photos! The room was packed for my lecture, a welcome sight. I thought it would be all wearable artists but apparently there are lots of…
I really don’t plan to cram major events altogether, it just happens. Hubby and I spent a few days in El Paso, Tx celebrating his Mom’s 94th bday. It was a grand time: She is very well-loved by many, for good reason. I’m a counter and I stopped counting at 50 cards! This was fun – my Sister-in-Law bought this special candle for the cake and it was spectacular. It started out like this and then all the little petal-like things flopped down, each with their own candle and they moved around the center candle. It was really cool! I…
This was my fifth year to teach and play at Craft Napa – pinch me! I felt the magic this year both as teacher and student. Pokey Bolton brings in such a great group of teachers each year and I think that one of the best things about the event is the variety: painting, dyeing, free motion quilting, batiking, stamping, jewelry, improv piecing, collaging, piecing, art quilts, abstract, mixed media, improv, encaustic, water color and…tea bags? All in one place! Although most students are from northern California, Craft Napa attracts interest from all over. This year I had two students…
When this posts, I will be at my fifth Craft Napa, teaching Fearless Free Motion Quilting – Start With a Square. I am pumped – my class is almost full and we’re going to have a blast! But there was just a wee bit of prep work involved of course: At the last minute, I decided to make one of these for each of my students. It took waaay longer than I anticipated, but I’m pleased with the outcome. Lest you think I’m terribly clever, this is the idea of Joanne Sharpe that I copied (with permission). I did come…
I’m working now on a large trapunto, almost-wholecloth quilt with some random piecing inserts and I’ll be using ruler work for the trapuntoed circles. Here’s a test piece, a trial run on which I’ve tested the circles and played with various fills: I also took a great ruler work class at the Folsom Meissner store from Elaine Buchanan. I’ve done a good bit of straight line ruler work, but no curved work. Besides, I wanted to learn the right way to use rulers and I knew Elaine was who I needed to take. She gave me great guidance and…
Note: I have 2 posts today because they are on very different subjects. You might expect me to recount my year, given that it’s New Year’s Day. It was not a “bad” year, but it certainly was a frustrating one. I have very little completed work to show for the year and this is the main reason why: I looked back and I see that I started this one in Dec, 2018. I worked all year on it and realized that it was not a viable quilt sometime in October, 2019. Almost a year of hard work and the quilt…
Note: I have 2 posts today because they are about two very different subjects. I am not ending 2019 on a high note. Hubby and I chose to surrender our sweet Zoe the Greyhound back to the Greyhound Adoption Center, after a brief stay in our home. Here’s how we arrived at that gut-wrenching decision: Zoe is a 2 yr 4 mo old Greyhound. She has an unusual history. But first, some basic Greyhound background. Pretty much every non-racing Greyhound you see has been retired from racing. Last year there were something like 4 non-racing Greyhound litters in the entire…
Meet Miss Zoe, our first girl dog: Miss Zoe is a 2 yr old rescue retired racing Greyhound from the Greyhound Adoption Center in El Cajon, CA (southern California). She came from the Caliente track in Mexico. Apparently she won 3 out of her 4 races so it is a mystery why she was put out for adoption. She has no evidence of injuries. Hubby and I are new to the Sight Hound world and especially Greyhounds. We have done our research and the rescue people have been excellent – both pragmatic and informative. We make new discoveries daily: she…