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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…
I missed last year’s show due to a teaching trip so it was good to be back. As is usually the case, I didn’t have a lot of time to see the show but I think I was able to see it all. I even bought a few goodies: Isn’t that adorable? I love it when someone makes my bag for me! I intended to use this as my machine mat but it doesn’t work with my knee lift – dang! Love what this Jane Sassaman fabrics did when fussy cut for the Bobby Dazzler pattern. Gotta love a Big…
Until I sat down to write this post I did not realize that I had done a lot of playing over the last few weeks. I even completed a project! Some of this may turn into nothing, but I think I’ve got the start of some pretty cool projects. First, my completion. I may or may not be in a jean jacket embellishment phase… I started here… with some gorgeous wool hand-dyed by Linda Waddle. For this type of work, the more mottled and strong the colors, the better. This piece had both qualities in spades. I created the design,…
It’s bedtime and I haven’t written a post! I simply forgot. But hey, at least my frig is full! It’s actually even more full than when I took that photo, and there will only be 5 of us! It took a few days of this and 5 trips to the grocery store in 24 hours to fill that frig. But there was some trauma along the way: I ran out of chocolate! So I hit Trader Joe’s at around 1PM the Tues before Thanksgiving and there were 4 lines to the back of the store. Even I will not go…
This is my final post for Houston. My photos loaded oddly and are not all nicely grouped by category and I was too short on time to arrange them properly. You will still enjoy the quilts out of order! SAQA had an exhibit, 50 Years of Innovation. I loved that exhibit! It was filled with iconic art quilts, several of which were instrumental in bringing me into the art quilt movement. The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento had part of Quilt National 2003 and it blew me away! I had never seen such quilts before. Several of the quilts in…