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On a whim, Hubby and I Googled a rental we had stayed in 9 years ago. We had such a lovely time. Could it possibly be available sometime in July? We were shocked to find an opening for this great home, on the banks of the Deschutes River near historic Drake Park in Downtown Bend, OR. Score! Bend is near great hiking, biking, fishing and other water sports. It has excellent craft beers and dining. Downtown Bend has lots of art and fun places to poke around and shop. Oh, and there are THREE quilt shops! What’s not to like?…
I ended the first half of my teaching year with a blast! I visited the Nite Owl Quilters of Rancho Cucamonga and got to visit a new-to-me area of Southern California (SoCal). Rancho Cucamonga is located in the Inland Empire. I thought that only included the hot and flat areas, but Rancho Cucamonga sits just south of the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and Angeles National Forest in San Bernardino County. I’ve lived in California 19 years and I still have much to learn. When I visited, it was fairly mild and surprisingly lovely! Everyone was friendly and the…
I was thrilled to be in Grants Pass when SAQA‘s Tranquility and Turmoil at the Grants Pass Museum of Art was showing.It was top-notch! I lingered for a few hours and was able to talk with and observe visitor reactions. There was a lot of “How’d they do that?”! It was hard to cull my photos down to just 30. Of course I had the usual group of photos unfit for sharing. It was a pleasure to immerse myself in the show and observe details. Here we go: This was a very subtle piece, one I enjoyed immensely. My…
I do love to travel and meet new people and last week’s visit took me to a new-to-me part of Oregon. Oregon is beautiful and the Rogue Valley was beautiful in a whole new way. Both Medford and Ashland are well-known nearby neighbors in Southwest OR. The Rogue River created the valley in which the city sits, all at the convergence of 3 nearby mountain ranges: the Klamath, Coastal Range and Cascades. It is gorgeous! This trip did not afford enough time to explore the outdoors but I want to bring Hubby back to spend some time there. The…
This happens on occasion, a quilt or project becomes more than just a quilt. It begins to take up a good chunk of your brain and energy. You think about it when you should be on Brain Down Time. It creates strong emotions and becomes such a part of your life that it becomes a relationship. This can be good, it can be difficult. Or both. TFH (Trapunto From Hell) is both. I admire its beauty when I walk into my studio and the sun is skimming across her beautiful trapuntoed curves. That ice blue silk is divine. I love…
Great news! RNK immediately redesigned their thread labels after reading last week’s post. They do listen! Look, this is the redesign: Although it will take awhile to get the new labels into stores, this is what the newest labels will look like. Yahoo! No more sticky labels gumming up the spool holder and now the label will remain intact with all the product information you will need. Maybe there’s a lesson here? If we let manufacturers know what we want, maybe they’ll make it! RNK was unaware of the problem but was instantly responsive once they knew. We spoke,…
I’m in the midst of a wholecloth trapunontoed quilt, hellbent on finishing sometime this century. If you’re working in both wholecloth and trapunto, your entire world is thread and tension. So maybe I’m just a wee bit a little hyper-focused. But I do know my thread. I am working with two high-quality threads, no complaints there. But dang, the way thread manufacturers design their spools makes a difference! There are two things that that thread manufacturers need to fix: Problem #1: Please don’t cover the hole with your label! It prevents the spool from spinning freely. If you just…
This was definitely the best show I have seen from the Roseville Quilters Guild. The applique and quilting were exquisite and there was lots of variety. They installed additional lighting and every shot I took was right into a light, so I had to mess with the color to get definition on some of the quilts. They are moving to the Roseville Sports Center venue next year which is very well lighted and spacious. Spot; Leisha Belau. This was a BOM and I love that bubble quilting! Cherry Sweet; Connie Richerson, quilted by Debbie Lopez. What sweetness! Some hand applique…
I am still in awe that this happened: late in February, just as I was in full-tilt panic mode with deadlines, I got an IG message from Jennifer Sampou. She wanted ME to quilt something for her. Say whaaaat? Back story first: Jennifer pulled off a herculean move and timed the release of her new fabric line, Sky, with the release of her new book, Ombre Quilts. I can’t even imagine what that was like. Some unexpected complications occurred along the way and she needed a quilt quilted ASAP, on a domestic machine. As she tells the story, she…
Saturday’s schedule was jam packed with lots of art in the afternoon, followed by a banquet and the Spotlight Auction. I chose the tour with 3 museums, which was ambitious. There was so much art packed into such a short time that I felt like I just got a taste of each, but that was fine by me! After visiting the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles (I wrote about this in my last post), we walked a few doors down to the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. I was not able to spend much time in the…