Blog

Labor Day family visit and Houston prep

By Jenny | September 5, 2024 |

It’s been a super busy week but there are not that many photos to share. My son prefers that no photos of children be posted online; you know how people can do bad things with them. But I do have a few photos to share. We had the most wonderful get together; it was a short 2 days, but oh so fun! This was baby M’s first longer car trip, 2 hours. She did well in the car and seemed to thrive here at the house too. She truly is an adorable girl, wish I could show you! Baby hands…

A fabulous seminar, more applique/trapunto work, preparing for a family gathering and The Biggest Takeaway from the seminar!

By Jenny | August 29, 2024 |

  What a faaaaaantastic week I’ve had (if you go Th to Th)! I had 18 talented, eager, prepared, well equipped and enthusiastic students for a 2-day Seminar at Meissner Sewing‘s main location in Sacramento. I billed it as a beginner’s class, but about half of the students had experience, several of them quite talented already. That was a challenge and it all worked out beautifully. It is such a joy to teach a class like this, when everyone is excited! I hope you can see that joy on their faces. I seem to always forget to take as many…

Applique/Trapunto, Part 2

By Jenny | August 22, 2024 |

  NOTE: I won’t have a newsletter this week; I just realized there is no way I can do it; I will be teaching all day Fri and Sat. Sorry! I had a chance to work on my applique/trapunto piece this week and all I want to do is quilt it! I chose a luscious navy blue dupioni for the border, a striped silk for the insert and a traditional ecru fabric for the half square triangles. It came together beautifully: I chose to do a “bouncing banana” fill around the applique. My other choices were micro stipple or bubble.…

A week of this n that

By Jenny | August 15, 2024 |

  It has been a week of variety:  a guild visit, hand applique/trapunto and beginning to prep student kits for Houston. My visit to the Amador Valley Quilters was so much fun! I stayed with my friend Jeanne and we solved all of the world’s problems over the kitchen table. The guild meets in Pleasanton, CA and what a beautiful city! They are in a unique location that delivers cool and breezy nights; such a delight! I walked Jeanne’s neighborhood in the wee hours so I don’t have any photos of the beauty but I did enjoy the fresh flowers…

Update and follow-up on air erasable pens

By Jenny | August 8, 2024 |

  This is an update to my previous post about air erasable pens. The project I am working on has a variety of silks, some of which have unstable dyes. Wetting that quilt is out of the question. My only choice was an air erasable marker. I won’t go into why other methods would not work on this project, why the Blue Line Eraser was not an option, etc. Trust me, air erasable was the only viable option. I’ll be inserting random shots of the project I’m working on, just for grins: My focus for the previous post was the…

Pacific International Quilt Festival 2024

By Jenny | July 29, 2024 |

  It was a huge change to move the Pacific Int’l Quilt Festival to July, and it may take a while for that to catch on. The show no longer fills the center, but it seems like it was about the same size as last year. I do think it was an especially good show; the level of talent seemed to be higher. Maybe that’s just me. I do have “rules” for what I post or don’t post: I don’t post quilts that I have posted before, I usually don’t take photos of quilts in the winner’s circle as there…

Testing air erasable markers – a clear winner and a clear loser

By Jenny | July 18, 2024 |

  NOTE: I have an update to my thoughts on air erasable pens here. I’ve been slogging away on my blue silk quilt. My fills will all be grid-based designs, which means they must be marked. I looked at the previously stitched grid (wrote about it here) in better light and liked it after all! I decided to keep it. I am currently working clamshells: Oh. So. Tedious to mark. The quilt top is all silk with cotton backing and wool batting. There are known silk bleeders in the mix. I cannot ever wet this quilt. It is glooooorious in…

Visiting the Country Crossroads Quilters (Modesto) and stalled out on my silk flowers

By Jenny | July 11, 2024 |

I spent an enormous amount of time on my blue silk flower project this week. All I have left to do is background fills, bind and sleeve! I was so excited! I am loving this project and the direction it has gone. I felt the taste of victory coming…. I had a plan, thought it was a good one. I’ve got a lot of curve going on there; a grid “always” works well next to curves. But I didn’t want the usual suspects for my grid, I wanted something a little different. My plan was to pumpkin seed a triangle…

A finish – an accidental Fourth of July quilt!

By Jenny | July 4, 2024 |

  I needed a fun, whimsical, short project, a frolic. Somehow I ended up with this very “Fourth of July” looking quilt! Maybe it could even go Christmas? The nine-patch middle is a vintage block that I bought last year at Houston. Actually I bought maybe 15 blocks, with no plan. I think I will have to visit that booth again this year… I just love the vintage middle! You can see the stains on the left and right white-ish blocks. I’m good with that. I was afraid to go after them too hard lest they disintegrate. The corner blocks…

Visiting Grands and a very old silk project

By Jenny | June 27, 2024 |

  I visited my brand new Granddaughter plus her brother, Mom and Dad last week. We waited to visit until they were visitor-ready, hence I missed posting last week. Oh it was glorious! Newborns are so helpless and life is so hard for them. Morgan has a blister on her lip from nursing so much; the girl is huuuuungry! We got to spend time with our 3 1/2 yr old grandson Logan and just got a feel for his day-to-day life. It is a good one! We visited the Hiller Air Museum, a few parks and watched swim practice. Pink…