Getting Jazzed for Houston!

I finally had the time this afternoon to sit down and sort through my catalogue for the International Quilt Festival in Houston this November and get myself registered for my classes. Woohoo!

This is the second time I'll be going; the first time was with Mom several years ago. Mom really enjoyed the round-table style of classes they offer so she and I both signed up for one focused on applique, and I could see what she meant. It's a great way to be exposed to several teachers and their techniques in a short period of time, although Karen Buckley particularly stands out in my memory. I enjoyed watching her presentation and later being at her table for her demonstration. She does great work. And I believe I bought stuff from her. So we both benefitted from the experience.

To the same end, this year I'm taking another round-table style class (on mixed-media in quilting), and then focusing mostly on lectures. I like the idea that I can explore a whole wide range of things and then delve deeper into ones that intrigue me later on with books, DVDs, and the like. I looked at several of the classes, too--there were two offered at the same time that I was debating between, only to find out they were both already closed anyway. Problem solved! Nicely, my schedule ended up in neat little bunches so I'll still have plenty of time for the show and vendors and all the other fun stuff they have going on in the show hall.

Registering was the last step I had to take care of...now it's just packing and going! Well, OK, there's a couple of months between now and then, but still...a girl can dream.

Back in the saddle again...

Just to let y'all know, I did post episode 20, "In Which We Are Relieved," this afternoon (www.quiltingfortherestofus.com). It's a response to listener comments over the last couple of weeks and a little bit of update about what I have going on in my quilty life these days--admittedly, not much, but some new projects started and older ones moved along. Altogether not bad, considering. I also talk a little bit about the international quilting scene as I've experienced it through magazines--while sitting in hospitals--and wonder what folks who actually live in the countries from whence those magazines come would say. So chime in!

I am very pleased to report that my son is doing well. He even made a short trip to the mall today with his sister and cousin to pick up my birthday gift (an expansion pack for Settlers of Catan, our families' current fave game). He was a little tired when he got back, but other than that, none the worse for wear. His follow-up appointment with his surgeon is Monday--keep your fingers crossed or send up prayers that he gets released to move back on campus in another few days. He was getting texts all evening from his BFF/roommate who moved back today about the other folks on the hall and so forth. He's missing being part of the haps.

Tomorrow is scheduled to be a low-key day at the homestead so I'm hoping to get more sewing time in. I got the fourth charity quilt all ready to be quilted; the fifth one has the backing ready and I just have to spray baste it all together and I'll be ready to let that one rock n' roll too. It'll feel amazingly good to have those five monkeys off my back!

Thanks, again, for all your well wishes and support and encouragement over these last couple of weeks. It meant a lot. I'm looking forward to life returning to normal, however we define "normal" these days.

New QFTRU Flickr Group

Finally--I'm getting more organized! I cordially invite you to join the new Quilting...for the Rest of Us group in Flickr. No longer do you have to wait on my schedule to share your pics with other listeners. Which is a good thing, given what my schedule is going to be for the next few months....

Often listeners will send me photos--which I love!--and I want to share them with everyone else but if I'm on the road I get way delayed in being able to post them to my blog. So from now on, just add them to the Flickr group. It'll be our own QFTRU Show n' Tell--woohoo!

Here's the direct link:  http://www.flickr.com/groups/quiltingfortherestofus. Can't wait to see your photos!

The dust is settling...mostly

My son came home from the hospital last night and in about an hour he has an appointment with the surgical practice to check the fact that his incision seems to have re-opened. Bully. We'd originally been told that they weren't going to take all the staples out until next week, then the PA took all the staples out last night before discharging him. And now it looks like he could've still used a few staples in there. Don't know for sure--they'll tell us what's what when we get to the office. Fortunately, he's not in pain--just a little uncomfortable (some of which is psychological--it's a little disturbing to think your insides are open to the outsides).

I took today as a vacation day because I knew it would take us awhile to get into the swing of things with him being home. Sure enough, one trip out to the drug store to pick up some bandages and medical tape so we could rebandage his body parts. And making him his fave homemade soup to try to stimulate his appetite a bit. Washing the blanket we'd brought from home for him to have in the hospital room for warmth and emotional comfort. And now the doctor's appointment. I may take tomorrow off too, so I can rest from today!

Meanwhile, I did treat myself to an early birthday present, my birthday being Thursday. I received a little financial birthday gift early so I just bought myself the EQ7 Upgrade, after checking with my husband that the thought hadn't crossed anyone else's mind. I knew it wouldn't have--that's the kind of thing only my Mom would have ever thought about doing for me, since she had also been an EQ user. I ordered it online so I won't have it for another week or so but at least I know it's on its way. And gee, here I just finally figured out how to use EQ6! I can see another Quilt University class in my future....

I also had plans to put the binding on my square-in-a-square quilt today (see the posting from the podcast episode "In Which I Saved a Quilt from Almost Certain Destruction"), but then decided I really didn't like the fabric I had set aside awhile back as potential binding. That precipitated a dig through my scraps bin to find the scraps from the fabric I'd used for the sashing strips, and fortunately I had a couple of scraps that still had the selvege with the fabric name and maker. I found it online and ordered a yard, so when that comes I'll finally be ready to do the binding.

So my quilty activity today primarily consisted of shopping. Best kind of retail therapy involves fabric.

Wait--I did also prep the Hawaiian applique kit for the next step. I don't recall where I posted about what, now, while I was in the hospital, but I had been working on the smallest/easiest applique kit I'd bought in Hawaii during the hours I was hanging out in my son's room. I finished the applique part and am now onto the quilting and embellishing but decided I needed to press it all out again before I did any of that since it had gotten a bit wrinkled in its travels back and forth from home to hospital. So it's now neatly pressed and pin-basted together so I can take it with me to the doctor later this afternoon and work on it in the waiting room. This poor little applique hibiscus is doomed to a life of reminding me of a not-very-fun time in my life. Hopefully, the memories of having bought it in Hawaii will outweigh the memories of where I actually worked on it!

I'd post a picture of the hibiscus but it's not very good applique so I think I'll wait until it's all done, then do a photo from more of a distance to bring the whole "galloping horses" theory into play. Then you can all think that maybe I actually know what I'm doing, applique-wise. I'm not adverse to using a little photographic trickery.

Radio Silence

I realized I'd posted some info in a couple of other places but never left a blog entry about why there's been radio silence from me the last little while.

My son (19) had a ruptured appendix and emergency appendectomy last Sunday---after a couple of days of thinking he had food poisoning after a rather unfortunate lunch at a buffet restaurant. Seems we can't blame the restaurant after all.

In any case, what's usually a 90 minute surgery was almost 4 hours and then he went straight into ICU following. He was just moved from ICU to a regular surgical floor last night, and will likely be in the hospital for several more days before he's well enough to continue his recuperation at home.

So no podcast episodes or blogs from me recently. At the moment, signs point to him being home by next week and at that point, although we'll still be doing some caretaking, at least I won't be spending most of my waking moments in a hospital--I'll be able to return to some of my usual activities.

I'll be back in touch when the dust settles.

Going Hawaiian

I got episode 19 "In Which We Go Hawaiian" tonight--yay! It took two recording sessions because I'm still struggling with time zone issues and the first time through just didn't ... well... it just didn't. So I re-recorded tonight and decided to just forge ahead. (If you're not a subscriber, use the embedded player on the left to listen to the episode.)

It's a little longer than my usual episodes, although not too far off, but that's what I get for skipping a week and having to play catch-up. The real star of the episode, though, is Anne Fujiwara, quilt designer and teacher of the traditional Hawaiian style. Great interview--I'm very appreciative of her for taking the time to sit with me and talk!

I posted a photo of her in her shop in the show notes to the episode, so be sure to check that out. Meanwhile, here's my other quilty-pics from the trip.

Anne's Hawaiian Quilts, Honolulu. (Listed in the Shops page at http://www.quiltingfortherestofus.com/.)

Beautiful sampler quilt designed by Anne.

The subject matter of the blocks is traditional Hawaiian style, but the sampler nature and the use of multiple colors is more modern.
Traditional Hawaiian quilts are two color--usually a white background with navy blue or red single-piece, symmetrical applique on the top. The traditional quilting pattern is echo-quilting.


Anne's student working on her quilt. You hear about this quilt, and this student, in the interview as well.

Her quilting was beautiful, by the way. Very nicely done!









I bought the kit for this cute little hibiscus applique piece as my "starter kit" for traditional Hawaiian quilts. It comes pre-basted with the quilting lines marked. The frame also comes with the kit. A good way to get my feet wet!

In traditional Hawaiian quilting, everything is done by hand, and it's needle-turn applique.

I don't have photos of one of the patterns I bought which was slightly more complicated than this, but a very traditional Hawaiian block pattern. I believe it's pillow-sized. The third pattern I purchased is the pattern for the center medallion block in the sampler quilt in the first picture above. That one will take me awhile, but I couldn't resist!

On to Maui, and Sew Simple. (Information listed on the Shops page at http://www.quiltingfortherestofus.com/.)

Some of the samples on their wall. (I asked for permission to take the photos. May not be exactly correct in terms of copyright but I'm not claiming this as my work and I'm basically advertising the store and showing what great patterns are available--I didn't write down the names of the patterns these quilts are made from but I'm sure you can contact the store and ask.) I love the fabrics used in the one on the right, particularly.

Look way to the right--the bird of paradise applique by Nancy Chong. That's the one I bought. Beautiful! Two pieces of fabric, one on top of the other.

I'm also fond of the pineapples on the left, but didn't write down the name of the pattern. I need to dig that one up and buy it at some point!


Here she's preparing the thread from the sashiko kit for me. Her tip, if you buy one of these kits. Tie off the thread shank roughly in thirds, then cut both ends. That makes it really easy to pull out a length of thread for stitching without tangling up the whole shank, and the lengths are perfect for stitching. I gotta say, it really does work! I haven't had a single tangle. I hold onto the far end of it and pull from the near end, holding the whole shank as straight as possible while I do it. It works like a charm.


She also let me snap a picture of the back of the sample piece hanging behind the register so I could see how to tie off the end of the thread. You just go backwards through three or four loops on the back and snip it off. Very simple. I love simple.


And now, for some general Hawaiian eye-candy.



Waikiki/Honolulu from the top of Diamond Head Crater












The "Shower Tree," rainbow variety. (I have a kazillion pictures of these--I loved the meld of pink and yellow on each flower.)











There he is, the bird of paradise! He amuses me.












Gorgeous coastal views along the infamous "Road to Hana."











Waves against lava rock along the shores of Maui. (Also taken along the Road to Hana trek.)

Hawaiian Quilting...A Teaser

So, I'm still in Hawaii but have a random few minutes to post a quick note to whet your appetite for my podcast next week!

When I first arrived in Waikiki (Oahu), I had a free day to wander about and do as I pleased before starting my conference. So I did a hike up Diamond Head (beautiful--see view of Waikiki from the top, at left), and then tracked down a quilt shop I'd found online ahead of time. It was a little tricky to find, but what a find. And...even better...I was able to interview the owner all about Hawaiian quilting!

My husband flew in to meet me when the conference was over and we headed on to Maui for a few days of vacation. Today, on our way to some hiking trails, I was able to visit another quilt shop that I'd found online ahead of time and once again, it was a wonderful treat.

I'm not going to divulge any more here--I'll be talking about my quilt shop experiences and sharing the interview next week when I'm home again. So get ready for the next podcast episode...it's a doozy!


Guest Blogger on Quilting Gallery

I'm still away on business but had a quick minute to post an update: I'm the current guest blogger on Quilting Gallery. You can read it here. Check out all the other great features on Quilting Gallery while you're there!

A great video

Listener Deb shared a link to this very amusing video with me. Thanks, Deb!

The Quilt from Episode 17

In episode 17 of my "Quilting...for the Rest of Us" podcast series, I talk about this quilt from inception to it's current state. This was a doozy.

I won't go into details of what I refer to as a quilt's tale of "woe and redemption," since that's what the whole podcast episode is about. You'll just have to listen if you're curious.

But I promised pics, so here they are!

Here's the whole quilt. Or, at least as much as could be held up by two people standing on the ground rather than ladders. It's somewhere roundabouts twin size.







This is a close-up of some of the wonderful quilting by the long-arm quilter at Mt. Pleasant Quilting Company.  (Note the medallion feathered wreath, with the external feathered wreath in the coping triangles, and sort of a starburst effect in the cornerstone squares.)

My doofus dog trying to figure out why Mom is on the opposite side of the fence from him. "What's up with that? Why aren't we playing?"







The road crew for the photo shoot. (My daughter and niece pressed into service, the two dogs observing and just generally getting underfoot, waiting for food or toys to drop from heaven.)

The Freedom of Ephemerality

If only that were a word, "ephemerality." It would be a good one.

I subscribe to "The Best of YouTube" and while mostly it's just a cheap pleasure, sometimes videos really make you stop and think. While I was watching this one, I couldn't help but wonder, "Would I feel more free in my quilting if I knew it would only be there for three hours? Would that liberate me?"

I wonder how much I get bunched up just because I'm thinking, "Others will be seeing this for years to come," or the perennial, "Will I be able to live with that?"

This artist creates art that will only last a matter of hours--and he takes such joy in that. He's so energized by the time frame and by the fact that it'll be wiped clear and he has a clean slate again.

I wonder...

What do you think?

(It's almost 10 minutes long--but worth the time.)

"Use It or Lose It" Challenge update

Because I inherited so many specialty rulers and other gizmos from my Mom when she passed away, I proposed a new challenge to my guild-that-is-not-a-guild at the beginning of this year and because others were feeling a similar pinch, they hopped on board. So this year is the inaugural year of the "Use It or Lose It" challenge! Basically, anyone who is playing along listed 3 quilty items (in our case, rulers, tools, or books were all considered fair game) that had been on their shelves for at least one year and had never been used. In other words, this is our challenge to use those items that sounded just so nifty cool at the time and we just had to have them, but they have never been broken out of their packages and sit forlorn, collecting dust.

We have until October to use the items on our list--whatever we haven't used by then we "lose" to a silent auction during a guild meeting in November. Or, if we use an item and decide it's just not all that and a bag of chips, we can chose to gift it to that same silent auction.

My three items were a Fons and Porter binding ruler-tool thingie (I'd bought that myself some time ago), a set of Marilyn Doheny circle wedge rulers I'd inherited from Mom, and the Marti Michell Log Cabin rulers and book, also inherited. Here's the thing--forasmuch as all these rulers seemed like good things to keep from my Mom's studio, if I didn't have some external pressure they'd never get used and they'd still be in my drawer 10 years from now, untouched.

We have a few different benchmarks along the way of this challenge--every couple of months, anyone who has a "finish" gets their name put in a drawing and the winner gets a half yard of fabric from the kitty. (The registration fee for the challenge was a half yard of fabric.) I haven't won yet, and to tell the truth, I'm trying to use up fabric, not win more. So the drawing isn't a big motivator for me. But having those benchmarks is an excellent reminder to keep myself moving on the challenge.

I knocked off the binding ruler quite quickly--I've been doing a lot of bindings lately with finishing all of Mom's UFOs and some of my own. Now I'm working on the circle wedge rulers to see if I can use them before the next benchmark, which is next month's meeting. We don't actually have to finish whatever project we use the items in--and, in fact, can use the item in any other project as well. The only real rule is that you have to use the item for the purpose for which it was originally intended. You'd be amazed at how creative a quilter can be at trying to find the loopholes!

I've been brewing an idea for using the circle wedge rulers for awhile, and tonight started pulling out fabrics to see what I could put together. Think ancient Egyptian art. And that's all I'm gonna say for now. Of course, I could just slap some fabric down, slice into it, and sew it back together and call it a day. For the purpose of the challenge, that would get me through. But I can't quite make things that easy on myself. Instead I'm getting all fancy with it. Hopefully I'm not just creating myself a UFO that will end up on my UFO challenge list 5 years from now!

If I get anything real accomplished this week, I'll post pics. But to be honest, I'm trying to stay off the computer as much as possible this week so I can get some sewing done. At the moment, I'm just waiting for my iron to heat up so I can get down to work!

Quilt Shop Hop--Day 3

Day 3 and done. Phew. I'm exhausted. Somewhere around store 5 or 6 yesterday I commented to one of my cohorts, "I think I'm starting to suffer from overstim."

But I had a fant-ab-ulous time. (Or would that be "fabric-ulous time"?)

Last shop, and then my little personal debriefing:

Last, but certainly not least, was Ivy Thimble (Victor).

Why didn't we make it here on Saturday? Because it's nowhere near any of the other shops on the list for this particular shop hop. But that doesn't stop the Intrepid and Determined Quilter.

This was my first ever visit here because it's a bit of a haul for me. I really do like this shop--I'll definitely be making more of an effort to get back there again. Since this was my last shop I only bought one charm pack (future freebie giveaway!). But I scoped out possible future purchases. You know, once I have money again. Like in 2013.

This is a fairly sizeable shop for our area--lots of bolts of fabric. Great batiks section, great flannels section, great blenders section. Great everything section.

So--here's what I learned that I'd like to pass along to you, for the next time you're wanting to go on a shop hop.

1.) There are a ton of great quilt shops in Western NY. C'mon over, y'all, ya hear? (There are several area quilt shops that weren't participating in this particular "official" shop hop--so there's a whole bunch more really nice ones than I've blogged about here!)

2.) Work on a cash-only basis. (Sigh.)

3.) Get yourself a Sonja. Without her maps and pre-planning, we'd never have been as efficient as we were. And we never felt rushed! It was a nice trip. Thanks, Sonja.

4.) Use electronics for good. One time, I should've done a quick online check of pricing before purchasing. That was the only downside to the whole trip. But overall, I could've kept much better track of what I was seeing in each shop that might have come in handy later. Now I'm going to sit tonight and program some of this stuff into my phone for future reference, but it would've been a lot easier to be doing it while I was standing right in the store. (For those of you with Droids--that "Footprints" app is a great way to track all the fun shops you're visiting. Much easier to do it at the moment you're standing in front of the store than trying to input everything later.)

OK--that's it. Now I have to start figuring out what I'm doing with my new fabric friends. And playing with my new Janome feet. There's no stopping me now.

Quilt Shop Hop--Day 2 Cont'd

And now we'll get through the rest of day 2. Hold onto your hats!

OK, so when I stopped in the last blog, I believe we were still hanging out in Sew What? Quilt Shop. A bit further away was Marie's Sewing Center (Lockport). It looks very unprepossessing from the outside, but you can't judge a book by its cover. This little door and little sign did not herald adequately the wealth that was within.





Particularly for this Janome girl.

I've been using Mom's Janome 6600 for a year now, and had no idea that there were other types of acu-feed feet I could get. Plus, I'd heard a podcaster (Huge apologies--it was awhile back and now I don't recall which of you was talking about this) raving about the new Janome free-motion quilting foot and special free-motion bobbin case. So I checked them out. I now own the quilting foot and have the bobbin case on order, as they were out.

I also picked up a special binding foot to see if that works any better for me on putting binding on completely by machine. Haven't had good luck with that before. Maybe this will be the ticket.

I almost bought an acu-feed stitch-in-the-ditch foot until I recalled that there was some sort of foot, still unopened in its package, sitting in my sewing cabinet at home that I'd inherited from Mom with the machine. I'd never paid attention to what it was. Too much other stuff I'd been sorting through at the time. So--fortunately, as it turns out--I waited to buy any other specialized feet until I could see what it was. The end of that story? When I got home and checked--yep, it's the stitch-in-the-ditch foot that I'd been seriously considering at the store. Phew. Thanks, Mom

OK--back to the hop.

What felt like "a fur piece" away, although still within the same township going by the address, was Heartland Quilt Shop (Lockport). I mean, this really felt like it was out there. But a very nice shop. Seemed to have a very committed clientele of regulars--a few were there while we were. They were clearly fans. I could see why.

Heartland seemed to specialize in Moda (yay!) and country-style fabrics, although they had some Amy Butler and I believe I recall seeing some Kaffe Fasset as well. If I lived closer, I could imagine myself being quite happy with this as my home base shop. It probably had been a real-live house at one point so it's sort of a warren of rooms, each with a special focus. Neat to poke around in.

Next up--and another bit of a drive away...The Whole Nine Yards (Medina).   I heart this shop.

It has a similar feel to Country Treasures (see Quilt Shop Hop--Day 1). It's a mix of country/primitives and fabric, although The Whole Nine Yards is larger so their fabric selection is more extensive than Country Treasures. I'd guess that the gifts/primitives is about the same between the two because Country Treasures uses their space really, really well.


In any case, at this stage of the shop hop I was trying to seriously cut back on my expenditures so I didn't buy much fabric here but I easily could've. Mostly, it was a joy to just look around. Very nicely done.

(This picture so doesn't do it justice. Check out their website for better interior shots. No website shopping, unfortunately, but if you plan to be in the hinterlands of Western NY, this is a place you definitely need to add to your itinerary.)











Besides--how can you resist a comfy kitty sunning herself in the window display?







And then we drove. And drove. And drove some more. A little under an hour later, we made it to the next stop on our shop hop...



Chestnut Bay Quilting.  (Caledonia).

I actually discovered this shop several months ago. I was really glad I'd found it. Chestnut Bay has a very nice collection of wool for wool felt projects, a great selection of batiks, and a whole room full of Civil War repro and that style of fabrics. Plus other fabrics, of course. Again, not a huge shop, but she makes great use of her space. Plus the store owner is very friendly and I've enjoyed every stop I've made there.

By the way, if you go to Chestnut Bay, plan to have lunch or dinner right across the street at the Caledonia Village Inn. Great, great food and atmosphere.


Finally, our last stop of the day--Mt. Pleasant Quilting Company (York). I've been here whole bunches. This was one of my Mom's fave shops, so I used to pick her up and we'd make a day of it.

Not only does Mt. Pleasant have a great selection of fabrics--plus one of the nicest flannels sections I've seen--they have excellent and affordable long arm services. I have had several quilts done here and have never been disappointed. Plus, dropping off or picking up is a good excuse for me to check out the new fabric. I don't get here too often because it's a drive and I have several shops much closer to me that I enjoy visiting. But I will say, it's worth the trip.

By then we were exhausted and the stores were near closing for the day, so we headed home. A couple of us agreed to meet this afternoon for the last shop we had to complete to have our names entered in the drawing for all the prizes, so in keeping with my roughly-chronological posting system, that will be the next blog entry!





Quilt Shop Hop--Day 2

I'm going to divide Saturday in half because we visited a ton of shops. We managed to make really good time. None of us thought we'd actually be able to get through all the shops we got through, but we did. And even stopped for lunch. And never felt rushed in any of the stores. There were five us in our group--me, Kate, Lois, Kathy, and Sonja--and we had a great time!

I spent way too much. But that's another post for another time.

12 shops in the shop hop. I did 2 shops on my own. That left 10. One of which is nowhere near any of the others. Sonja did a fantastic job mapping everything out and figuring out the best route to take--so we met early early in a nearby parking lot, everyone climbed in my car, and we made the longest stretch of drive first. About an hour and 15 minutes to the first shop. Timed it perfectly. Got there two minutes before the shop was supposed to open for the day, but they already had their doors unlocked and ready to go! We'd decided ahead of time that when we got to shop number 7 on our list, we'd assess where we were time- and energy-wise. We got to 7, had plenty of time, and just enough energy, that we were able to hit shops 8 and 9 as well. Some of us are completing the shop hop by visiting 10 today (the one nowhere near anywhere else)--Kathy and I are carpooling. Everyone else is on their own. But more about that later.

So--first shop: Aurora Sewing Center in East Aurora.

First time I'd ever been there. Actually, first time I'd ever visited most of these shops, which is why I did the shop hop. I realized later I should've taken notes about what each shop seemed to specialize in, etc., but didn't. Dang.

Loved this place. I got a quick demonstration on a Baby-Loc serger I'd been considering. A little pricey for the moment, I think, so I'm trying to decide if I want to go with a lesser machine I can afford now and eventually go up, or if I want to hold out a few more years to get one I really want. Hmmm. Anyway, this is definitely a place I'd go back to. And East Aurora is a pretty village center.

Next, Carriage Quilt Shoppe, just up the road from the last shop. Literally. We could've walked from one to the other but didn't realize that until we'd already taken the car.

Nope--never been there either. If I go back to visit one, I'd be definitely visiting both!




Carriage Quilt Shoppe was a very little shop--not a lot of elbow room--but gorgeous displays and lots of great inspiration. Very nicely done! I dropped a disproportionate amount of money here for the size of the shop. Their offerings were apparently right in my wheelhouse.

Cool moment note: the designer of a couple of the patterns I'd decided to buy worked in the shop. Always kind of neat to meet the person behind the product. Martha Eddy of Eddy and Eddy Designs: Check it out.

 A little bit of a further drive (but still not bad--maybe 15 minutes? Don't recall now); and we're at the second of the Aurora Sewing Center locations (Williamsville, same website).

Another very nice shop. Both Aurora Sewing Centers had nice big classroom space. This one seemed a little smaller than the other to me, but still nice fabrics and other sundry. Both locations have lots of sewing machines for demonstration and for sale--Baby-Loc and Bernina.


Once again, just up the road from the last shop (couldn't walk from one to the other this time, mostly because they're on really busy streets, but only about a 3 or 4 minute drive), was Sew What? Quilt Shop (Williamsville). This shop had a ton of kid's panels and specialty fabrics. They also seemed to have a goodly collection of landscape-type fabrics, and a nice section of batiks. The classroom space seemed a bit smaller but still comfortable, and I particularly enjoyed checking out the sample quilts on the classroom walls. Very nice stuff.

I'm trying to remember--I think that might have been the shop where I saw a whole shelf of very pretty pre-quilted fabric; you know, the kind that makes it really easy to make totebags. I wish I'd written down which shop I was in when I saw that. Wherever it was, there were several very pretty options.

OK--ran out of time for blogging this morning. More later!

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Quilt Shop Hop--Day 1

It was the weekend of the Western NY Quilt Shop Hop! This is the first time I've done an "official" shop hop--not just hopping in a car with my Mom or a friend and hitting a few shops we wanted to visit. This one was organized by the shops themselves. We have a little "passport" that gets stamped at every store and at each shop we get a gift of four 2 1/2" strips. When we complete visiting all the shops in the time allotted, our names gets put in for a drawing for several prizes and we get the pattern that we can make with all the strips. Some shops also gave away other little gifts (tootsie rolls, granola bars--you know, things to keep you going). Several of my guild-that-is-not-a-guild peeps decided we'd make a road trip on Saturday, but we knew we wouldn't get to all of the shops on the list in one day. So we decided we'd visit some of the more local-to-us shops on our own before Saturday.

So, for me, Day 1 of the Shop Hop was a solo flight on Thursday evening when I hit two shops nearby while my daughter was at her lessons. I started at my "home base" shop--Betty's Quilting, Etc. (Spencerport). Love my shop!






And I discovered that Betty's now carries a wide variety of my new love, "Stonehenge." Ahem. Let's just say I stocked up. Here's my stack to be cut on the cutting table. (I don't claim the blue in the far right corner, although I was admiring it!)

OK--probably not smart to do at the first stop on a shop hop that includes about a dozen stores. But if I'm going to throw my committed support behind a shop, Betty's is the one I've got the most vested interest in keeping open!






I left Betty's and headed a bit down the road to Country Treasures (Brockport).

Country Treasures, as you can tell by the window dressings, isn't just a fabric/quilt shop, but also a really wonderful gift shop. But also a wonderful fabric shop. But also a wonderful gift shop. But...

Well, you get the picture. I love this store. She doesn't carry a ton of fabric but enough. Lots of Moda. Mmmm. I restrained myself, however, and just picked up a little bit of (Moda) wool for felted wool projects. Pretty pretty colors.


So here's just a couple of glimpses of what Day 1 added to my stash.

Stonehenge! Love it love it love it. Can't wait to use it.





In addition to the Stonehenge, Betty's had this great ombre (gradated) fabric. I bought three colorways--this is a black to very very light gray. Can't wait to play with it. The other two colorways I purchased were both neutrals. My daughter has now asked me to go back and buy this in blue. How can I deny my daughter? (But she'll have to wait. I need to build up the quilting budget again.)


Quilt Shop Hop Day 2 will be posted tomorrow. After 10 hours of driving and shopping, I need to put my feet up and regroup!

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Creativity Challenge Completed! (Episode 14 "In Which We Were Creative")

What a hoot this was! I loved getting the responses to the creativity challenge I issued. Thanks so much to Lynn, Frances, and Virginia for playing!

Here's the original photo again, just to jog your memories:

Here is the response I was sent by Lynn. For more information about her entry (and just to read some fun blogging!) check out Lynn's blog.


I really like the way Lynn used her quilting to represent the water marks on the side of the barge, and the emphasis on the shadow as a vertical line amidst all the horizontal/diagonal going on. The saturated colors really bring almost a mysterious mood to the piece for me as well--reminiscent of the mysteriousness of the man's shadow on the side of the barge. Love it!

And here's the response from Frances:

I like the gravel background!
But seriously, I love how Frances interpreted the colors of the piece into fabric, and the "wateriness" of the shadow itself, being interrupted by other fabric. She also played with contrast of value in hers by using a pretty wide range of fabrics. Really cool stuff.

And now for something completely different. Virginia's inspiration from the photo played out in a traditional pieced block and I love it.

Virginia played off the yellow/orange in the photo and used that to pull coordinating colors from her stash. Many of the fabrics are batiks, which also are a bit reminiscent of the watery feel to me as well, plus the borders relate for me to the steel/metal of the barge in the original photo. I also like that Virginia was able to pull out the diagonals from the original photo into a block that's diagonal.

Really, really cool stuff. Love all of them! It's just so much fun to see how different people get inspiration from the same photo.

Now, here's mine (also very different). I continued my experiments with Lutradur and photo printing on fabric in this piece. I won't say much more about it--to hear about my process and why I did what I did, listen to the episode!


(By the way, the bottom border looks like it's pulling up but it's not. I had to fold it to get it in my totebag to take to my guild meeting this week for show n' tell. Lesson learned. Lutradur and canvas don't fold. They bend. There's now seemingly a permanent crease in there!)

I'll post again later today or tomorrow with the responses to the "debriefing" questions that I sent to the three responders. I asked them about their process and so forth. I've also got a new creativity challenge I'm issuing--stay posted!

It sounds like a horror movie but...

...I now have red creeping thyme in my garden. (Cue horrific scream.)

Gotta love anything named "creeping." But it should be pretty. Not that mine looks like this yet. Rather, I now have five little tiny patches of green bitty leaves interspersed along a boulder wall in my front yard. I had to leave the plant markers in so my husband wouldn't accidentally yank them as weeds. I doubt they'll even look like this by the end of the summer, but at least they should look like something by then.

We've been in this house for 4 years now and I've yet to find anything that will actually grow over the top of that wall and flow attractively down the front of it like I've dreamed. It gets a kazillion degrees out there and is subject to pretty high winds, so we can only plant the most hardy of stuff. Daylillies--check. Ornamental grasses--check. Sedum--check. A few other wildflower-esque things that now I can't remember what they're named--check. But pretty flowy things? Not yet. The alyssum lasted all of about 5 minutes, the creeping sedum is growing about a quarter inch a year, and I've had a few tragic ends to other hopeful plants. I think I'm starting to hear them scream when I come towards their little table in the garden shop.

So, since I've had a lot of luck with herbs over the years and it's amazingly hard to kill them (they are, after all, edible weeds), I decided to give the creeping thyme a shot. I'll just try not to have nightmares of it eventually "creeping" it's way into my bedroom in the dead of night and wrapping itself around my neck.

It feels good to have finally gotten my hands in some dirt this weekend. I got my tomatoes planted, as well as some mint, basil, and rosemary to supplement the other herbs that did come back from last year (anyone need oregano, sage, or tarragon? Bumper crop already). I'm a little late--usually Memorial Day weekend is the big planting season around here. Any earlier, and they freeze their little roots off. Later and you can't get the produce off before it freezes at the other end. I think we'll be good. Round about mid-August I should start being able to make pasta sauce almost completely from my garden. I still have a few other random empty spots I need to find something to plant in but hopefully by the end of next weekend I'll be done and we can just wait and see what survives our strange little mini-ecosystem.

OK, so this isn't a quilty blog entry. Sorry. I have been sewing but I'm finishing up the creativity challenge project so I can't really say much about it nor can I post pictures yet. Later this week--promise! I can't wait to post pictures of other folks' responses to the creativity challenge that I've been sent--this is so freaking cool! I love seeing how different people interpret the photo. Nifty keen.

O Tomato


O tomato, you do make me smile.

Every now and then you have to buy something just because it's entertaining. But in this case, this truly bizarre looking example of tomatohood is inspiring me in my attempts to be healthier. Although I like fruits and vegetables, I don't tend to naturally eat the suggested 5-7 a day. I have to be very intentional about it. So at the grocery store this morning I got a lot of my usual produce and then wanted to get something just a little different to try.

OK, so it's still a tomato. But at least it's a funny looking tomato. That's different. And it's an heirloom variety, which I've never tried. So that's different. So it counts.

Who knows--maybe it'll be my next creativity challenge photo to throw at you all!