Friday sunshine

Our friend Laura is here visiting from sunny southern California.  Luckily we have been able to show her some sunshine while she is here (not always the case in November in the northwest).

Last week at the Thanksgiving CTA luncheon each member received a "thanks for giving" gift.  We got to choose from a huge selection of "thread catchers" made by some of our longer-time members.  This is mine - isn't it just sooooo cute,

 Such fun, cheerful fabric.  And then, we had decided to do a gift exchange, modeled on the Crazy Exchangers that I belong to.  And so this is what Susan made for me,

She took old dish towels and cut them smaller and stenciled the wysteria and leaves to make napkins.  Aren't they wonderful and what a good idea.  Now perhaps a purple tablecloth or placemats.  Ain't life grand?







  

Tuesday update

Having been away I seem to have several little things to share with you,

As you may recall, each year Stashbusters makes a "group" quilt to raffle in the Phinney Ridge Neighborhood Sale (to pay our space rental for the year).  So here is this year's offering.  We were quite excited with how it turned out.  All those batiks in greens, blues, teals and then the very light backgrounds.  Everyone participates in one way or another.  Now to sell lots of tickets to raise lots of money.

While in Houston, the three of us took a class on hand quilting, taught by Jane Hall.  She may not be an extremely well-known name, but she is a quilt judge across the nation.  It was a pleasant class and she is a good teacher.  Some of the things she taught us were visible on some of the quilts in the show.  Interesting!  So here are some pix of my practice piece.  She said to take it home and keep working on it.  She suggested that by February we should be good enough to do a Valentine piece using red thread on white a ground.  Hmmmm.  My homework:

I'm taking her at her word that even-ness is more important than size - although tiny is nice.  She had us start with size 10 quilting needles with a goal of moving to an 11.  Yikes!  Feels like my fingers are too big!

Houston Quilt Show

Houston Quilt Show photos: picasaweb.google.com/marne.parry/HoustonQuiltShow#

As is the case, no doubt, with everyone who was in attendance, this is one amazing presentation.  Not only is it HUGE (and we're talking about 1400+ quilts here) there were hundreds (I didn't actually count) of vendors selling everything (and we do mean everything) you could ever want or need, plus a few things more.  I met people from Germany, Singapore, Venezuela, Great Britain, Australia, Japan and the Netherlands.  I just didn't meet some of the others who were also there from around the globe.

So what did we notice?  This was the year of the borders and bindings - they were unique and very different.  You will see in a few of my photos where I tried to capture that - they were wavy, shaped, pieced.  There were minute (as in tiny) borders - usually of a different color which really set off the quilt center.  There was piping around the edge of the quilt - almost imitating rick rack.  Buttons.  Interesting.  It seemed to me that there were far fewer art quilts - although there was still that category with some amazing entrants, but many pieced, more traditional quilts.  As usual there were a number of quilts that we were not allowed to photograph - so good luck.

So what did I buy?  Not fabric.  I did buy a few tools and I'll show you those over these next few days/weeks.  One of the highlights for me was meeting An Moonen, a Textile curator from the Netherlands.  I treated myself to a copy of her glossy, art book (in English) on the History of Dutch Quilts.  I also met Petra Prins, the owner of Den Haan and Wagenmaker in Amsterdam,

Such a lovely lady.  I look forward to visiting her quilt shop in the eastern Netherlands, as well, next time I'm there.  I didn't take a photo but also got to meet another blogger, Jossie from Limburg, in the Netherlands.  It is so fabulous to get to meet, in-person, folks I've talked with here online.  Great, great fun!

November Rains

Thankfully the heavy rain held off for the Trick-or-Treaters last night.  But now, oh my, autumn wetness is here with VIGOR!  This will be a quick "hello" and "god-bye" as I'm off to Houston.  Hurrah!  I was able to visit the Quilt Show a few years ago and then the opportunity came up to go this year, again.  So tomorrow morning I will be flying south.  Much excitement.  One of the fun adventures, in addition to warmer weather, marvelous quilts, sales of everything imaginable (quilt related), great classes and lectures, I will get to meet, in person, Jossie of http://cybelespatch.blogspot.com/.  She is coming with several other Dutch quilters so I will have a chance to expand that wonderful International Quilting circle - I have been so fortunate to have come to know other quilters from around the world and it just keeps growing.  Oh lucky me!

Just just a quick catch-up - in early October we took a quick trip to Victoria.  It included a great visit to Butchart Gardens.  So lovely, even in the rain.

Dolly-sized quilt made from scraps left over from the purple stars lap quilt.  Oh it feels so frugal to be able to use all the pieces - even the left-overs!  Stash busting!

Charming quilt store in Victoria.  They feature many patterns from local designers and have a large selection of patterns in "native" designs.  Look for it if you are there.

Oh, oh - it's the great pumpkin!  News of Houston to follow.

With great Sadness

Sorry I have been away.  Tuesday night my 38 year old son-in-law died very tragically.  So I have been a full time Mom and Nana.  My DD has 3 young children and very few resources.  So I'll get back here one of these days.  Love them as much as you can!

Saturday Shopping

Well I did really try, but nothing in the stash seemed to work right.  So here are the two options I found this morning.  I would really appreciate your thoughts,

Or I liked this one, too

Could you love one of these?

I also came upon a reasonable price for my favorite muslin - Kona unbleached, so with the discount coupon I just bought the whole bolt,

(Sorry it is so dark - it really is muslin).  Lastly I found some mushroom colored wool and acrylic and will try my hand (once again) at making socks.

Guess I will be busy for a day or two  [wink, wink]

Haven't been in the quilting room

Life has been happening and I haven't made it to my quilting room all week.  Imagine that!  Tuesday and Wednesday we attended the church's "senior" retreat  [we were the most junior of the seniors, but nonetheless. . . . . .]  We did get in a short hike after some persistent rain,

A lovely step into the great outdoors.  Today we had a very fun day.  First we visited with our friend N.  We learned how to make bread the 'Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day' Way.  We got that going and then D arrived home from work and we decided to go out for some geocaching.  We found a near-by park with several caches next to some unincorporated county land with several more caches.  We wandered and searched and found 4 caches.  Such a fun activity.  I was able to locate two of the caches - for those of you who know, one was a microcache.  (means it was quite small).  Yeah!

We have done our registration for Houston.  One lecture and one class, and of course, preview night.  Adventures to come with that. 

I'm not happy with any of my choices for second border of the purple stars top.  I may just have to 'bite the bullet' and buy something that is pleasing.  I must get back into the sewing room!