It’s been a busy Fall Season here in beautiful but cold Central Oregon. The new additions to the family (aka “The Monsters”) are cute when asleep. In the tent, Izzy, the sweet little girl, is on the left, and Cooper, the all boy cat, is on the right. Although they get bigger everyday, they still love to be stuffed inside a vest or a jacket (Cooper-left, Izzy-right) to sleep.
A new book from C&T Publishing has hit the shops- “Modern Blocks, 99 Blocks From Your Favorite Designers”. I’d recommend it even if my original triangle block was not included…but it is, on page 18. The blocks are fun, fresh, original or modern adaptations of blocks in the public domain. Check out the Modern Quilt Guild online (themodernquiltguild.com), or check out Elizabeth Hartman’s blog (www.ohfransson.com), or look for a “modern quilt guild” group in your area. Yes, I love modern blocks.
If you are near or driving through Medford, Oregon, stop at the Rogue Gallery & Art Center (40 South Bartlett, downtown) to see their wonderful Holiday Boutique selection. While there, browse the last of my Limited Edition 2011 Skinny Scarfs- once they’re gone, they are gone-baby-gone.
Happy Birthday to my favorite people, Bob and April!
Two of my friends have birthdays in January. This means a trip to The Stitching Post- where with the honestly earned birthday coupon*- you are bestowed with a discount equal to half of your new age. It’s one of the best things about getting older! I love tagging along where I get to shop vicariously. Okay…I also buy stuff too- who can resist more fabric?
* Take a workshop at the Stitching Post (Quilters Affair workshops excluded) & sign up for the mailing list and you’ll be listed on the birthday coupon mailing list.
Let’s go shopping!
This is the first bag I engineered while struggling over the illustrations and Kanji in Pat’s book from Japan. The strap is long- made for tall people like me. I also gathered the strap over a length of twill tape (cut the right size).
I love the way the bag can be used zipped closed or opened up to show the lining. Some people think opening the zipper gives more space inside the bag, but that’s not true. The lining is a fixed size, whether the zipper is open or closed.
I’m going to try two zippers next time- more options with zipping open and closed.
It looked like an impulse buy, but I’d been looking at warm tops for weeks. I wandered in to Pandora’s Backpack (Bend, Oregon) and it was love at first sight: Patagonia Women’s Merino Zip Cardigan. I bought it. Then I picked up the SmartWool brand scarf and socks at REI during their recent SmartWool sale.
My advice? If your smart phone is making you feel stupid, get smart with merino & smart wool!!!
I’m back in the saddle again (okay, office chair) out where a friend is a friend, but no longhorn cattle are feeding on lowly gypsum weed. No deer either- they’ve gone east to feed on bitter brush.
I’m sitting here with a cup of Earl Grey Supreme, Hot (for all you Captain Picard fans), trying to gather my wits.
Pat Pease (with her quilt, Number 14), Joan Metzger (with her quilt, Orange), and I (with my quilt, Yellow Fever) stand proudly by our quilts at the Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara, California, October 13-17, 2010.
If you weren’t on the west coast for this show, you can see our exhibit, Color Cascade, at The Quilt Fest of New Jersey, March 3, -6 (http://www.quiltfest.com/activities.asp?id=30), another fabulous Mancuso brothers quilt conference.
In the meantime, right here in Bend, Oregon, you can see the Color Cascade exhibit at QuiltWorks, on Greenwood Avenue, for the month of November. Reception tonight, November 5th, from 5pm to 7pm.
Nineteen women from Central Oregon participated in a color challenge that came to be called “Color Cascade”. This exhibit of 20 quilts makes its first appearance at the Pacific International Quilt Festival in Santa Clara, California October 14-17, which is NEXT week. (See preview on http://www.ctpubblog.com/; scroll back to Sept. 17th).
Joan Metzger (the color orange) helped make the signs and generally get ready. The quilts will come home by FedEx, so I did a trial ‘packing of the box’. It works!
Pat Pease (color red-violet), our driver, and the rest of us who are going, leave on October 12th to set up the exhibit and enjoy the show. If you can get to Santa Clara next week, do it!
Nineteen women, twenty colors, thirty feet of continuous color: “Color Cascade”, a special exhibit at the upcoming Pacific International Quilt Festival, October 14-17, 2010 in Santa Clara California. Click on the photo to see it in full size!
Photograph credits: The Color Cascade Rainbow quilt is by me, created for the exhibit, as part of our “signage”.
“Yellow Fever” is my color quilt for the exhibit. Photo by Craig Howell of Bend, Oregon.
“Number 14″ by Pat Pease with photo by Craig Howell of Bend, Oregon
“Celestial Navigation” by Kathy Shaker, photo by Kathy.
We followed a few simple rules to make quilts, 18″ wide by 40″ long, that would “read” as our color from 10 feet away. One quilt is fun to see, three is more fun, but seeing all 20 is just about more fun than one person should have. Read our guest blog at http://www.ctpubblog.com/ for more information.
Go to PIQF in October to see all 20 quilts- it’s a wonderful quilt show with plenty of quilts and vendors and classes and lectures.
Okay, you might say enough already with the Gravenstein apples and Kimberly Orchards, but before the freezing weather takes over, I have to say the Pie Party on September 8 in Medford, Oregon with Luke (son), Bob (father in law), April (mother in law), and two of their friends was really, really fun. Imagine six of us, chatting amiably while enjoying warm-just-from-the-oven pieces of pie with Earl Gray Tea (hot, for you Star Trek fans). Yummmm.
Oh yes, there is one pie in the freezer, for that cold February night when spring seems impossible.
I stopped at Farmers Market yesterday to pick up Kimberly Orchard peaches, nectarines and dried apples and Rick Steffen Farm tomatoes. I stopped by Pat’s house on the way home, and she gave me two dotty dishtowels. What a great day with fresh fruit and veggies, a gift and a warm greeting from Frida and Ruby, Pat’s dogs.
August 14: Eating My Way Through Summer
More finds at The Big Sale in Medford last weekend. I thought the woman in front of me would buy them, but she said “no one serves coffee in demitasse cups anymore”. The volunteers encouraged her to serve whiskey instead! I love them, but I plan to serve tea and little snacks.
June 19: Whiskey or Green Tea?
