Beachside Quilting Retreat

September 14, 2016September 14, 2016 Elizabeth E.17 Comments

Shortly after meeting Mary at QuiltCon, she texted me to say we ought to get together for a weekend at the beach, and suggested a date: September.

That seemed so far away, but finally the weekend arrived and Lisa (L), Leisa (R) and I drove over to Carpinteria, where her beach house is located. We were more than happy to spend time with her as we think she is the Cat’s Meow, besides being a great quilter.

First up: exchange little gifts with each other. I always like what Simone de Beauvoir said: something to the effect that if the universe were run by women, they would bestow little gifts upon each other all day long. She certainly knew about quilters! I had a package which contained socks, a candy bar brought from Denmark with funny words on them, and a few other trinkets. We set up our machines and began sewing.

View from the balcony towards Arco Island. While the official name is Rincon Island, the locals call it after the oil company. They also never call the city by its full name of Carpinteria, but rather, call it “Carp.”

After sewing all afternoon, and after dinner, it was time to go and watch the sunset. We adopted the rhythm established by Mary and her family, and were always happy to have a break out in nature before we tackled the evening’s sewing.

Leisa, Lisa and Mary

Many of the rocks on this area of beach have holes in them and through them. We joked that all our suitcases were pounds heavier with our souvenirs from Carp.

Saturday morning, Mary told us all it was National Sewing Machine Day, so I documented us all at our machines.

Since Mary and I like to cook, I’ll give you an idea of the food we had all weekend, beginning with her shashito peppers from her garden, lightly heated with a bit of oil, then dipped in soy sauce.

We all contributed to this stack.

Mary’s Tomato and Cheese Galette, served with fresh greens.

Melon wrapped in proscuitto, tomatoes layered with fresh mozzarella. I’d forgotten my vinegar, so Mary’s BIL lent some and it was amazing (the “good stuff” he said, and he was right).

For lunch one day we were out at The Spot, where the ladies were photo-bombed:

Another day we went to Summerland Cafe, known for its breakfasts. . . so I had breakfast, while the other quilters had a lunch entree.

After finding two pumpkin-shaped Le Creuset pots in an antique store, Mary taught us all how to make her famous bread. Link to the story and the recipe is *here.* We also visited the famous Roxanne’s Quilt Shop; write-up with photos in the next post. I’m still recovering.

We visited one of the local orchid farms, Westerlay Farms, where there were a gorgeous array of colorful orchids.

Westerly also had a planter of beautiful succulents out front.

So did we do more than eat and have field trips? Yep, yep. I brought my unfinished Traveling Threads Bee quilt, as it had languished too long. After we taped up the design wall (see below), I slapped all my blocks up there and began moving them around. And around. And around.

I went downstairs early the first night to be the first in her jammies, and got quilt-bombed with Lisa’s batch of 50 nine-patches. This was Lisa laughing with me in the morning, as it took me a minute to figure out why my quilt looked so great, but then she made me give them back. Pity. They were sunny and bright in my quilt of fall colors. She did this set of 50, and then another set of 50 three-inch nine-patches for a guilt swap she is participating in.

After noodling on this for a very long day (asking everyone what they thought of it about every time I moved something an inch — they were very patient), I finally got it sewed together. Now to quilt it. I took mine down and Lisa put hers up:

This is the photo at the end of the weekend, after she sewed and sewed and sewed. It’s a Lizzy House pattern.

I completed two backs for quilts: Oh Christmas Tree, and Halloween 1904. Sorry they are so wrinkled.

Mary had the actual First Finish, when she held up this appliquéd chicken, quilted and bound. She used a special technique to appliqué the pieces down.

Leisa worked on several projects, but this is her quilt from a Road to California class using Little House on the Prarie fabrics.

Leisa also finished up her Halloween 1904 quilt (on the right). It was part of the Quilt-A-Long here on the blog this summer.

Mary finishing up her Christmas Tree skirt, using the trick of a glue stick to hold the binding in place for top-stitching.

Here it is!

She also finished up a quilt-a-long with Bonnie Hunter, with stars and strips.

Lastly, Mary made two red Xs for the 70273project by Jeanne Hewell-Chambers, found *here,* with Introductory Post *here.* Mary’s set is on top, mine’s on the bottom. We had one more set by the time the weekend was finished.

Stuff ready to get packed into Lisa’s car.

Good-bye until next year!

Quilts

Happy First of September

September 1, 2016September 1, 2016 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

A new month begins with this. . .the list of the Chuck Nohara Blocks to work on.

I finished up Mary‘s block and sent over to her. This 12″ block comes from a free paper-pieced pattern from Amy Friend of During Quiet Time, found *here.* While it took some time, and while I always seem to have to un-stitch (aka, rip out) some pieces because I put the fabric on backwards, it was not difficult.

Our Spelling Bee is coming down the home stretch, with only three more months to go. In August it was also Mary’s turn, and she requested a series of names. I chose Barbara, because that is my daughter’s name, too.

I started cleaning out some of my teaching stuff, since I retired this year. Yep, that life is over with. I even sent in my letter and they are working on transferring my sick leave (which, as an adjunct professor, was always kind of useless) to service hours towards my retirement (which again, as an adjunct professor, I don’t have). But there you go.

I taught a lovely group of women Free Motion Quilting this past Saturday, who boldly jumped into the waters of quilting. It was a great class, shown here holding up their samples.

I found a new recipe for Panzanella, that delicious dish you make with toasted ripped bread, fresh tomatoes and a whole bunch of summer. It’s on my recipe blog *here.* I started keeping my recipes on a blog, as I’m always downstairs and the recipe is upstairs, so now I can have these favorites wherever I go.

This past couple of weeks I worked on my Rosette #6 of the The New Millefiore Hexagon Quilt, which at this point, because we’re a year out, isn’t very new (but that’s the name we’re sticking with), while I was here:

We traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark (that’s Nyhavn you see above) and Stockholm, Sweden. This time, unbelievably, I only went to ONE fabric shop, Stof 2000, in Copenhagen.

And I ate some of their smorrebrod, deliciously stacked sandwiches atop thin slices of rye bread.

Oh, and maybe a little bit of this. I’d send you all some but we’re expected to be nearly 100 degrees today–actually a cooling trend from this week’s Last-Week-Of-August-Weather. And that is another reason why I’m welcoming in September with open arms: it should start to cool down. Happy News. . . Happy September!

Quilts

Friendship Swap

August 23, 2016August 12, 2016 Elizabeth E.9 Comments

A few months ago, Vicki contacted me and asked me if I wanted to do a Friendship Swap. I almost said no, as I had sworn off of swaps, but I so like her work that how could I not say yes? So I agreed to do one more swap. We chose the theme of summer, set a date and a size, and we went to work.

I found this cute free watermelon table runner *here* (I think you have to register with them to get it, but there is lots of great stuff on this site), and set to making it.

I had to stop working on it when I injured my shoulder, but when Vicki told me she was all finished and could she send hers early? I just put my brain and body into gear and finished it up. She has received it and said she really liked it, which is so nice of her.

She sent me hers, which I love love love, and a small mini (below).

This is typical of Vicki’s kindness, as well as her creativity. Who else could have made a fabric cut-out so cute, with all those darling borders? She said it’s in honor of me, going to a quilting retreat.

We keep her table runner on our kitchen table, and after we’d opened our anniversary cards, I set them out next to the little birdhouse I’d placed in Vicki’s leafy tree-tops. What a terrific and fun swap to end on! (And yes, I’m really done now with swaps, but I know Vicki is still going strong!) This is Quilt #168 on my 200 Quilts list (in above tab). If you haven’t started making your list of your quilts ane projects, I’d encourage you to start now It’s very fun to keep track of your quilts and creative endeavors.

Quilts

Summer Bee, Quilting, and Chuck Nohara Updates

August 19, 2016August 12, 2016 Elizabeth E.14 Comments

Updating you on my Chuck Nohara block progress. I finished off the incredibly complicated floral wreath block in the upper left. Susan and I (and Bette) are working together on this, with Susan choosing two/month and me choosing two/month. Yes, I chose that one (never again). But June was finished up.

July’s blocks were interesting. I did the sunglasses on the road to my Gwen Marston class. I did the lower two blocks at the quilting retreat, and promptly had to re-do them again. But I could now cross July’s blocks off the list.

I launched into August early because of some planned travel, and hit my first roadblock with a Dresden-plate block.

I drafted my own little Dresden template, then proceeded the way I always do.

I had prepped up the bird before our road trip to two family reunions, but lost it somewhere between my sewing room and the great state of Utah, so I prepped up a second one, stitching it to completion while watching the Olympics opening ceremony. Yep, I changed a few things, but here they are, all done. I need to get them all up on the design wall, all together. Next week.

My friend, Laurel, showed us her COMPLETED New Hexagon Millefiore Quilt, so I thought I should resurrect that project and get it going again.

So I laid it out on the bed in the extra bedroom. . . (warning–lots of nighttime quilting pictures ahead)

. . . found the package with all the pieces and tried to make sense of it. I ~~hated~~ disliked the strong star shape of that rosette (seen here in Katja’s quilt), so after studying Laurel’s rendition, I made some changes, combining some pieces.

Now comes the fretting part. Will it work in the bluesy-purpley combo I have going?

Luckily I hadn’t cleaned up the stuff of the extra bed yet, and so I laid it out, section by section. I think it will work! I said to my husband, then packed it all away to take traveling with me. It was hard to get going on this, as I’d forgotten how much trial and error is involved in the making of these rosettes.

Here’s three sets of bee blocks for the Mid-Century Modern Bee (top is Mary, middle is for Sherri, and the bottom is for Rene). Can’t wait to see what they do with them!

I did finish Simone’s Spelling Bee Block for July while at the retreat, and it was the one thing I didn’t have to re-do. You’ve seen this before, but since this is a round-up post, I wanted to include it.

I made an extra set of words for Kerry for her Canadian Provinces list of Spelling Bee words. Okay, we are almost to the end (I’ve been saving all this up for a while).

In looking at the looming deadline for Road to California entry, I kept pushing forward on getting this quilt finished.

Which led to many rounds of this on my aching shoulder, and a trip to the doctor’s office. I’ve not stitched much since then, which is like tying my hands behind my back and not letting me use them.

So instead, I read a lot, finding this “Cap Slogan Generator” on the Washington Post website, and thinking that THIS is the slogan we all need to see more of.

And since once an English teacher, always an English teacher, I corrected all the logical fallacies in the questionaire sent to me by one of the major political parties (such errors in faulty reasoning!) and yes, I sent it back to them (they had, after all, provided me with a postage-paid envelope).

I won’t leave you with politics, after all I do have a heart, but instead with this little shot of the shelves above my computer. I’d sent Marsha of #quilterinmotion some of my scraps and as a thank-you, she sent me my first-ever fabric postcard. (I was so excited.)

So, summer’s almost over. Enjoy the last few days of the Olympics, avoid politics, and keep quilting!