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!

Something to Think About

Breaking up the Quilting Work: A Few Thoughts on Refueling While Working

September 7, 2016September 7, 2016 Elizabeth E.13 Comments

In a recent article about taking restful breaks in 99U, written by Christian Jarrett, he talks about the need for “truly restful breaks” when working hard on a project–which are different that just taking a break. He uses a modern analogy when he writes “Just as you need to refuel your car and recharge the batteries in your cell phone, it’s important to give yourself the chance to recoup your energy levels throughout the workday. In fact, the more demanding your day, and the less time you feel like you have to take any breaks, the more crucial it is that you make sure you do take regular breaks to prevent yourself from becoming exhausted.”

shine-block_quilting — *Finally stepping away from the quilt late one night*

good-heart-quilters_lisabday — *celebrating Lisa’s birthday with our quilting group: The Good Heart Quilters*

Jarrett notes that “[N]ot just any kind of break will do. Psychologists and business scholars have recently started studying the most effective ways to relax during a workday – they call them ‘micro breaks’ – and their latest findings point to some simple rules of thumb to sustain and optimize your energy levels” which the article breaks down into a “three-step process.”

One is to “get out of the office.” For me, the office is my home, so I interpret that to mean to get out of the quilting room upstairs and away from those kinds of tasks. So getting together with my long-time quilt group works for me, as well as entertaining my grandsons (above) when the come for a long Sunday afternoon.

The article relates that “Countless studies have shown how a green environment gives us a mental recharge, and what’s really encouraging is that recent work has shown that this doesn’t have to be a tropical rainforest. A modest urban park is all it takes.”

Taking short breaks early and often is one of the ideas. He quotes a study from Baylor University, highlighting this interesting detail: “[I]f you take frequent breaks, then they don’t need to be as long to be beneficial – a couple of minutes might be enough. On the other hand, if you deprive yourself of many breaks, then when you do take one, it’s going to be need to be longer to have any beneficial effect.”

I noticed all of this when I was working on my Shine quilt. I started with the backgrounds: close quilting in the “white” areas with white thread, but then what? Coming back to the quilt after a long break from my shoulder injury, I started with outlining the circle blocks. Another break helped me see that more detail work was needed on each circle, with sometimes as many as four thread changes for different colors.

The next conundrum was how to quilt the small “sashing” in between each block. I drew out many ideas, but ended up choosing what you see here: some modified geometrics. Since I try to take frequent breaks to rest my arms/shoulders while I’m doing this project, I feel like I’ve avoided some of the burnout that can occur when we see the looming deadline and quilt our brains out late into the night.

If this is your Modus Operandi, or the way you work, you might want to be aware of Jarrett’s final thoughts about taking breaks: “[Y]ou might have the view that you’ll push yourself relentlessly during the day, squeezing every minute for what it’s worth, and then completely flake out after dark. This strategy of extremes might work for a robot, but not a human. Psychology research from the University of Konstanz in German and Portland State University shows that over-exhaustion at the end of the day makes it even more difficult to recuperate after work hours. In other words allowing yourself proper breaks during the day will make your out-of-hours recovery more effective, ultimately boosting your productivity and creativity in the weeks and months ahead.”

I’m not talking to young mothers, who find that nighttime is the only time they have to work without little helpers (although that does explain why when the baby is sick and the toddler is a pest and you fall exhausted into bed at night, that the night’s sleep doesn’t seem to provide the needed rest). I’m talking to myself, I guess, pushing to finish off a task, always reluctant to let go of a day’s work, hoping to get “one more thing done.” I found Jarrett’s advice helpful as well, in allowing me to understand why sometimes I just have to push back from the machine — or the computer — and take a break.

I just need to make sure it’s the right kind.

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The quilt shown is Shine: The Circles Quilt. Free EPP patterns can be found by clicking on the link in the header of my blog.

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.