The Glories of Spring

Spring has come early to the Central Coast of California.  Spring always gets me going in the garden and we have no shortage of Spring flowers which gets me to brush off my old florist skills and bring some flowers inside to enjoy!

I've always liked minimalist arrangements.  I call them pseudo- Ikebana arrangements.  Traditional Ikebana has alot of rules / guidelines that I don't follow but this style still capture that general idea.

I could not resist these rannuculus they look great in this beautiful china vase.

And here is my favorite wild flower; Toad Flax.  I cast their seed around my flower beds all Fall and Winter whenever rain is coming.  Then watch for their little seedlings so's I can nurture and transplant them all around the garden.

Here they are in the garden bed.  One packet (costs about $4.00) lasts all season and brings lots flowers, joy and satisfaction.

Well this is not exactly a Spring flower but I think you will find it interesting.  It's some kind of orchid.  A friend gave it to me for my birthday.  The buds are starting to open. Look at this!

They look like humming birds to me, my husband says they look like dragons.  What ever your imagination tells you I'm sure it includes the thought of what a wonder nature is to create such amazing structures?!

I hope however you celebrate Spring you have a wonderful time!

cheers, Claire W.

Visit to Madera

I had a great time visiting the guild in Madera.  Madera is a farming community off of I- 99 not to far from Fresno. I really enjoyed the Guild's Show and Tell and they were a very attentive audience!  In my free time my hostess suggested I checked out Quilter's Paradise in Old Town Clovis.  What a treat!

 This is a great Store: lots of great fabric, friendly staff, nice and spacious and it had a nice space in back for classes, always a plus in my book!   

  There were lots of Turn of the Last Century buildings with an Antique Mall on almost every corner.

This wonderful old building had been a hotel.  It has been recently renovated.  The front rooms are a great boutique and the back is a resturant all done up like a Victorian dining room! Very cute!

I would have stopped for some tea but I had to get back to Madera for the guild meeting!

cheers, Claire W.

Off to Madera !

woo whoo, I'm off to Madera to day to present my trunk show! Should be a lot of fun!  Got the names of some good Quilting stores to visit along the way. Yippee!

Also I was visiting  google + the other day and Elita was asking about using fleece as a backing.  If you have a long arm (it's to slippery to quilt on a short arm without a frame) I think fleece or plush backing is a great way to go.  It's soft and hug able and you don't have to use batting.  I actually prefer plush throws 'cause they are even more squishy and the quilting looks great on the back.  I buy them on sale at places like Ross, it's even cheaper than yardage and you can buy a size that fits. Here are some pix.

this is plush

this is minky

cheers, Claire W.

2 for 1 - Update

Well back in January I declared that I would finish 2 UFOs for every 1 NEW project that I started.  Actually I've done better than that because I've been on a real 'finish'um up' kick!  Part of this was motivated by my local Guild's Faire at the end of Feb.  So here's what I finished for the show:

A small landscape that I started in a class in 1996!

The center of this quilt was begun in 2003!

This quilt was begun in 1997!

So you see with the 2 other quilts I finished in January That makes 5 finishes so theoretically I could start 2.5 new projects!  I confess I started one the other day but I'm thinking about making it a Mystery so I can't show you a picture.  

I will blog about some details on these quilts and more pending finishes in subsequent blogs. 

Happy Saturday!  Cheers, Claire W.

testing one two three

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GGma's Treadle sewing machine

I finally got myself organized and took my Great Grandma's treadle sewing machine cabinet to the re- finishers.  I think it came out really well!  

And since I had the machine refurbished awhile back it is now 'Fully Operational'!

It took quite a bit of monkeying with the tension on the pulley thingy and a generous application of machine oil... 

but we got the old girl sewing again.  I think it's probably been at least 30 years or so.

I thought for her relaunch I'd start with something simple.

I'm hoping the serial number can tell me a little more about this wonderful old machine!

This was in fact the machine I learned to sew on when I was about 9.  And this machine did belong to my Great grandma Lonette Niles, my mother's, mother's, mother.  She came to live with my mothers family for the last 7 years of her life, in 1930.  Which is how my mom and then I, were lucky enough to end up with it.
Since my mom was an only child, she and Grandma 'Netty' became very close, they even shared a room.  My mother said that GGrandma never sat down that she did not have some kind of hand work in her hands.  She was the chief seamstress of the family.  Which was a very good thing since my mom's ma (tho' a talented lady in other ways) sewed not at all.  Funny how things skip a generation here and there!  So since GGrandma Netty taught my mom to sew and she taught me to sew I too can thank my GGrandma Netty for the good fortune of enjoying the craft / art of sewing!
                                                                       cheers, Claire W.

Bog Hop in Summary!

Congratulation to Susan of http://sewinginwisconsin.blogspot.com/  and Francine of http://mochawildchild.blogspot.com/ they are my winners in the Blog Hop!!! 

 I'd also like to say thanks to everyone who participated in the blog hop and all the people who visited my blog and left such nice comments! I try to visit your blogs / profiles and return the favor as much as possible.

Part of the fun of the blog hop for me is getting feed back here's a sampling:

I got several comments on other ways to use crumbs,

-several people mentioned they use crumbs to stuff things like pillows etc.
-several people mention using crumbs for notebook or album covers etc.
-Anna http://annanowicki.blogspot.com/ has a great tutorial dated Feb. 24th about how she made a Kindle cover with her crumbs, she also makes bracelets with crumbs!
I'm glad to see people are really using their crumbs! wooo hooo!

And in answer to my question about  'Tell me something about your quilt interests...'

Out of the 150 or so comments I received
- 50+ responses mentioned scrap quilts were their main focus
-13+ people liked to make Kids Quilts or small quilt
- 12 'Modern' quilters
- 11 who said they like to make 'All kinds of Quilts'
- 11 who like Traditional or Traditional patterns with modern fabric
- 7 Appliquers
- a bunch of people just said they really just like making things for family and friends, people they know will cherish their work!
- some people mention a specific block or pattern as their favorite such as log cabin, strips or strings, pinwheels etc.

It's always interesting to me to read what makes people tick and how they do what we do.  We are a very lucky and diverse group and the Bog Hop helps us celebrate that!  cheers, Claire W.

More Crumbs

If you are looking for the blog hop scroll one post down I will keep it open until tomorrowAM.  And if you are interested in scarves made of crumbs read on!

So here's another way to use those shreds and slivers.

Since these were all blue and white crumbs I thought I'd tried to attach them to a piece of white silk for a backing.  Since I had such great success with the Solvy?!

Sprinkled blue and white crumbs over the silk.

Sprayed it with spray starch, put acid free tissue over it, ironed it flat.

Pinned it all over with lots of pins and sewed parallel lines about 1" apart.

Removed the tissue

Rotate the scarf 90 degrees and sew more 1" grid lines

Looks like this on the silk side. 

Once it was all sewn, it was rinsed and thrown into the dryer to help the scraps "bloom" kind of the way you would wash and dry Chenille to bloom.

I like the thready edges but I think I will cut it in half lengthwise and edge it with blue satin ribbon.  It have a more finished look to it and I like long skinny scarves.

 cheers, CW

Winter Blog Hop and Crumbs

Here on the Central Coast of California we really can't complain about Winter toooo much 'cause nature is pretty kind to us.  We do get the occasional high winds, power outages, and if it rains for several days in a row with high tides; low parts of the town have been known to flood (that really can be a problem).  But we've none of that bitter cold stuff or shoveling snow 'til you are so tired you could just spit.  But I'm happy to be in the blog hop just to say hello and exchange info. and ideas so here's my give away...

I've been playing around with jelly rolls lately.  Because I'm toooo cheap to pay someone else to cut my strips for me I've been making up my own.  So here's a bunch of strips I put together; 10 - 5" strips (one strip is hiding in the picture).  That's equal to 1/2 of a jellyroll.  I know-  jelly rolls are 2.5" strips but I figured you can cut them in half if you want or you can use the extra width for whatever you want.

All you need to do is leave a comment telling me something about what kind of quilts you like to make.

For a picture of my second give away read to the bottom of the blog...

Small scraps vs Crumbs

Some quilters call these little scraps crumbs.  But I figure as long as they can be sewn into blocks they're just ...

Now these ...

Are...

Now, why you might asked do I save these little slivers and shreds?!  Well there are probably some paper makers out there who have some ideas, but I use them to make other stuff...

like scarves and purses!  Here's how...

Bare with me this takes a bit of explaining.

I got this idea from a friend who was wearing a beautiful scrappy scarf, made by a local garment artist, Rosemary Eichorn. The scarf was all scraps completely held together by a thread  grid.  It had kind of a loose gauze effect with beautiful colors.  My friend told me the effect was created by sprinkling crumbs onto a sheet of Solvy, sewing a thread grid over the scraps and then washing the stabilizer away.  

Leaving only this wonderful lacy mesh.

It was soooo pretty I thought I had to try it.

So I went to my local fabric store and asked for a dissolving stabilizer. They sold me something that looked like clear medium weight plastic (there was no label on the roll).  I took it home, sprinkled my crumbs, sewed my grid, washed it but the Solvy did not dissolve!  

Here's what I got!  I had to laugh!

But when life gives you lemons make lemonade right?  So here's what I made!

I suppose it would have made a pretty scarf, but it makes a nice purse too! So this little purse is my second give away.

Since my first try I have experimented with this technique some more. I will cover that in another  blog 'cause this one is already way to long.

Happy Blog Hopping, cheers, Claire W.

Parting Shots

We had about 400 quilts on display at the Faire this year.  That's not including all of the vendors display's!   My hat's off to the Quilt Faire committee!  Everything from Set-up to Programs to Take-down went very smoothly.  And we always have a small army of volunteers from our membership who make themselves available to help with any task!  To learn more about Pajaro Valley Quilt Association check out PVQA.org.
Here are some more pix from the general exhibit.

The above quilt was made by one of our nationally known members, Rachel Clark.  She's probably more widely know for her artful patchwork garments.  But in this wallhanging she was exploring the issue of our Founding Fathers and their  inability to address / abolish / exclude Slavery from our land.

I did not get very good pix of the garments but here's one that came out.

(Again I apologize for the lack of labeling on these pictures.  I had only about 1 hour at the end of Sunday afternoon to run around and take photos.  If I'd stopped to take notes I would not have gotten very far with the picture taking.)

cheers, Claire W.