What's 4 x 12? Wonderful Fun!

I have had the BEST two days! There is nothing like sharing quilting with wonderful friends and I am still smiling and feeling inspired and happy.

The excitement started on Thursday, when I drove over to Berkeley and found our lovely Helen and her husband Dennis, who are on the first leg of an around-the-world adventure. How lucky for me they started in San Francisco! Helen -- organized planner that she is -- had found a music shop/book shop/cafe for us to meet in, and we had lunch and stumbled over the first funny awkwardness of meeting for the first time while feeling that we know each other so well from our blogs and 12x12 challenge exploits together! We had a lovely lunch (roasted eggplant, red peppers, and melty cheese on focaccia, if you must know) and then Helen and I left Dennis to putter among the books and CDs and we headed off for a quilt shop tour.

Our first stop was Stone Mountain and Daughter, right in the heart of Berkeley. I'd not been there for ages and was happy to see that they had more quilting fabric than the last time I'd been in. We immediately found fabric that called out to us. Helen disclosed her plan to purchase fabric while in the US for a souvenir quilt, so she hunted for her focus fabric and we kept giggling over how often one of us would pull out a bolt and the other would say "I just pulled that very one out!" or how often Helen would choose a fabric and I'd say, "I bought a piece of that recently!" Helen managed to find several small (ahem) pieces for the beginning of her California Collection, I'm glad to report.

From there we went to New Pieces, and had no problem whatsoever finding more for her collection (and yes, I do believe I found three half-yards I couldn't resist...) Then, I treated Helen to a real, live experience in California Rush Hour Freeway Traffic as we crossed over the hill to Lafayette to visit The Cotton Patch* (*as seen on Ricky Tims' and Alex Anderson's The Quilt Show, to Helen's delight). Isn't it funny, when you have out of town friends visiting and encounter traffic? I felt personally responsible and kept apologizing (I did sort of forget about the likely timing of our excursion, in all of my excitement to plan a personal shop hop) and Helen kept laughing and said it felt just like home.

From there (after purchasing just a TINY big more fabric), we returned to Berkeley, retrieved Dennis who'd been sitting and chatting with a local fellow talking American politics, and headed off to dinner at a restaurant at the Berkeley marina, which gave us beautiful views across the bay to the San Francisco skyline.

Dinner was relaxing and delicious, and then we headed back to my house where we all went straight to our beds to dream of fabrics and quilts. (I'm sure Dennis was dreaming of them too, as we kept talking about them and he just couldn't escape...)

With Helen's advance permission, for Friday I'd planned a quilty lunch with a wonderful bunch of friends. Helen and Dennis accompanied me into town while I picked up the last lunch supplies (enjoying an American supermarket, good ol' Safeway.... Helen said, "You have more quilting magazines in your grocery store than we have in our quilt shops!"). Unbeknownst to Helen, a big surprise was in store -- she knew that friends would be coming, but she did NOT know that two intrepid traveling 12x12 compatriots had arranged to come and surprise her at the lunch! The first guest to arrive was Karen, all the way from Southern California. I was so happy to see Karen, and I was rather pleased to see how teary-eyed and happy Helen was to meet her.

Next thing you know, the room was full of laughing, smiling women ... and then the doorbell rang and Surprise Guest #2 arrived, Gerrie, having driven from Portland with her husband for a wine country weekend! I saw Helen gasp and get teary-eyed all over again when she spotted Gerrie at the door. So I felt like a devious but successful hostess.

We had a wonderful afternoon. My buddies have followed the 12x12 exploits and many read Helen's blog regularly, so there was a lot to talk about and Helen mixed in beautifully. We talked, and laughed, and ate, and talked, and laughed, then had a grand "show and tell" mid afternoon. That was total fun and pure inspiration. A highlight of the afternoon was that the four of us "Twelves" showed our collection of challenge quilts together, and it was SO wonderful to see them in person and to have a batch of them together. And cupcakes from the local bakery were the perfect reward after show and tell!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Pat M, Janet, Pam, Sandy, Rita, Eleanor, Pat D, Maureen, Delaine, Ancella, Gerrie, and Karen for coming and bringing show and tell and giving such a warm and friendly welcome to Helen. I could gush and gush about how lucky I feel to count you all among my friends.

After all of that excitement and inspiration, when everyone had gone and the house was quiet, Helen remarked that we still had time to get to my local fabric shop, Fabrications ... so off we went! We popped into two bookshops (for Dennis, ostensibly, but we enjoyed it too) and in Fabrications Helen was enticed by several locally dyed pieces of fabric art.

We got home in time to enjoy guacamole, chips, comforting beverages, and a steak dinner which Roger, wonderful husband, prepared.

A totally perfect day.

Today, Helen, Dennis and I met up with Gerrie and her husband Steve for a quick breakfast before Helen and Dennis headed off to their next adventure (with fabric shops along the way, I'm sure.)

So now it is back to real life in our house, and I am missing Helen and Dennis -- as is our lab Gemma who became instantly smitten with Dennis and has done a bit of pacing around the house looking for him this afternoon.

Okay... dinner and early bed for me -- all that fun was tiring!

Family Pampering

Miss C and I are at Grandma and Grampa's house. Her grandma and grandpa, my parents' house, that is. We inched our way through San Francisco over the Golden Gate bridge in traffic the likes of which I'd not seen in ages in order to come -- I reminded myself that people pay oodles of money and travel miles and miles to drive over the bridge, so if I got to creep over it a foot at a time, I was LUCKY.

The purpose of the trip was to bring Caroline to see the pediatric neurologist who specializes in migraines at Stanford Children's Hospital. There is nothing -- nothing, I tell you -- which snaps your life into perspective faster than sitting in the waiting room in a pediatric neurology waiting room. I am still counting my blessings.

So, all is good and we are now hanging out here through the weekend so that Caroline can go to a Halloween party on Saturday night at the home of one her school classmates. She'll get to meet some classmates in person, so that should be fun. She has an elaborate wizard/princess costume going, and Grandpa helped her make a faux metal dagger and she is delighted. Nothing like greeting new friends with a weapon on hand, just in case.

And we are enjoying the portability of our work -- I have my laptop so I can continue (sigh) my legal work and Caroline has done her classes on Grandpa's computer and is hard at work on her algebra. Have laptops, will travel.

Have a spooky Halloween!

Can you hear the machine humming?

Just a sneak peek at what I've been doing...

More Coffee, Please!

I feel as if I am slogging through mud. I wake in the morning and have the urge to just stay in bed all day. I am tempted to wander around the house in my cozy bathrobe and Ugg boots, with occasional collapses onto the couch to rest after the exertion of going downstairs.

In contrast to my external lack of energy, my brain can't stop the whirls of color and pattern flying by. I lay in bed at night and think about quilts I saw, what to do with that one piece of fabric I've had in my closet for the last year, how to finish the border on an almost-done top that is folded on the UFO pile.

And the reality is that once I'm upright each morning, I have to force myself to the computer, open up my work files, and turn down the volume on the right side of my brain so I can summon some lawyerly thinking to deal with the pile of work on my desk. I'm analyzing the legal definition of criminal negligence and trying to ignore the thoughts about how to quilt my pink quilt top as they fly past my inner eye.

So here I sit, yellow pads of paper scattered to the sides of my keyboard. I'm getting down to work. Just ignore the doodles of quilting designs all over them, okay?

Quilt Show Delirium

I am down in the SF Bay area, attending the Pacific International Quilt Festival. I am cruising the show with my friend Pat D., and we have had an exhilarating day viewing quilts that we will never make and fondling all of the fabric we long to bring home and shove into our all-too-crowded stashes.

By 4:00, we are giddy with Quilt Overload. Still, we persevere. We admire amazing technique and gorgeous designs, and always look to see the quilt's descriptive card so we know just who to admire and envy as we ogle her (usually her) quilt.

We are standing in front of a lovely, colorful quilt. I glance over at the placard and notice that the quilter's last name is "Dippinlips." I am pondering the fate of either surviving on an elementary school playground with that last name OR loving some fellow enough to take on that last name, and say to Pat, "Her last name is Dippinlips!"

Pat looks more closely at the card. "And her first name is 'Snickle!'" We look at each other as we say, in unison, "Snickle Dippinlips?"

We fall about laughing. Trying to catch her breath, Pat looks more closely at the card. "Wait," she says, "that's the name of the QUILT. Her name is Claire Fairless."

I'm sure Claire Fairless is a lovely person -- undoubtedly quite talented, too -- but somehow we liked her better when we thought she was Snickle Dippinlips. We stagger off down the aisle, giggling helplessly, and entertain ourselves for the next hour by saying things like "Meet my good friend Snickle!" and "How lovely you look, Mrs. Dippinlips!"

Quilt shows: not for the faint-hearted.

October Excitement

It's October in California! And that means (drum roll, please...) it's time for Pacific International Quilt Festival!

I'm off for the weekend to visit my parents (who live 20 minutes away from the quilt show site, lucky me), get inspired by amazing quilts, and see what new fabrics and gadgets I can't live without.

Back soon!

Perhaps a librarian could help

Today was re-entry after a blissful few days off on quilting retreat. After several days of uninterrupted creative time, lovely friends, lots of laughter, all punctuated by regular delicious meals which I did not have to cook, there's always a bit of a thud returning to the reality of home. (Not that home isn't lovely, but landing back amid piles of laundry and catalogs and Work To Be Done and miscellaneous Things to Be Put Away is always a bit of a shock. You know, "Who ARE these people and how to they manage to make such a mess?!")

So, naturally, I took myself out to run errands. I dropped by the fabric store (not having had enough fabric time despite 12 hours per day of it over the last several days), and picked up some groceries, and visited the library to pick up some of the books they'd found for me.

One of my favorite things about my local library system, by the way, is that I can look things up online in the library's county-wide catalog, "request" them with the click of a button, and they magically appear on the "hold" shelf sometime later. It's like Amazon.com but without the
less fun result when the credit card bill comes.

I'm in and out of the library frequently, and I have come to the conclusion that people who become librarians do so because they like books more than they like people. (Excuse me if you are among the rare breed known as Friendly Librarians -- I don't see them often in my bibliographic forest.) Gradually, my extreme charm and sparkling wit are winning these reserved folk over -- some days I get a timid smile and on a really good day I'll get a compliment about my just-for-library-books basket.

Today, as the librarian was sliding my books past the magic magnetic thingie, she looked up with a broad smile. "Oh, I never read books, but I read THAT one and it was really good."

You got that? "I never read books." I replied that I was very glad to hear the book was worth reading, and we resumed our exchange in silence while I pondered how it was she came to choose her career.

This reminded me of an incident some years back with my favorite front-desk librarian, a slim blond woman with perpetually wispy hair and bright pink lipstick smeared crookedly across her lips.

She sighed as she started in processing the stack of novels I'd placed on the counter. "You read so many books! I wish I could find a good novel to read."

What does one say to that, standing in the middle of a library? "Well, what sort of things do you like?" I asked.

"I don't know how to find books about the things I like," she replied with a shrug, and then went on to tell me that she preferred to read the astrology columns in newspapers. I suggested that she search the online catalog for books about astrology, and threw out the name of an author who writes mysteries featuring astrological topics. She looked astonished at my cleverness. "I never thought of that!"

Of course, this was the same woman who announced once as she took my library card, "we have the same name!"

"Oh, you're Diane too?" I replied (brilliant, yes?)

"No, my name is Cynthia." Said brightly, as if perfectly logical.

For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to reply. "We're both goddesses!" she exclaimed.

Note to self: don't try to engage the librarians in conversation. It will only cause more furrowed brow lines of confusion, of which I have plenty already.

Off to the Ranch

This evening marks the start of another of the biannual quilting retreats I attend out at Bishop's Ranch. I especially love the October retreat, when the crispness of fall is in the air and the vineyards are tinged with yellow as the leaves start to turn. It's a wonderful time to gather with friends and get busy with sewing.

So, today I'm packing up and sorting out what to take. It's not easy figuring out what I'll work on! I've found, from past retreats, that I don't do well working on anything that requires too much thought -- I'd rather be chatting, and the retreat setting just doesn't lend itself to heavy concentration. I've also done machine-quilting there in the past, although keeping one's head down and humming away at quilting speed isn't conducive to community chatting, either. So, for me the best tasks tend to be piecing, or working on something I've thought out before I arrive.

In the pile are 1) a bunch of wedges for a One-Block-Wonder quilt I cut out quite a while ago; 2) squares stacked and ready to be sewn into rows for a simple cozy throw quilt, using the snow ball pattern; 3) more blocks to piece from scraps for a springy quilt, probably for donation purposes; and 4) papers and fabrics for a Karen Stone paper-piecing project in shades of yellow and purple that I started at the last retreat.

That ought to keep me busy.

Of course, the camera will go into the bag for future pictures...

Let the Studio Tours Begin!

Quilting Arts is hosting a studio tour this weekend -- what fun to be able to sit at home and still see the creative spaces of a whole bunch of talented quilters and artists! Pull up a chair and start studio hopping!

Me, I have a funny little office/studio combo which means I have desk and work area in one corner and a sewing area in another ... with a closet stuffed full of fabric. Hardly tour-worthy. But I look at some of these studios and dream of having more space someday, still feeling grateful that I have a spot to leave my sewing machine up all the time which I'm convinced is the secret to getting anything done.

Happy touring!

Make a Good Impression

I finished a quilt! This feels like quite a triumph, given my scattered brain and ongoing upheaval of daily life lately. After I made a fingerprint piece for a recent 12x12 challenge (the theme was "Identity") I was inspired to go bigger with the same idea. I've called it "Make a Good Impression" and it's 33 x 39 inches.

As luck would have it, an assignment in my ongoing Practical Design workshop required me to design a quilt with a monochromatic color scheme and an asymmetrical design. So the fingerprint fit the bill nicely. I used reverse applique to create the fingerprint lines. I do enjoy the cutting away part and seeing the design reveal itself.

Here's the original 12x12 piece which spurred me into this larger one, btw:




On to the next UFO!