Hidden Treasures

I love junk shops, antique stores, and garage sales.  Things that one person may call junk are someone else's gold.   There is a funky little antique/junk shop up the mountain about 10 minutes away that I love. The problem is she is never open. I have tried weekends, then she is on vacation.  I tried Wednesday or Thursday.  No luck.  It makes my heart start to beat fast just thinking of it.  Mind you, the shop does not have priceless heirlooms. That's not really my style.  But it is full of mismatches, chipped and used, odds and ends.  Her backyard is full of great rusty tools, patio stuff, buckets and just all-around crap.  I see them as garden art.  Joe shakes his head whenever I come home with some of my artist finds.  To me this shop is full of treasures and  when it is open it’s paradise for a junker like me.  

This Chinese restaurant was across the street from our hotel in Galway.

This one is for you, Tim. He is drinking Smithwick's.

Last night I watched an episode of Hoarders.  Nice segue, don’t you think?  Matt came home 4 weeks ago with his girlfriend and  took one look at the garage and said, ”Mom, are you a hoarder?”  His father shot me a glance then respond to his son “All that crap is yours!”  So I had to watch an episode just to make sure I was OK.

Park House Hotel, we circled it 8 times until we found where parking was.

I must say as I am still unpacking from our wonderful Ireland adventure and I found my bag of Irish treasure.  The second night after the Quilt Festival we drove to Galway on the west side of the country.  It’s a cool college town and you can feel the hip nature in the air. The hotel was to die for. 

First of all, we had our own beds. Always a plus. Don't get me wrong, I am passionate for my hot husband but my own bed and a pair of ear plugs and I am in heaven and so is Joe. The Park House Hotel was very elegant and reasonably priced. The next day we took a ferry ride over the Shannon River to our next stop, Dingle.  How can you not have a good time in a place called Dingle?   

Ferry Ride

Just like the roads in Ireland, the ferry was a little narrow, too.  Joe had to drive us up and onto the ferry next to a big gas tanker truck.  He got so close to the left side, not wanting to hit the truck that I couldn't get out of the car on my side. Do you think he did that on purpose? 

Just a few miles (30) from the ferry, in the tiny town of Kenvarra, we saw our first castle.  I yelled for Joe to pull the car over.  I think he thought I was yelling about his driving again.  He found a place to pull over which wasn't much but our sweet and sporty Ford Mondeo fit it nicely. We bundled up and walked around our first castle, Dunguaire Castle, circa 1520.  It was breathtaking.   

My first castle.

The best part about our first castle is that nobody was there but us and a Japanese couple that seemed to be taking the same tourist route as us that day as we saw them at several other sites, too.. There was moss  growing on the side of the 4 story stone walls.  It was so soft and green. I pulled a little off and put it in my pocket.  As we walked back to the car we closed the rusty iron gate and a chip of rusty paint fell off the gate.  I picked it up and put that in my pocket, too.  I asked Joe if I would have trouble getting through TSA with my rust and moss.  He rolled his eyes and said he thought I would be OK.  Ah, treasures!

I love rust.

Last night I looked all over the house for them, thinking that I had lost my treasures. But I found them this morning in the bag with  my other priceless finds. Yes, I bought a shirt and a beautiful handwoven scarf and some pretty earrings. 

Irish gold!

But the sea glass, broken pottery, shells, rust and moss mean more to me than gold.  Because they are Irish

moss and rust.

The good news is that I am not a hoarder.  I can proudly stand by that.  But a little weird ?  Absolutely.

The 40 Greens of Ireland

Color has always been my thing. Whether I am making it, playing with it or manipulating it for a painting or quilt, I seem to have been born with the color eye and an overwhelming need to be surrounded by it.  

I have noticed as I travel that there is a color palette to every place I go.  In Hawaii it is the blues.  Arizona is pastels.  At Lake Tahoe it’s the turquoises and in Ireland, it is the greens.  They say there are over 40 different greens in Ireland but I think they are wrong - it’s more like 80 plus. I sat in the car counting them, while Joe was avoiding traffic cones and tourist buses on the small and winding Irish roads.  

Narrow road plus you are driving on the left side.

That was keeping my mind off the fact that I might not make it to our next Irish vista.  Joe was either going to kill me and leave me in a Irish bog somewhere never to be found again or we were going to drive head-on into a large tour bus called the PaddyWagon.  Anyways, there are more than 40 greens, I am sure.  

So you see that the reason I haven’t written you sooner is because I was invited to teach at the Quilt Guild of Ireland for their Festival this year in Dublin.  Yes, it was a dream come true to be in Ireland and with some very talentened quilters.  This guild incorporates all of Ireland, both north and south.  How spoiled we are in the states to have quilt guilds in almost every town.  In California, sometimes we have more than one per town. But in Ireland they have just one or 2 groups.  The quilters drove great distances to get to this festival.   OK, in California that is no big deal to drive 4 hours to search for fabrics.  We just call that a "Shop Hop".

They also have a loving respect for their fabrics. Fabric is hard to come by and they don’t waste a bit of it.  I learned that in class one day when I mistakenly told my students that this was a practice piece and you can throw it away when you get home. The whole class yelled out “Oh no!!!!! We can't through it away. We will make something out of it.”  

That’s when I knew I was so spoiled.  Batiks can cost at least 15 euros per meter, which is about $22 a yard American.  So I have a new respect for my fabric collection and went up to my studio and patted them all and said thank you to the big guy (and I didn’t mean Joe!) when I got home.  

So thank you Quilter Guild of Ireland for the wonderful time Joe and I had.  You are warm, gracious and talented.  And you have way more than 40 greens.

More of our Irish adventure to come but I am sleep deprived right now.

Need a Quilting Break?

 I only have 2 more rooms available for my Flowers On the Lake Retreat, May 30- June 3.

I love retreats. I love to go to them and teach at them.

When the phone is ringing at home and I can’t get anything finished I long for the focused time just to work on a project and get something done.  As a teacher it is such a wonderful experience to work with the students, one on one, and help them achieve their goals and watch them grow.  It is also a great bonding and sharing time with others with similar interests. I always come home learning some new technique, idea or new product as we share ideas.  I have met women that I know I will always be friends with.

Our great-grandmothers had their sewing bees. They would meet at the church or someone’s house, bring a casserole to share and sit around the quilting frame, talking and stitching.  But only for that day.

Today’s woman doesn’t have to milk the cow or bring in the wheat and stay close to home.  She has her own car and may even be in charge of her own work schedule.  Boy, how things have changed.  I remember going my first time to Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, CA.  I had heard about it for years.  I saved up to go with friends and took Mary Lou Weidman's class.   In class I had the pleasure of sitting next to Freddy Moran.  I was in color heaven. I knew that it couldn’t get any better than that.  

That when I realized that these very independent women and men do this retreating thing all the time.  Wow. They may take a long weekend or a week. They sometimes go by themselves.  All making their way to this creative environment and do the thing they love most - being creative and fondling fabrics.  Yes, I said fondling and you know you do it. 

Before I started traveling and teaching so much, I would have the pleasure of meeting my 2 friends for a day of quilting.  We would meet at one friend’s house who has a beautiful studio with 3 sewing machines and lots of fabrics.  She also owns a great quilt shop.   We never ran out of fabric.   We would all decide on a pattern we all liked.  Then we set up an assembly line of cutting and ironing and sewing.  We would end up making 3 of the same quilt, one for each of us.  It was so much fun.  But it was only 3 hours, one day a week.  Still, I miss that time.

As you working girls know, we all can’t have that precious time to quilt every week. That is why retreating is so heavenly.  You can block out an uninterrupted time to immerse yourself in whatever project you want and   listen to funny stories and eat chocolate and maybe even enjoy some wine. 

Last year was my first time hosting my own retreat, Flowers On the Lake. I had no idea how this would go.   It was a wonderful time, if I do say so myself.  It brought 9 women together and by the end of the retreat we had all bonded and were not ready to leave, acting like little girls who don’t want to leave the party yet! As I was packing up my car they were on the phone, finding a hotel to stay and sew another 2 days. It wasn’t long enough they said.  It made me feel good that they wanted to stay.

So that is what a retreat does.  I see it all the time at these events. So, if you have never experienced a quilting retreat, I want to invite you to some of my favorites.  And, of course, I will be there.

Empty Spools Seminars, Pacific Grove, April 15-20 

Flowers On the Lake, Lake Tahoe, May 30-June 3

Hudson River Valley Quilt Art Retreat, Albany, New York, Dec 4 -10

You don’t have to be an experienced sewer or artist. Newbees are always welcome. You can work from your own flower photo or use one on my patterns.  I help you all along the way. This is for you.

Also, for you west coast girls, this will be my first time at Sisters, Oregon and Quilters Affair but we will talk more about that later.

Camellias, Daffodiles and Snow?

I can’t think of anything to write about today. So how about pictures of my garden?   It’s February and my camellia bushes are bursting and the daffodils are up in some places in the yard. What is with that?  But on a cold and dreary day like today it makes me happy.

New! Camellia quilt.
 I made this arrangement for the kitchen table.  It has lasted 3 days which is hard to do with arrangements with camellias because the heavy flowers usually drop off the stem right away.  But this one is lasting.   These pictures make me think spring is on its way.  But is it?

I love how the light reflects in the wet glass vase

Last night while watching the local evening news, our overly perky weather man ran to the Doppler weather map with a little skip in his step.  He was so elated to inform all of us that we could have snow sprinkles tomorrow as low as 500 feet.  What?  This is California!  I live at 1,100 ft.  Well, there go my daffodils and what about my oranges?
Maybe that is why the birds are eating up all the bird seed so fast. They know something is up.  The other day we had 15 large tom turkeys in our yard and now the female turkeys are hanging out here.  Joe "accidentally" drops bird seed on the ground when refilling the feeder for his new pet turkeys. Which reminds me that I really need to get him another dog soon.  The turkeys are fine but their droppings are like land mines on our sidewalk that you have to dodge every time you get the mail.

When company leaves we have to say "Watch where you are stepping" and then try not to laugh as we watch them hop and dance back to their car avoiding while piles.
 This bird feeder has been so much fun.  I can't believe I said that. We can view the bird action up close from the safety of our dining room without their detection. We have counted about 8 different species not counting the turkeys.

Where is Waldo?  You have to finds 2 birds in this picture.

We also have a new little hairy friend that has adopted us from time to time.  I came out on the porch the other day and she was curled up in Joe's lap.  She likes to hang out on our warm porch also watching the bird feeder.   I call her Jade because of her light jade green eyes.  She will now let us pet her.  I don’t think she has a real family but goes from house to house.  Our neighborhood is not that friendly and the few I have talked to about her say she visits them also.  I want to give her a bath and a flea collar, but her teeth are really sharp and I happen to be very allergic to her.   I overdid the petting the other day and paid for it the rest of the evening.  So yesterday was spring and today its winter again. So if you live to the east of California, get ready! Another storm is coming and you didn’t need Skippy the weather boy to tell you that one.

I think I will work on my camellia quilt today and pretend it is spring anyway.

Presidents Day Sale

Macy’s is having a Presidents Day Sale and so am I.  I have reduced the price on 3 of my first Fusible Flower quilts: Clematis, Yellow Daisy and Oriental Poppy.  They are looking for nice homes.

 

Click to enlarge.

Clematis

2002

New price is $800.

21” x 32”

This is the second Fusible Flower quilt I made. Purple is my favorite color so when I saw this picture in a flower catalog I knew I had to try and recreate it.  How could I make these flowers look dimensional with just fabric and maybe some thread?  That was my challenge.  I had never seen a Fusible Flower quilt before but wondered What if I treated it just like I was painting, only using fabric and thread?  These flowers are bright and crisp in the morning light.  I wanted to capture the sunlight hitting the center of the flowers just right.

Click to enlarge.

Yellow Daisies

2002

New price is $500

18” x 24”

This quilt was inspired by a picture in a flower magazine.  Right away I knew I did not have enough yellow fabrics to make it work.  I used about 12 different values of yellow fabric to give the flowers their depth.  This was my third quilt using the Fusible Flower technique.  Each time I made one I would learn something new.

Click to enlarge.

Oriental Poppy

17" x 24"

New price is $900.

I knew this quilt would be a challenge and it was.  I almost gave up many times but I'm so glad I didn't.  I learned so much from making this quilt.  This quilt is painted with fabric and thread to create this beautiful poppy quilt inspired by a flower catalog. This was quite a challenge trying to making the paper-like petals bend and fold, all in fabric.  I highlighted the quilt with lots of thread play, which adds more shading and detail.  Back then I thought it was a lot of thread and they would surely kick me out of the quilting world for all that thread.  Who knew? 

The final step is some carefully placed glass beads that I added by hand.  This was the first time I entered my Fusible Flower art work in a show and it won Honorable Mention at the Marin Quilt and Needle Art Show in 2003.

These first quilts are very special to me.  Each one has taught me a valuable lesson and pushed my creativity.  It took me years before I would show the quilt world my flowers.  Then I saw the work of Katie PM and Velda Newman and thought there might be a chance someone would like what I do, also.

If you are interested in any of these art quilts, let me know.  I take PayPal, Visa or Master Card or good old green cash.  You can contact me at   melbula@comcast.net

My closets are getting too full and Joe won't enlarge my studio space, so some of my babies have to go, so more can follow.

Looking for Mr. Right

I have been looking and looking for the perfect free-motion sewing machine. Does it exist?  I don't think so.  I want something the sews really straight and I can control the speed.  It has to handle sewing through many thicknesses of fusible fabric while using delicate rayon thread.   It needs to have a big enough arm so that large quilts can easily get under the machine.  And maybe it should come in pink.  If i am going to dream it might as well have a color. Why not? 


But the biggest thing is I don't want to sell my house to buy it.  Where is that machine?  I don't want a stitch regulator or fancy stitches.  I don't need it to sing to me when it turns on, or have a drink holder for my coffee.  I don't need it to store pictures of my family that pop up when I am trying to sew.   I just want it to do the job of sewing.  Even Wilma had a sewing machine that worked.

Where are you Mr. Right????  I dream, fantasize and pray for you.  I  even have been searching (dare I say?) the Internet for you.

When Hello Kitty went bad.

But alas!  You may only be a vision in my dreams. Maybe you haven't been invented yet.  So I will wait. 
In the mean time, does any one what to buy a Bernia 200 upgraded to a 730 that tap dances?

Knit One and Purl Two

I just love to knit. So while my web site has been under construction, which seems like forever,  I have been knitting.  First it was this scarf to get me back in the knitting groove.  When I saw the colors and texture of this yarn my heart skipped a beat. I broke out in a sweat and knew I had to have it.  I didn't look at the price until I got to the register. Yes, it was very expensive. I bought it anyway.  Don't tell Joe. Then feeling quite accomplished after making this beautiful scarf, I wondered if I was brave enough to work on a sweater I started about 2 years ago.

It was a Vogue pattern that I downloaded off their web site. I had to join the vogue knitting site and then you can down load it for free.  I just loved it.  I was going to teach myself how to do cables with this pattern.  No sweat, right? 

This was my second try at the sweater. You can see some of my cables rows are not going in the right direction.

I started the sweater 4 times, which means I had to unravel the sweater 3 times. At one point I just lost interest and felt maybe it was simply too complicated for my little brain but I needed something complicated to work on while Joe was fixing my web site. Oh! I guess I forgot to tell you that I wiped out most of my web site by trying to help Joe.  So why not try again to make this Debbie Bliss Silver Belle sweater again and stay out of Joe's hair (what little he has left) and stick with what I know how to do. 

So far it’s working out really great.  I have been obsessed with it and it is going very fast - big needles help (Size 9).  Every once in a while I have to take out a row or 2.  Like last night.  You can see by the picture that this young girl has not been blessed yet with her womanly assets.  And at her age I wasn't, either.

So the sizing and fit of this sweater is also a challenge.   I was lucky to find web sites that have also worked on this sweater and gave me an idea of how it fits. It runs really big.  But I am happy to say I am done with the skirt and now working on the top and sleeve that are in one piece.

I will keep you updated on my progress.  But now I am looking for my next sweater and I found this pattern that I want sooo bad.  It’s called the Mermaid by Hanne Falkenberg. It comes in all colors but you can only get the pattern when you buy her kit.  So this is my motivation for completing my Silver Belle. Then I have to find the $$$$.  And you thought you could only be addicted to fabric!

It's Out!

Drop everything and run to the nearest book store to get the February/March issue of Quilter's Home magazine. Buy every issue you can. OK, maybe just my mom and I will do that.  It's finally here, a month earlier than we thought it would be.  It turned out so cute.  There is a wonderful 5 page spread on our house in this issue. They even put in the story of our yellow house controversy that caused quite a stir in 2002. You can't see any of the dust or cobwebs or the glue gun I used to hold most things together for the shoot. There is even a picture of Joe and I sitting with our feet in the pool, which makes me long for summer. It was really hot the day we shot this.

Laundry Room

This is my laundry room that I wallpapered with botanical prints I cut out of an old book and glued right on the old wallpaper.  I keep the collection of flower pots above the counter and sink area. The yellow iris is a new quilt. Behind the drapes is Joe's beer making supplies - he and Matt occasionally turn my kitchen into a mad scientist's laboratory.

This is our breakfast nook which is mostly used for folding towels and laundry. On the back wall at the top is a quilt of strawberries in a bowl and below that is one on my paintings of fruit on a table with a blue tea pot. Hanging over the table is my Yellow Daisy quilt.

Master Bedroom

I love our master bedroom in soft colors of blues and peach. There is a wonderful view from the deck off this room.  I fell in love with this house because of the view.  Over the chair is draped a Lone Start quilt I made out of Amy Butler's first line of fabric. You can't see it, but every intersection in the quilt has a hot fix crystal on it.  It's really sparkly.  The flower quilt on the wall is a camellia.

              

We sit out there and watch the sunset.

This is my living room office.

I have  a small office space in the corner of my living room. Its where I design patterns and do all my computer work. The small framed quilt block above my head is from my Baltimore album quilt. I needed some art work for the space so I just framed the block. Someday, I might just finish that quilt. Or not!

All the photos where taken by the famous quilt photographer to the stars, Gregory Case. There is a really cute article about him and his partner, Elena, in the magazine also. It's about couples in quilting.

Thank you Quilter's Home for a wonderful experience.

Do we really SEE the whole picture?

I have been trying to finish up the thread work on my flag quilt. I made this quilt after attending Matt’s Marine boot camp graduation. The ceremony blew me away.  I consider myself very patriotic but seeing those young men willing to give their life for our country has changed me.  So I had to make a quilt to commemorate the day my son because a United States Marine. 

I have been having a lot of trouble finishing this quilt. Procrastination is the word.  There were many valid (sort of) excuses I used to avoid going into the studio like, it’s too cold outside today, I don’t feel like it and the best one, my pants are too tight.  I know, but remember we will do or say anything to avoid dealing with our fears.  Bingo,  you've got it - I have been full of fear at completing this quilt.  I think it’s called the fear of failure or fear of success, whatever it is, it's a feeling that you are simply not good enough. It has been this way for about 6-9 months. You would think by now I would have this down but life is always a struggle and,  if it’s not, you aren’t doing it right. I have even bought books recently on the topic of fear and the artist, thinking that it would push me a little bit.  But they just gather dust on my desk, which needed to be cleaned up, which was another excuse for not finishing my quilt. 

Then today I received an email from a woman that stopped me dead in my tracks.  I wanted to share it with you because maybe you are going through something.  It made me mad at first. Do I have a sign on my back that says KICK ME? 

But then I read it again and felt her pain and I started to cry.  Actually, I sobbed.  I then realized why I am here doing these quilts. Not to win awards or make money (even thought that does make my husband happy) but to share my life, creativity, and story with others.  And mostly because it is all I can do.

She saw my segment on TheQuiltShow.com #501 and wrote:

Dear Melinda,

Beautiful work and technique! Congratulations for your winning quilts.

I watched you on the Quilt Show. I really enjoyed it except for a comment you made that touched me deeply. When you said that there is something to be said about blindness. Here is my story. A little over a year ago, my son lost his eye sight to an hereditary gene deficiency. He is 29 and was a wonderful photography teacher and website designer. I also am a quilter and design quilts for our provincial quilt show. I am an oil artist and interior decorator. Since David lost is eye sight, I have been having a great deal of difficulty working on art projects. I have been feeling quite guilty about what his happening to him since the hereditary missing gene his passed down from mother to sons. Recently, I found the courage to start some projects so it was very hard for me to hear you say what you said. It is very difficult for someone to realize how hard it is to become blind and have to live with this handicap and having to re-invent oneself. We are very proud of David. He went back to university this September and to all our amazement he is getting all A`s !  It doesn’t take away all the sadness and how hard it is to study and commute to his classes in his condition. So through his strength, I found the courage to start designing again.

I recently found out about a color code that was invented for the blind. It is called the Barker code. It matches color to texture and the goal is to make wall quilts that represents the masters (Renoir, Monet etc) arts so that the blind can feel and get an ``image ``of art and also understand what shape ie a house has or a car or a landscape. I am gathering quilt artist to help with creating pieces that would become a traveling exhibit to be presented to the blind centers. So I just might write to you again as the project progresses to kindly ask for your participation.

Thank you for sharing your work!

I am so sorry but I just had to mention this and may be you can find some other word to describe the perception of color value.

Respectfully,

Lynda

Thread on the back.

I wrote back:

Your letter touched my heart.  But you have to understand that I was not making light of being blind.  It was a poorly chosen metaphor for the seeing not wanting to really see.  I, too, battle with a handicap every day of my life.  I have dyslexia and it's caused me much pain and suffering.  Can you imagine what it is like to be called retarded?  It was very difficult to bear that as a child.  I would retreat in to my own world of sewing and painting to survive. My parents where so worried about me.

By the time I was 16 I just wanted to die.  I thought there was no purpose for me being in this world.  I have worked very hard to learn different ways to overcome this handicap, but it remains. My art is the only thing I could do as a child.  I now show my art and speak about having dyslexia. The battles and the blessings.  I call it the gift of dyslexia, because it made me SEE things differently, which is a blessing most people in this world will never experience.  Would I being doing what I am doing now if I had been born without dyslexia?

Now, you and your son are going through a very hard time.  But there is a gift in the midst of this.  God does not make mistakes.  I know.  He is preparing a wonderful creative gift in your son.  The strength of creativity is not stopped by losing one's vision.  Learn everything you can on how to use this new gift. 

I have a family friend, Lester, who is an art professor.  He told my parents when I was 17, She is an artist. He is now 80 years old and blind but when we talk about art he see color.   his face lights up and in that conversation, he can still see, just differently.  Monet and Matisse did some on their best work as elderly, handicapped, blind men.  Tell your son to not give up.  He is developing new eyes for his art and creativity.

In 5 minutes i was on TV, it’s hard, if not impossible,  to tell others my story, but you are mad at me because of something I said.  But I know what you are really mad at and it’s not me, it’s the fear of change and being different.  I know.

 Now you’ve done it.  I am going to have to put you and David at the top of my prayer list.  So watch out!

 Melinda 

The back.

I will keep this letter always to remind me of why I am doing my art.  Because I have to and  I can’t do anything else.   

Sometimes, God takes something away, so I (or you) won’t miss what he wants us to do.  Years ago I made the decision to try to go forward proudly with the good, the bad, and the very imperfect. Struggling with blindness in no joke.  I pray that David can find a new way to express his God given talent.

What are you struggling with?  Know there is someone who cares - just don’t kick so hard.  Now I can finish the quilt. Thank you, Lynda, for writing me.  I would love to make a quilt for the blind.  I been making them  for the seeing, that sometimes, don't really see.