Pattern Success!

Well, the zinnia pattern seems to be a big hit. Just taught a 2 day class up in Pine Grove, CA, beautiful country just 45 minutes from my house.  It  reminds me a lot of Ireland without all the castles.  Anyways, there were 15 students in this class and they all brought their own color choices and all the flowers were beautiful.  This is not the easiest pattern in my collection as it has many layers but turns out wonderful.   I love watching them grow and bloom in class.  I will be teaching this again in Sisters in July and at Thimble Creek in August.  Check my calendar for more info.

You prepare 3 different color charts for each flower.  The best way to do that is to make black and white copies of the original color chart that comes with all my patterns.  With a black and white copy you just see the values of the colors and how they relate to each other and it makes it much easier to change your color palate.  Easy probably isn't the right word.  You are taking the pattern pieces for color A and pinning it to all 3 layers of  the  A fabrics on the color chart and cutting them out all at once.  

Then you would lay the cut fabrics down on the background for all 3 flowers, then do the same for the next color in the color chart, and so on.   I think there are 21 different fabrics in the pattern.  Beside sore thumbs I think I heard a little whimpering on the 3rd day.  They worked hard and persevered. I was so proud.

But last week at the Empty Spools Seminars in Pacific Grove, I had 2 very brave students who wanted to do a 3 zinnia quilt inspired by one of my quilts.  It's  a sample to show the variety of colors you could make the flower in.  I never thought that someone would want to take on the challenge of doing 3 different colors at the same time.  I thought I was the only one crazy enough to try to cut out all 3 color ways at the same time.  But, no!!!!  These girl where determined. 

That is just it.  You have to persevere through the hard parts to reap the rewards and everyone’s level of perseverance is different.  Each student comes to my classes at a different level, battling different fears and challenges.  That is what is so exciting.  But, of course, there is the naysayer  observing this from afar.

Melissa's

Nancy's

I had a student tell me one day at lunch that someone expressed to her, “I don’t know how you can even work from someone else's pattern.”   What!  If I had heard that statement or knew who that was,  I would  slap them.   We are all different.   People think they are diverse and open minded but they are not.  Let's check ourselves before we make stupid statements.  I know a group of girls that believe very strongly in diversity as long as it lines up with their beliefs and it also trickles into the quilting community.  Have you met that person who thinks it not legitimate quilting if it’s not done a certain way?  That’s not being open minded, diverse, or even polite.  

So, we in the quilting world need to cut each other some slack and, if you come to one of my classes, please know that I will help you, whatever level you are at.  At least I will try my very best.  Remember, its only fabric and we can get more.  Unless, of course, you are in Ierland and then you had better conserve.

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.