My twin sister, Pamela, and I jetted up to Victoria last weekend on the Clipper to visit our parents. Good thing my mom loves to quilt as she was willing to trek across town to the annual show of the Victoria Quilter’s Guild.
It was a pleasing event with lots of creative energy. There was also a delightful display of hand-crafted dolls by Victoria’s Doll-A-Holics. My fav was an Alice in Wonderland tea cosy (pictured above) by Maria Roxborough.
Last Sunday I drove up to tulip country to listen to Carol Taylor from New York talk about her approach to quilting. A passionate and energetic artist, Carol works on an idea until she “is done.” One series, Gong, has 39 variations.
After the lecture, Carol took us on a tour of her quilt exhibit on the top floor of the La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum. It was exciting to hear her ideas and insights as she talked to us about every one of her masterpieces.
Patricia and Liz during a very busy StashFest moment.
The hall is ready for the StashFest Preview Sale.
StashFest, last weekend, was a unique fundraiser for the La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum.
-Our goal was $20,000, we raised $23,457.
-38 door prizes were given away.
-My booth alone sold over 420 yards of yukata cotton to quilters from around the state, Idaho and British Columbia.
-Over 1000 books were donated to StashFest and more than 2/3 of them sold.
-The Museum, across the street, had its top number of visitors on StashFest Saturday.
-The Museum curator bought a book about dating quilts at the StashFest Book Sale for $4 that costs $399 on the internet and she always had to borrow from the public library.
-Local businesses noticed a boost in sales on StashFest weekend.
See photos of StashFest.
Babbling, 41″ x 51″, 2012
Four months after starting to hand stitch this lap-sized quilt, I am finished! I enjoyed playing with thread, using six different colors for the quilting. Sometimes I randomly changed colors when I was re-threading the needle. Other times I just used the same colored thread throughout the block.
Today Vik and I drove out to Gold Bar to put on a yukata cotton trunk show at Lorraine Torrence’s Wearables Retreat. Thirty-three women were gathered for a week to challenge themselves with designing and sewing clothing projects. I bumped into new friends from CQA, a few gals from the Fort Warden retreat, and Diane Roubal from my church’s quilt group. It was a great day for connecting with fabric lovers.
Today I visited Jan McGregor Studios on Whitbey Island. Brimming with Japanese treasures, the store specializes in tansu (wooden cabinets, boxes and chests), ceramics, kimonos and more.
Chatting with Jan, I learned that she lived in Kyoto for two years, studying ceramics under Kihei Koyama. She is an impeccable artist who works with porcelain clay.
These days Jan visits Japan and imports hand-picked antiquities and her own line of washi-covered wooden boxes.
SAVE THE DATE for StashFest—a unique event with unique fabrics. On March 31 and April 1, 2012, StashFest is a fundraiser for the La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum. Presenters include Elin Noble, hand-dye fabrics and threads; Lorraine Torrence, international fabrics and more; Dean & Linda Moran, hand-marbled fabrics; vintage Japanese yukata cottons; Ellen Dooley, lampworked glass beads; Margot Myers, NW batiked cottons; and Beverly Hunnicutt, vintage kimono silks. This will be the event of the season—happening in La Conner across the street from the Museum. I look forward to seeing you there!
When I learned about Annie Lewis’ collage class at Gage, I was two weeks too late. So I found her online and invited myself to her studio.
Annie makes monoprints at the Pratt printing studio. Then she cuts up her prints and a makes collages that remind me of paper quilts. They are very graphic and appealing.
I will definitely sign up for Annie’s next class at Gage.
I made eight napkins for Skip Holman and Kelly Morrow out of vintage Japanese yukata cotton. The fabric was chosen to match a set of eight vintage dessert plates that I bought at the Beppa “garage sale” last summer. I liked the swirling indigo and white with the minimal hit of color in the fan with the Blue Willow pattern on the china.
To give these napkins a little style, I added homemade bias tape to two ends—made with a crisp red and white yukata cotton. I wanted the finish to be as perfect as possible so I hand basted the bias tape before I machine stitched it on.
The plates and napkins were packaged in a vintage sewing basket made with wicker and blue and white striped fabric.
This yukata quilt top, named Babbling, is the beginning of another sample quilt. It will be hand-stitched with a graphic indigo and white yukata back (see left). It will take me months to hand stitch this lap-sized quilt! My hope is to have it ready in time for StashFest at the end of March.
yukata craze blog
