Empty Spools at Asilomar

At the end of this month, I'm going off to one of my favorite places in the world -- Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar, CA.  I've been the past three years and it is a heavenly experience.  You sew and eat and eat and sew and meet fabulous quilters from around the globe and take a class with a world renowned teacher.  In past years I've taken classes from Mary Lou Weidman, Jan Krentz and Judy Mathieson.  This year my friend and I plan to improve our machine quilting with Diane Gaudynski.  I am nervous but then I always am when getting ready for this venture.  Here are the books we'll use.

Our four pages of prep instructions is shown there too. 

Last weekend my friend and I got together to make our nine patch sample from neutrals.  We bought some silk batting to use in this project.

The objective is for the fabric to be in the background and the quilting to be the star.  That remains to  be seen with my quilting!  I also bought some beautiful cotton silks for practice.  I'll make some 18" sandwiches for these.

Here is a picture of the place.  It is the best quilting I've ever done here.  The website is www.emptyspoolsseminars.com.  Some sessions are already full for next year.

Christmas in June

My May sew day was all about a Christmas project that our dear friend got ready for us.  Six of us meet together monthly, some months we have a project to do together, some month's it's UFO day.  Nancy had a great idea to make a Christmas wallhanging last month.  She machine embroidered 100+ Christmas blocks for us.  Her Viking must have been smoking!  There was a pattern for the project but we all improvised and designed our own based on the blocks we liked.  We added fabric strips until it all came together.  One of the group added flying geese, pinwheels and postage stamps to her sashings.  I was not as ambitious but like mine anyway.  You can see mine above, almost finished.

Here are some of my very favorite designs.

 Isn't this Charlie Brown Christmas tree just the cutest?  It sure brings back memories of watching the Charlie Brown Christmas show as a child.

And here's an angel, wouldn't be Christmas without one for me.

I love this "Snow Lady".  She is so sweet and round.  And her bag has an "M", just for me I thought.  But Nancy told me her name was Mildred, not Mary!

I need to add a nice red border.  I'll go to the quilt shop after work tomorrow for it and some backing.  Then I'll do some simple quilting and get the binding on pronto.  Our sew group meets again Saturday and we were supposed to be done.  I can't meet but promised I would finish.  Nancy was such a friend to make all these blocks for us.  A picture of the finished product will be coming soon.

Another Great "Read"

This is what I "read" or actually listened to while I was making the bibs and pillowcases.  I LOVED it!  I checked it out from our public library.  I should be able to finish it this week and will look for other books by this author.  It was a fun, light story.  I love to go to our library and make it there weekly for the most part. I've enjoyed the library my entire life and am grateful for all the different books and movies it's brought into my home over the years.

Pillowcases Galore!

I'm part of a lovely group of ladies that were once members of National Charity League with our daughters.  They have graduated from high school so now we are known as Sustainers.  We get together several times a year to socialize and continue philanthropy projects.  The past few months we've been making pillowcases using the "taco" or "hot dog" technique for children with cancer.  The charity gives them to the kids to use while in the hospital or receiving other treatments.  We've made 46 so far and I'll deliver this batch tomorrow.  It's been a lot of fun and some of these women don't sew!  They have helped in many ways == buying fabric, measuring, cutting, pressing and serving dessert!  Here's some pictures of our pillowcases.

Here's all 46 of them!

We have so many different fun fabrics:  flowers, puppies, football helmuts, baseballs, ballerinas, tractors, bugs, zebra print, frogs, monkeys, peace signs, hearts, just to name some of them.  We hope it helps to bring a liitle happiness into these children's lives.

Fancy Bibs

It seems the days are flying by lately and I've been away from the blog again.  I've been busy making some fancy bibs -- white satin with lace, for 17 lovely young women.  They will be worn with beautiful white gowns in a couple of weeks.  They will be presenting with National Charity League.  The lovely bibs are worn during dinner so their lovely gowns stay pretty.  They are like the bibs many brides wear.  I've made about 100 of these the past five years.  I drafted a pattern from a piece of newspaper, using my daughter as a model many years ago, when she presented as a high school senior.  Here's a bib:

They are simple yet elegant.  I'll fold them nicely and wrap with lavendar tulle since this

is one of their colors.  I'll wait until next week to do that so they aren't too

wrinkled when they are unwrapped in two weeks.  Here's the pile of 17:

Some Paper -- What I'm Reading

I am part of a fabulous book club.  We meet monthly at someone's home or a nearby coffee shop, depends on the weather.  We bring our ideas to a meeting twice a year, discuss the options and set up the next six month schedule.  We try to choose books that are out in paperback or readily available at the public library to minimize costs.  We meet tonight and our selection is Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross.  It's historical fiction and very interesting story about a woman in the ninth century who perhaps was pope for a short time.  The author has a website that enables you to interact with her for a book club meeting.  There are also book club questions in the back of the book.  Our group is more informal and probably won't use the questions.  I would recommend the book.  It's very interesting.

Next month we'll be reading an oldie but goodie, the Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher.  It's a great story, many of us have read it years ago, and is good beach reading.

This book is in paperback and is available at the library.  It's probably an audio CD too!

Happy Reading!  What are YOU reading?

I'm back -- May UFO done

I've been gone from my blog for a few weeks.  I've been in a blog funk, I guess.  Just couldn't find time to brainstorm post ideas or find the camera.  Been trying to exercise and lose some more weight, boy does that take up a lot of time!  There are so many UFO's in my sewing room I just don't know where to start anymore.  But there was some time to finish the binding and label on this fine quilt.

This was started on my Lake Tahoe friends retreat last November.  The pattern is from

an issue of American Patchwork Quilting magazine.  We all brought fabric strips, put

them in the middle of the table and started grabbing fabric.  It was so much fun.

And the pattern and directions were easy, much to my surprise.

Here's a closer look at a block.

My border and sashing fabric is beautiful.  I searched and auditioned many other fabrics

for my borders but this was the winner!  I think I'll make another one

of these some day.  I'm so happy to have another UFO done!