April Showers Brings May Flowers

As the saying goes, April brought us several welcomed showers, hillsides of poppies and other wildflowers, and two gorgeous floral quilts. My latest, favorite weekend quilt is called On the Edge. Sally found the pattern in a magazine and made the quilt for her grandson’s graduation from high school (see the March update, called Three Months Down). I love the simplicity of the pattern, which is comprised of 6-1/2” blocks (perfect for showcasing large prints) and is bordered by 9-patch blocks of the same size. All are set on point. I hadn’t pieced a quilt top in months and after quilting Sally’s project decided to make my own from my collection of Kaffe Fassett  fabrics. This one was going to be for Me! However, before it was finished I’d decided to give it to my niece in Missouri, who has spent the last year battling breast cancer and the aftermath of chemotherapy, which ravaged her body. I’m hoping this colorful, happy quilt will improve her spirits each day as she continues to heal.

Maria surprised us with an unplanned visit the last few days of April. She saw the quilt and loved it…a perfect project for a three-day visit and the perfect present for her friend’s 50^th birthday in the fall. Here we are, each with our fabulous, floral gift quilts! I hope the giftees love them as much as we do!

After Sally’s On the Edge quilt, word spread of this fun pattern and Lauren suggested it to her friend Katie, who she’s teaching to quilt. A picture of the quilt will be included in a separate blog post Lauren will be writing about Katie’s first-quilt experience. The girls did a great job choosing fabric, the piecing was beautifully done, and my quilting was passable. Aw shucks! It actually was pretty good. The finished product was an outstanding first quilt and I’m sure will be treasured for years to come.

I’m feeling inspired and anxious to spend a good part of May in the studio working my way through the backlog, as well as piecing a “commissioned” wall hanging… more on that in June’s update. Keep Creating!

Welcome to Portland, Sandy Sanders - Lauren

Last weekend Portland, Oregon gave a warm welcome to Stixer Sandy Sanders literally and figuratively. Let’s start with the literal. Portland decided to put its best foot forward for Sandy, showing her just how beautiful the city can be in the spring. The weather was absolutely amazing. Clear, blue skies without a hint of cloud during her entire visit and on her final day in Portland it got up to 73 degrees, the perfect Portland temperature. Portland can be a bit changeable during the spring, going from cold and rainy one day to sunny and downright balmy the next. But the rainy days are beautiful in their own right, often with the clouds breaking up mid-day to allow some blue skies to filter through. But Sandy got to see the best Portland has to offer – blue skies and warm temps.

And that brings us to the figurative warm welcome. On her final day in Portland, yours truly met up with Sandy at about 10 am at her hotel. Sandy left it to me to decide how we would spend our day. Her only requests were for us to visit the oft discussed and admired fabric stores of Portland – Fabric Depot and Craft Warehouse. I decided to start with Fabric Depot as no other store has quite the impact as seeing a warehouse full of fabric, books, notions, yarn, etc. Sandy was suitably impressed. She started as we all start upon first seeing Fabric Depot – staring around in awe. After a brief walk around the fabric, we began with the books and patterns. Watching Sandy find so many treasures encouraged me to look for my own and before long (about an hour and a half) we had each found a couple books and a bunch of patterns marked down 75%. Sandy decided to shop for fabric for one of her new patterns and in true mini-Joyce fashion, I took over and picked out all her fabrics. I can’t wait to see her quilt all made up! We then moved on to walking around every aisle to look all the fabric. This was a lot of fun, but even with one entire day, I don’t think you could see everything, so we hit all the fabric highlights. Next, we went through the notions and by the end, our cart was full! It was an absolute blast and all too soon time for us to head off to our next stop – Craft Warehouse.

The beauty and allure of Craft Warehouse are the flat folds. Beautiful cotton fabrics sold at only $6.00 a yard. Unbelievable! That weekend was Craft Warehouse’s anniversary, which meant that we came armed with coupons and an entire new table of flat folds had just been put out. As soon as we arrived and I showed Sandy the flat folds, I immediately called my mom and told her about the new fabrics. Upon hearing they were from some of our favorite modern designers, including Amy Butler and Heather Bailey, she set loose…the kraken. And by kraken, I mean me. She told me to buy her an assortment of fabrics in oranges and blues. Well, with a clear cut mission, I was ready to go. And go I did. You see, I love buying fabrics and it doesn’t matter who they’re for. I just love picking and coordinating fabrics for quilts. So, I went a wee bit crazy and spent almost an hour and half choosing fabrics for Mom while Sandy wandered the fabric section and other areas of Craft Warehouse. It was an absolute blast. And by the time I was done, Sandy and I just had time to grab a quick late lunch at Panda Express and then head off to the airport for her flight. All-in-all, we spent around 6 hours at 2 fabric stores.

I hope Sandy had as good a time as I did. There can’t be much better than a day of fabric shopping. And I hope this will encourage you all to come to Portland soon to visit me, of course, but more importantly, to visit Fabric Depot and Craft Warehouse. 

Three Months Down

March brought rain and daffodils…

and several days in the studio. The first part of the month was spent working on the pet portrait (Fresita) I wrote about earlier in March. Then there was our fabulous weekend in So Cal celebrating my birthday with Jana and making bagels with Sally. We left Santa Barbara with another quilt to add to the queue…this one went to the front of the line as it’s a graduation gift for Sally’s grandson. Sandy was planning a trip to Amador County the following week, so I wasted no time and quilted it within a few days of returning home from our trip. It’s a cute pattern that we’ll all want to make. Imagine Snappy Square on the diagonal with a border of 9-patches.

I know I’ve said it before, but every month end I’m reminded of the importance of this blog…my on-line journal. As the end of each month approaches my priorities change and I spend more time in the studio. Why? So I’ll have more to report. March was no different than previous months and I spent the last two days of the month from early in the morning until late afternoon working hard to complete a second quilt for the month. I promised Lauren at the beginning of this year (and the beginning of 2013 and previous years!) that I would make her a priority and quilt her tops that have been hanging around since she graduated from Berkeley. I really try to keep the queue first-in, first-out, but that rarely happens. Her beautifully pieced tops keep getting pushed to the rear of the line and all but forgotten. I am determined to make good on the promise I made to my sweet (but tart) daughter...to complete all of her quilts in 2014. I'd best qualify that...all of her quilt tops received prior to December 31, 2013 (she just finished four new quilts this past quarter).

Again, as I’ve said before, one of the greatest challenges in quilting is determining the appropriate design and thread color. Well, this one couldn’t have been easier. The quilt top I chose was comprised of large blocks made from yellow, orange, pink batik strata with a border of strata. It took only minutes and I had my inspiration. I quilted one of three variations of large sunflowers (mimicking a print in one of the fabrics) in each block and half sunflowers around the border using a variegated thread. It was one of my easiest quilting jobs and possibly my best. I finished it in two days…just in time to take with us to Portland and deliver it to Lauren!