Getting to know Yoko Saito, in English!

I finally finished quilting the funky quilt that I made using antique blocks. The blocks were made around 1890. I set them with some modern repro-ish looking fabrics, and quilted away. The blocks look like they have arrows in them and with the feathered quilting inside I'm thinking of calling the quilt "Feathered Arrows".

My thoughts on binding are that maybe a cute and funky print would really spice it up even further. Susan agrees it's a good idea.

Susan, one on the knit nite girls, has an incredible sewing bag that she created completely from Japanese taupe fabrics. Drop over and check her blog out if you have time, her work is 100% perfect and beautiful.

And speaking of Japanese taupes, Yoko Saito just launched her Japanese quilting web site in English. WOW is really all I can say about it. It's so great to learn about her, her quilting, and all of her new fabrics and books (finally without some funky babelfish translator). Thanks Mona for passing the link along!

My favorite page of this web site is the Catalog of Student Work publications that comes out every year. It's an awesome collection of photos of all the quilts her students made that year. I have a couple of these, but not all of them. If shipping were not so expensive, I think I would order the couple I'm missing.

Halloween - a global holiday!

I've been many places on this amazing planet, but I've always been right here at home in the good old USA during Halloween.

Maybe that's why I assumed (wrongly!) that it's a global holiday where kids all over the world put on their scary costumes that mom made...or was too busy to make and just ordered online this year.

My German friend reminded me that it's pretty much an American thing. That made me feel sad for all the rest of the kids, and so lucky to live here.

Our 4 yr old is really looking forward to it, and our pumpkins are carved and ready to go.

We visited Uesugi Farms and came home with around 8 pumpkins. Wow. Pony ride was a big hit.


So I finished quilting the mini quilt I was working on, and I also finished my Mom's birthday gift knitted scarf (I still don't really know how to knit) so pictures of those coming soon.

Meanwhile, re-falling in love with the funky Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen) remix on the Romeo and Juliet 10th anniversary remix album.

Totally in love with the art of Leah Giberson - groovy. Her work will some day grace my walls.

Knit Nite

I started a weekly knitting night with some girlfriends, but I don't knit!

What in the world was I thinking? Well...that I could use the time to quilt of course.

Perhaps I should confess that I do think about knitting a lot, even though I basically just buy yarn and put it in a basket.

The quilt that I'm quilting is only about 30 min shy of being fully quilted so perhaps my next post will include a picture of it 'done' before the binding gets on at least.

I found some more PIQF quilt show pix posted here. Oh, and in my last post, that cathedral windows quilt was designed as a giant picture of a tree frog. Seriously! It's a frog! Is that not the coolest ever?

Pacific International Quilt Festival 2009

PIQF 2009 has come and gone and I am a little sad that it's over.

The show was pretty good this year and I had a huge amount of fun.

I had the extreme pleasure of assisting Cindy Brick as the quilt appraiser for the show, so I got to see a lot of awesome quilts and learned a huge ton from her. She is really an incredible appraiser as well as quilt judge and quilt restorer. If you ever have the chance to meet her and have an appraisal done, I would highly recommend it.

After my day of appraisal assisting, I spent the next day running around with my camera and doing a little shopping. I didn't get a lot of things, but I did pick up a few cool items.

The quilts at the show were of course the real fun. I took tons of pictures for you (of course) but since there were so many quilts I only photographed the ones that I loved and the ones that I had time to run around and see. There were so many more awesome quilts that I wish I could have taken pictures of all of them.

That being said, if you did not get to go, please enjoy my flickr slide show:

PIQF 2009

Oh, and if you are new around here, I've been posting these quilt show photos for a while. Check out 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 if you like. (that ought to keep you busy!)

I have found 1 other set posted so far this year by GoDutchBaby here.

The above photo of the cathedral windows quilt has a very special twist to it - do you get it? The quilt is so beautiful in person and was made by Leigh Cabell from Denver Colorado.

Are you ready for PIQF 2009?

Pacific International Quilt Festival (PIQF) 2009 is well underway and started already yesterday.

I'll be there all day tomorrow assisting the conference official appraiser, Cindy Brick. I'm so excited to meet her as she is such an expert in crazy quilts, and historic quilts in general. It is very kind of her to take me as her assistant and I cannot wait to get more appraisal experience under my belt.

I used to HAVE to visit PIQF in order to see my friend Mariko at the Azabu-Ya booth, but she is no longer doing shows. I will miss her dearly, but will be on the look out for other cool shops this time around.

Pinwheels should be there, and there is always something good and taupe-y to see in their booth.

Oh, and my friend Rebecca has a quilt in the show this year (#1111) so be sure to check it out if you have the pleasure to attend.

Clues in the Stitches

Have you ever looked for clues in the quilting stitches?

Can you decipher this deep and meaningful clue?

Ok, well...I wanted to post just a little something light on this rainy Wednesday.

Oh, and check out the tutorial/giveaway over at Mairuru - how to use up some tiny scraps and making something very cool and cute.

Brain Teaser: Who is this superwoman?

Ok, the above photo is of somebody you probably know. Got any guesses you brainy folks? Could it be Madonna? Lucinda Williams? Patricia Clarkson? or.....maybe somebody I ran into at AQSG?

And the 2nd part of the brain teaser is an acronym that I recently became aware of: "WAF"

Any guesses on what that one means? If you have no idea, ask your husband, he probably knows.

Meanwhile, I am hand quilting up a storm on that quilt top I mentioned back in August. Out of 9 blocks I have 6 quilted and hope to have them all done this weekend. Lofty goal, I know.

I'm also thanking my friend in Singapore for emailing me DVD's with Yoko Saito videos. Working on viewing them as they have a different country code on them than the US and will require a bit of fancy work to view. Thank you Mona, I'll let you know as soon as I figure out how to watch them.

Also, to drool over, is the incredible dress that Karyn made over at Make Something blog. She used Nani Iro fabrics (to die for, seriously beautiful).

American Quilt Study Group Seminar 2009

I had the extreme pleasure of spending some time at the American Quilt Study Group (AQSG) seminar last week.

I sat in on a really incredible lecture on Amish quilts by Julie Silber and Janneken Smucker. They are both so expert the field that I was wishing their session was twice as long.

Another highlight was a lecture by Sandi Fox. If you don't have her books yet, Small Endearments is probably my favorite.

I'm already wondering how I can get to the seminar next year.

The vendors they had were awesome. I bought the quilt top above and plan to quilt it.

If you have any interest at all in antique quilts, AQSG membership is something you might want to check out.