Spring Fever

Our Easter was so much fun. My boys found many candy filled eggs left by the Easter Bunny.

Since then, I have been under the weather though - complete with fever and cough that is certainly not helping me rest.

When I get run down, my creative work goes south first, so quilting and other fun endeavors have been more or less on hold around here.

I have been catching up on blog reading though, and found:

• How to make Peeps into S'mores - that's my kind of left-over!
  
  
• Spoiler Alert: Next year's Star Wars themed Lego Advent Calendar contents revealed - wow cool.
  
  
• Yoko Saito has finally published a book in English (and French too!) called Past and Present My Quilting Life. I see a copy of this coming my way eventually...
  
  
• And last but not least, you know I have spent too much time reading random blogs when I start to wonder if a toilet that opens its own lid for you and heats your feet as well would not be a fun addition to our home. Wait a sec, this toilet is worth more than my car!
  
  Gosh, I hope this cold leaves me soon!
  

Happy Easter! Basket Quilts anyone?

If you are celebrating Easter this weekend, I wish you the happiest Easter ever.

For this holiday, we decided the dessert featured will be a cream cheese pound cake, topped with strawberries and home made whipped cream. Yummy!

On the healthy side, we are also trying to recreate a salad recipe that we love - it's from a big chain restaurant - California Pizza Kitchen - (do these exist outside of the U.S.? I am not sure I have ever seen one). The salad is their Cobb salad, and we are going to try to make the ranch dressing from scratch too.

A while back, I picked up bunch of antique quilt blocks, one of which you see above, that are all the same, and have these chocolate brown and aqua green baskets on them. They are all on point, and are so very adorable.

I hope to find just the right sashing fabric for these blocks eventually so I can finish up a very spring-ish looking quilt.

Class cancelled this month...but have a cake pop!

Looks like not enough folks to hold applique class this month at "Verb", but looking forward to resuming in May.

When we were at a birthday party last week, my friend made these cake pops for everybody. She got the instructions on Bakerella. I thought, wow, these are pretty darn adorable. I think they will show up at our next birthday party.

Japanese Taupe Applique and modern quilting

Tomorrow is our April class where we applique modern house blocks over at A Verb for Keeping Warm in Oakland.

This house is a beautiful one, and another in the BOM series that our class is working on. If you have the time and live locally, come and join us...this block will be a piece of cake.

I spent this week in Austin, Texas. If you haven't had the chance to visit there, I would highly recommend it. I could really see myself living there. It is quite hip.

One of my Texan girlfriends turned me on to these beaded wrap bracelets that are popular there. I broke down and bought one, and after realizing how expensive they are online I guess I should have bought 2 when I had the chance. Oh well...Chan Luu makes a bunch of them that are beautiful but on the pricey side.

Another beautiful link for you is over on "oh, hello friend" - check out this post on twinkle lights. So pretty. Not only would I love to do a photo study like this to take amazing pictures of them, but I would also like to think about how to get some of them up in my back yard!

It's raining, it's hailing....

It was so strange to experience a brief hail storm today. I love it when the weather surprises me. Especially when I have an umbrella in my trunk.

There is a cowl in the Last Minute Knitted Gifts book that I would like to make someday.

I picked up some Jade Sapphire lace weight yarn in colorway "You Say Tomato". It's bright alright. Same color as my teapot! I wound it up on my little yarn swift that I have, but someday I plan to get a yarn swift like this one from Bluster Bay Umbrella Swifts.

I will need a good studio to keep it in first though. It looks huge. I will eventually make something with it ah, but for now I just love the way it feels.

Liberty of London fabrics fall into that category for me. So soft, almost too good to cut up and quilt with them! Hope your week ends up well.

Oh, and if you have ever been to a cool yarn store or quilt store in Austin Texas, let me know. I might end up visiting there.

Out like a lamb

My son came home from school and was amazed that I knew the 2nd half of the phrase describing how March weather comes "In like a lion" and goes "Out like a lamb".

It's true though, now it finally feels like spring to me. Time to take the camera outside!

As you may know, I love photography and am always trying to improve my own photos. I spent the weekend taking a photo workshop with this photographer named Eddie Soloway.

It gave me some fresh ideas on making photos, and perhaps it will get me out with my camera a bit more. Eddie is very inspirational and quite known as an excellent teacher.

When I was in San Francisco about a week ago, I ran into another photographer named Jeff Chih.

He had a really interesting photography equipment set up and was creating a stop motion video. We walked in front of his lens at some point so perhaps my family is in one of his 'movie' images. He was very happy to chat about his work and a super friendly person.

Anyhow, if you have a spare 2.5 minutes to watch something beautiful, check him out on youtube as Vista Point Studios or see the 'video' he created when I ran into him by clicking here. Pretty cool.

Special Quilt Exhibit: Infinite Variety

As a general rule, I take all the photos for my blog, but today I am making a special exception.

My friend, Janneken Smucker, emailed me the above photo of the quilt installation she visited.

The quilts are red, but I am green with envy that I didn't see them in person.

This amazing exhibit, Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts, runs through today 3/30/2011, and is located at the American Quilt Museum in New York City (Park Avenue Armory).

If you don't happen to live around the corner from there, I noticed there is a flickr set of over 500 photos that visitors have posted here. Probably not as good as actually being there, but worth a look all the same.

If you do live in NYC, I would think that you are already putting on your coat to head on over to this.

Thank you Janneken for tipping us off to this awesome show and for sharing your photo. For those of you who don't know Janneken yet, she is an amazing young woman who is perhaps one of the worlds leading experts on Amish Quilt history. Check out her book here on Amish Crib Quilts.

Liberty of London - in Japanese!

I could not resist this book when I was at Kinokuniya the other day.

ISBN978-4-7966-7826-1: It came with a little plastic bag with handles. I think it would be good for small projects. It was a bit on the plastic stinky side though, so I am going to air it out first!

Photos include swatches of current fabrics, photos of models wearing garments made of their fabrics, and stories about the fabric designers.

Brian Wildsmith designed a fabric for Liberty that includes old airplanes. Oh, I need to figure out how to get some of that. If you have seen it around, let me know.

My love of Liberty of London Fabrics has lead me to collect them over the years. I have lots of little bits and pieces now and I am almost to take a deep breath and introduce them to my scissors.

Have you ever made a quilt out of their fabric, or sewn up something? I would love to see your photos!

Corned Beef & Green Mac-n-Cheese

On St. Paddy's day we usually try to do something festive.

This year, I was frankly....just tired.

My husband ended up cooking the entire very traditional corned beef and cabbage meal complete with un-traditional mac-n-cheese dyed green.

Kids loved it.

I also learned that corned beef is usually pink due to the preservatives in the meat. Who knew. I also learned that 'corned' is actually from the English reference to kernels of salt used to brine the beef.

Who Knew!

Hope the wind was at your back today - here's a big Slainte! (Cheers!) from me to you.

Butterflies in my head

I have been fitting in some spinning and quilting here and there, and managed to cast on a new knit scarf as well (and promptly frogged it both times). Eeek.

I was surfing around and saw a few blog posts entries that started with "My favorite thing to do at home is..." and that got me thinking about what my favorite thing would be. There are so many it would be hard to narrow it down to one. I might be tempted to answer ..."assemble Lego sets" but maybe I should think on it a bit more.

In other news, some people get butterflies in their stomach but I seem to have them on my brain.

Have you seen this awesome butterfly quilt tutorial by Mrs. Schmenkman? Sooo cool.


I am not sure if I am allowed to blog about the person who I am thinking of making some sort of a butterfly quilt for....but she is due to arrive this summer. She isn't mine of course, well...not directly at least.

More on that later. I must flutter off and help with homework.

Japanese taupe fabrics & wishes for Japan

Showing a photo of some fabrics that I recently got from Verb.

They are all imports from Japan.

Reading many headlines about their recent earthquake and the loss left behind.

When you live in California, like I do, you understand the impact they can have. Cannot help feel for families touched by this horrible natural disaster.

Thinking thoughts of recovery and comfort for those in need.

I went to our local yarn shop this afternoon with my friend Sharon of Knits are for Kids. She picked out yarn to start a new sweater.

She will have it knit up in no time, while I still lack the courage to start an adult sized sweater. Maybe it's because I have so much quilting to do!

Japanese Quilting Blogs - in search of

My mom's antique 1890's indigo and white mini-quilt is getting quilted little by little.

I spent some time with my monthly weekend quilting friends last weekend and progress was certainly made.

Recently I have been trying to look for Japanese quilting blogs out there.

I know there have to be tons (zillions?) of Japanese quilters who work in taupe fabrics, love Yoko Saito, love Chuck Nohara, love Suziko Koseki.

Where oh where do I find links to these sorts of blogs?

I even resorted to translating "Taupe Quilts" into Japanese, copying that into search engines...I must be doing something wrong here. Oh, bother.

Anyhow, my knitting/quilting club is about to come over tonight so off to feverishly scoop some toys up off the floor.

Husband Scarf & Antique Quilts

I am knitting away on a scarf for my husband.

I will come clean here and state that I LOVE to knit for kids because they are so tiny, and I kinda don't love to knit for adults. Those projects take forever.

When I met my husband, I thought - wow, what a tall and handsome man.

While I knit this scarf, I am wondering if it would not be just a little faster to finish this if he were not so tall! ;)

I am making all sorts of mistakes in this project, but I press on without taking stitches out. If you want to see the 'real' version of this scarf, I recommend you stop over at my friend Sharon's blog - Knits are for Kids. Her project really looks great. It almost inspires me to rip out my mistakes. Only almost though.

She found this cool scarf pattern and I started it because I wanted to be just like her.

The quilt in the background is a recent antique that I picked up from Etsy. The seller has a couple other cute quilts for sale right now - check them out.

Modern House Applique BOM

This Sunday, I'm teaching the Applique Block of the Month at A Verb for Keeping Warm.

Come on and join us if you live in Northern California, it is going to be so super fun.

The theme for our class is modern homes and the block this month is based on a home designed by Joseph Eichler, a well known modern architect.

A few of my quilt group friends live in his homes and they are beautiful and filled with light inside. Hopefully I'm doing this one justice by the quilt block.

A couple of notes for you on goodies I picked up at Stitches West last weekend (in case you ever knit):

Imagiknit: Very interesting yarn booth that was there at the yarn show. I could not help but get a little bit of their Madeline Tosh yarn (lace weight) and also some Malibrigo yarn (again in lace weight).

Sincere Sheep: My friend owns this shop and dyes some beautiful yarns and fibers with natural dyes. I got some goodies to try and make socks.

Feeling Ewe: (link is email address only) What a cute name! I could not resist their superfine Merino and cashmere blend. I got some to play around with that was a natural white color.

Becoming Art: The fiber that I got in this booth was wildly beautiful and is part cashmere again. I am a sucker for it right now.


Finally, and nothing to do with Stitches West...

Have you seen this fabric with Unicorn Meat chart on it? Odd, right? I am attracted to it somehow, don't ask me why.

Stitches West 2011

I visited Stitches West this weekend with my friend (and knitting genius) Marianne. It's a HUGE knitting convention in San Jose, CA and not far from where I live.

With something greater than 1000 shopping booths, it was amazing, and overwhelming at the same time.

Since I have learned to spin yarn recently, I was on the look out for cool fibers and also fun tools. A bit of yarn found its way into my shopping bags as well even though I was not really there to buy yarn.

The one thing that I found at the show that I COVETED but of course didn't buy because it was on the expensive side:

Horse and cart scissors from the Bagsmith booth.

They almost killed me with their beauty. I can see them sitting next to me (in my dreams!) while I hand quilt all my finished quilt tops. If you have not used their scissors before, please do put them on your list to check out. I find them to be the very best around for applique.

I'll have to write another post with links to what I did end up buying since you may enjoy knowing about it.

Old School: Hand Quilting

I've been working on hand quilting this very small antique (circa 1890's) quilt top for my mom. It's been a lot of fun and isn't in terrible shape for it's age.

I am not sure if I will actually finish it before her visit here. I am thinking at this point that I won't make it, but we'll see...

This morning we are heading out to do some photography and for a family adventure in San Francisco. It's a bit of a drive for us, but it's worth it.

We're going retro with our photography and shooting film. My son saw my husband loading up a camera and organizing film canisters and asked, "What's film, Daddy?"

Wow, am I really that old? Guess so! Here's to some good old school fun.

Quilts Japan #138

If you have not grabbed a copy of Quilts Japan issue 1, 2011, vol #138....maybe now is the time.

The pages are full of traditional brightly colored quilts, similar to that on the cover, and they are all really detailed (of course) and beautiful.

The best part of this issue is that it includes the Quilts Japan 2011 calendar.

This calendar has inspirational quilts on every page. It's really a nice one.

Patchwork Quilt Tsushin also has their first volume out for the year and for some reason the quilts in the photos are not speaking to me. I think it's a personal taste thing, but anyhow, the Quilts Japan calendar is not to be missed.

I got some hand quilting done yesterday when my quilt group came over to visit, so I'm feeling like progress is being made there - woo hoo!


Does quilting and Superbowl mix? Hm....

Handspun Leg Warmers for a 2 yr old Ballerina

I finished a pair of leg warmers in only a couple of evenings for my sister's little girl. She is a tiny ballerina, with teenie tiny legs, so hopefully these will be to her taste.

I road tested them on my 2 yr old son, and I'm not sure he's a fan. Not sure he'd make much of a ballerina either in fact.

Couple more photos of them over on ravelry.

This weekend is a catch up one but I am spending it all with my family so it doesn't get better than that.

I saw this automatic lego sorter online and though, gee, the reason parents give kids legos is to entertain them for as long as possible.

Are they nuts creating a product that speeds up the lego building process? I need to have a chat with the inventor of this. They must not be an actual parent.

Modern Quilt Blocks and reminder to check out Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival

Today we kicked off our first applique block of the month at A Verb for Keeping Warm up in Oakland.

I had it in my mind to make a modern house quilt for some time now, and it turns out that the folks who joined the class are super into architecture and design so it was a very cool fit.

Students made some awesome blocks, very very modern. My block is pictured above. I used some of my favorite Japanese Taupe fabrics in more or less a muted colorway.

In case you don't know about the Great Quilt Festival at the Tokyo Dome....you should by now. It is my dream to attend it in person. Every year I say, "I AM GOING THIS YEAR!!"

Alas, I did not get to go in person this year, but I have high hopes that with some potty training for our little one, we might be easier travelers next year.

Anyhow, worry not my friends.

There are generous photographers/bloggers out there that attend the show pretty much every year, and some of them take incredible photos.

Jen of Moving Hands blog has already posted a lot of beautiful photos. Thank you, and well done!

If you know of more photos, please feel free to comment here with links. I'll look at every photo. Maybe even look twice.

Hand Applique Class - Modern Houses

I'm almost done with the modern applique block I designed for my upcoming hand applique class.

We are doing a block of the month, and the class is taking place in Oakland, California at A Verb for Keeping Warm.

We're meeting next Sunday, January 23, 2010 in the afternoon. Join our class if you have time.

I'm going to design a quilt block with the theme of modern homes...one a month, during the year. The colors I'm using for fabrics are all Japanese taupe fabrics.

Let me know if you have been working on any projects using Japanese taupe fabrics, I would love to see them.