I love the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show and the week of Quilter's Affair classes that precede it.  This was my 20th consecutive year!  The quilts and the people never fail to inspire.

We're only gone six nights and yet the whole experience seems to take up way more time than that.  First there's the week before we leave which includes last minute shopping, packing up and since we rented a house this year, some food planning.  The week at Sisters is always full of classes, shopping, and seeing old friends.  This year, Barb and I added a day to goof around and float down the Deschutes River in inner tubes. We always go to bed too late and get up too early.

The week after we get home is recovery week.  In addition to getting my sewing stuff from the trip put away, I  also decided to move some furniture around to make the space more efficient.  I do like the new arrangement but the jury is still out on whether it's actually more efficient.

This week has been a sewing week.  I'm working on a new pattern and  making two quilts from it at the same time. It's an interesting way to work, but seems to go very slowly.

The Quilt Show had fabulous quilts, as always and next week I'll share a few.  This week I have to show you the Quilt Show Dogs.  The Sunday before the show, the students for Quilter's Affair start showing up.  There are a few hundred of us and it makes an impression on the Central Oregon town of Sisters, population 2000.  It sits between the Cascade Mountains to the west and the high desert to  the east.  Check out this beautiful scenery.

On show day, about 10,000 people descend on Sisters.  They come in cars, on buses and in RV's of every description.  In addition to the quilts hanging all over town, there's food and drink and music and dogs.  (One year there was a guy with a big snake, but that's a whole different story.)  The highway traffic is detoured around the town so that we can do this:

Since quilts and dogs are two of my favorite things, I take pictures of both.

This guy was all business, as terriers tend to be.  Look at that focus!

We saw more poodles this year than any other breed.  They're less interested in quilts than they are in collecting fans.

Some were just chill in'.

Others were on the hunt.  Or just checking for a dropped cookie.

I thought at first that he was checking out his own reflection.  But on second thought, he was just hoping to drop in for a cup of coffee and a bit to eat.

This big sweetheart is local.  Came out of the store to check the crowd and then returned to the cool air.

"Can we go over there?  Please, please, please?"

Some came with their own buddies.

These guys were just taking it all in.

And then there's this.

This open field toward the outskirts of town is home to ground squirrels.  This one was pretty interested in all the goings on in his town.   They're so cute when they aren't burrowing under my flower beds.



Next week, I'll show some of our favorite quilts from the show.  Until then, enjoy summer!

Candy

Random Thoughts on my New Day Off

I'm having a sweet morning at home.  Not working Wednesdays for a while and not scheduling anything for those days this summer.  It's all quilts all day.  I love the peace and quiet.  The only noise is Toby barking his brains out at everyone who walks by.  He's very smart; it takes a long time to bark his brains out.  Ella likes to sit quietly and wait for Toby to get scolded.  She's just that kind of baby sister.

For some reason, and I'm assuming it's mostly because I have time to notice today, everything I see inspires me to create a quilt:  the cover of a computer magazine, an ad for a coffee table book, even some older quilts of mine.

A couple of my tomato plants have blossoms on them.  It will be neat to have some homegrown tomatoes, with actual flavor sometime before September and even better if we got some early and some later.

I did something a couple of days ago that I've been putting off.  In my office closet are a bunch of tops of various ages that have been waiting to be quilted.  Some were patterns; some were my own designs. I was waiting for a two of them to tell me if they needed a border.  A couple were too big to quilt on my old machine.  One was waiting for my machine quilting skills to improve enough so I could do what I imagined.  Several were waiting until I could decide how to quilt them.  The plan is to hang them on a design wall for a couple of weeks each and hope they tell me what to do with them.

And finally, I finished a quilt top this week that's really special.  Last fall I finished a term as chairman of my quilt guild.  My friend Judy created a block pattern that seemed really fitting and over 30 members contributed to the project.  I love these girls.  The quilting will be very basic so as to show off the blocks themselves.  This Mother on a Broomstick is so tickled.

Are these blocks hilarious or what?  Thanks to all!

This blog was written with furry help.  

This is how Ella looks right before she starts whining for a treat.

Big Toby drops by for a hug and a beep on the nose.

Enjoy these sweet days of early summer.  

Road Trip

My husband, son and I took a road trip last weekend.  With everyone's busy schedule, it was necessarily short, but fun.  We drove to Port Angeles, WA and took the ferry to Victoria.  I hadn't been there since the summer of '62 and didn't actually remember much from that trip, so nearly everything was new to me. The city was gearing up for Victoria Day, which was the following Monday.  Sunday was the only full day we were there, so we packed a lot in.

We found a great little bakery for breakfast and then headed out to Craigdarroch Castle.  It has an interesting history and is worth a quick Google.  One of the things that struck me (after the fabulous woodwork) is some very cool stained glass windows.  The colors and shapes will inspire some quilt designs.

                                                      Even the transoms were cool.

The views from the castle are lovely and would be amazing on a clear day.  

For the afternoon, we drove out to Butchart Gardens.  What was once a quarry is now acres of pure beauty.   

The tulips are just finishing up and the roses have yet to bloom.  If I lived nearer, I'd be there every season  just to feed my soul a dish of beauty.

I don't think I've ever seen blue poppies before.  

Now I have a couple million ideas buzzing around in my head.

We had dinner that night at a Scottish pub.  I had my first lamb burger.   It had a sauce on it that had a bit of a kick.   Now THAT's tasty!

The day was full of inspiration for both quilt studio and kitchen.

We finished two new patterns before leaving on the trip and both will be available on the website within the next week.

Here's Spring Sampler -

And In Full Bloom -

Plan for summer:

Worry less.  Quilt more.

Candy

Some Weeks are Like That

My dance card is officially full.  Between an extra day at work, cleaning up after dogs who think new topsoil is for playing in and a couple of patterns needing to be written, it's been one of those weeks.  This is not to say that no quilting activities have happened.  It's just that not enough have happened to please me.

Life has a way of distracting me.  From mopping the kitchen to grocery shopping, planting a few flowers, and adding a quart of oil to my car, it's always something.  I used to think I could somehow actually finish all the real-life chores and just quilt.  Apparently that's not how life really works.  The need for clean clothes and a reasonably nutritious dinner just never goes away.

Now that we have at least a bit of sunshine every day, I find myself needing to clean and simplify.  I made a list of my UFO's to organize and prioritize.  I think I can confidently say that there are a lot.  Not only that, but some neatness needs to happen in the studio.

When I'm in the throes of designing or making a quilt,  I'm not focused on putting stuff away.  At some point,  the mess is just distracting, so the aim is to clean up between projects.  The problem is that one project flows into the next and taking the time to tidy up gets procrastinated away.  Finally, I realize that I'm spending way too much time looking for things and it's time to create a neatness.

I would show before and after pictures, but it will be more efficient (and certainly less embarrassing) to just dig in.  I will ignore the dirty dog footprints on the kitchen floor, throw in a load of laundry and make my workspace beautiful again!

Wish me luck.  I'm gonna need it.

Candy

New and Springlike

Spring has been teasing us here with a few days of sun followed by a bunch of rain.  The good news is that trees are leafing and early flowers are blooming.  The weekend promises to  be warm and sunny and I predict the air will be filled with the roar of power washers, the official sound of spring here in the Northwest.  


Spring in the studio has been in full swing for some time. I'm working on a couple of patterns, starting with a bi flower.  "In Full Bloom" rattled around in my head for a couple of months this winter.  Last month I decided to let it out and drew this flower.

Since I wanted it to be finished while I'm still middle-aged, I decided it needed to be fused.
I didn't even consider hand appliqué, which I actually enjoy, because even if the heart says, "yes, yes,yes,"  the fingers say, "forget about it."  


Then it's time to meet with my fabric stash.  Fabrics often give me good guidance when I'm trying to decide on color.  This batik really spoke to the daisy-like design, so that's where I started.  

The background needed to be fairly subtle with being boring.  So I gathered up light aquas to mix up and create interest without fighting with the flower.

Now it was time for the flower petals.  I started with the oranges of the daisy batik flowers and added both lighter and darker values, keeping in mind that some of the petals would be in direct sun and others in shadow.

And then, of course, some brown for the center and greens or the leaves and stem.  


Fusible web can be an interesting challenge.  For a long time I used light Steam-a-Seam for projects like this that would ultimately be sewn and/or quilted over.  From that point of view, Steam-a-Seam Lite was a really good fit.  The problem with it is that once pieces of web are cut, the glue tends to fall off of the paper.  For me, this was really annoying and for new fusers, it's incredibly frustrating.  For the past few months, I've been using Pellon Wonder-Under.  The fused pieces still have a soft hand and are easy to sew on and the glue stays with the paper until you pull it off.


With the original drawing under my Applique Pressing Sheet, I started with the petals on the underneath and built up to the top.  

Because you can fuse as you go, it's easy to stay on track and the finished flower can be moved to the background piece as a single unit.  I added leaves and stem and fused it all to the background at once.  


Then I added the borders cut from the daisy fabric and quilted to create definition within the  petals.  To get additional shadows and highlights, I used acrylic paint thinned with a little water.  

Here are a couple of closeups to show quilting and paint.  

Now I'm just waiting for nature to catch up with my vision of summer.  The pattern should be up on the website in a couple of weeks.  It seems that the boss sort of likes me to show up at my day job so creating the pattern takes a bit longer than I'd like.  

My new goal is to blog more often.  Now that I've gotten to know my new computer (who apparently likes to be referred to as "Big Mac") blogging is SO much easier.  I also comment from time to time on my Facebook page - Mother on a Broomstick Designs.  Please visit and "Like" us.  I'm still kind of struggling with the new look of the page; I'll figure it out eventually.

Happy Quilting

Candy