It’s been pretty busy at my house lately but done or not I’ve dyed all the fabric, rinsed and washed it, and ironed it – I have no choice I’m on a plane to California right now. I believe I dyed over 100 yards in the last couple weeks – that’s a lot of ironing!!!

Actually since I really enjoy the process of creating, one of my favorite parts of hand dying is ironing. Being a self-described Serendipity Dyer, I have an idea what design the folding technique I use will result in but after adding many colors of dye simply based on my memory of the color wheel, once the colors all mingle and the dye water is a black shade from all of my magic potion mixing, I’m never sure what I’ll get.

Rinsing is the first surprise, but when the fabric is wet the dyes appear strong and vibrant, and I know washing dulls this down. Out of the dryer, I struggle to unravel a spaghetti mess of twisted and faded fabric (some of the pieces I dye are over 4 yards long). Spritzing the fabric with water both, tests color fastness and aids in removing the wrinkles – ironing is the grand unavailing. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed ironing more! Hopefully quilter’s at Road to California will enjoy them just as much as I do by giving them a good home, then again it wouldn’t be too bad if a couple pieces stayed to live at my house. 😉

My family requires submittal of a Christmas Wish List no later than Thanksgiving night dessert. This actually works out well, Black Friday shopping is an option (not my cup of tea), plenty of time for internet shipping, and everyone is much less likely to have to deal with returns later.

My list screams Quilt GEEK every year – How do I define Quilt Geek in regards to Christmas presents?

I primarily request Quilt related books or videos for presents. This wouldn’t be bad until you discover, for someone out there pushing the boundaries of what is a quilt, I enjoy reading the history of quilts and women’s history as it all is so amazingly intertwined.  Some of the books that top my list this year include:

• Textiles in America 1650-1870, Florence M Montgomery – one of the previous books I read noted a 300% mark up on textiles from Europe in the 1700’s and went on to cover some of the highlights of how textile printing developed in America which obviously impacted the styles of quilts being created by the different classes of people

http://www.amazon.com/Textiles-America-1650-1870-Florence-Montgomery/dp/039373224X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449770425&sr=1-2&keywords=the+copp+family+textile

• Women’s Education in the United States 1780-1840, Margaret A Nash – women’s education was originally steeped in needle work skills, in fact it was believed that women didn’t have the constitution for the four R’s education but as this myth was slowly dismissed needles skills in education remained but with less emphasis, this also impacted quilting styles

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1403969388?colid=2ZE9H6M0DKSJ1&coliid=INZZZMB0WHDG5&ref_=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_ttl

• Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government (Jeffersonian America), Catherine Allgor – women’s behind closed door role in politics is just interesting

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081392118X?colid=2ZE9H6M0DKSJ1&coliid=ICX488BPW05MQ&ref_=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl

I know, not your typical rotary cutter or quilt shop gift certificate, that said, it does make me wonder what’s on other Quilter’s wish lists.

P.S. Sorry for the break in posting, my puppies have been sick lately.

I’m off to North Granby, CT tomorrow for Ginny’s 28^th Annual Fall Quilt Happening.  She has three of these events a year which include:

• A lecture
• Shopping – fabric, patterns & kits, vintage & new quilts, tops and blocks, soap, hot pads, jams and jellies
• Kitchen Shop – breads, soups, entrees, pies & other goodies (Dave’s favorite that I’m not allowed to come home without – chocolate chip cookies J)
• http://www.lostacres.com/ginnys_quilts.htm

The lecture this time is Generations of Stitches and Memories to Share.

Doors open for shopping at 9 am, lecture starts at 10:30, noon on is more shopping and complimentary light lunch food.

I’m an Orphan Block collector so I love searching the table of blocks to add to my collection!  My favorite orphans I’ve deemed “Ugly Orphans in Need Lovin’ ” but I do buy pretty orphans also.  Yes, I like to torture myself by buying other people’s UFO’s (unfinished objects) LOL.  Sometimes the ugly ones will surprise you – see my Gallery page for one of the quilts I’ve made from an Ugly Orphan – the center block was very crooked and not the most striking colors but it dates to the 1830’s (old is fun!!).

Hope you can join us, these events tend to be three generational for me – we: my Mom (Mumzy), my Aunt, and my Grandmother, we try not to miss any of Ginny’s Quilt Happenings!!

Oh yah – this is a free event, thanks Ginny!!

Flights are booked and we’re ready for, well not quite the Yellow Brick Road, how about the

Road to California Quilt Show 2016 http://road2ca.com/!!!  – YEAH!

Yup, Jennifer O’Brien of SewCraft Inc.  https://www.sew-craft.com/ and I are off to Road to California to be vendors for the third year in a row!  We always have a great time meeting all the quilters,

last year over 39,000 quilters attended from all over the world.

Great people, amazing quilts, classes and vendors – a quilter’s paradise!!

Jennifer brings Spray and Fix products like 505 and 404 spray, her fabric paints and stencil lines, and of course her quick quilt rulers like the EZ Quilting ruler from Simplicity – the Twinkle Star ruler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9KsV-ULln4 just to list a few of her products.  I bring my fabrics, hand painted cheese cloth, pincushions and other treasures.

The days at the Show are always super busy but we’ve found some great restaurants to relax at in the evening.   We always have what I’d describe as gleefully exhausting time.

So I was up bright and early last Saturday, off to set up our booth at Annual Gathering. Friendship Quilters of Windsor found a great venue with nice lighting and room for all!  We were set up across from Ami Simms booth http://www.amisimms.com/, speaker for the day, which meant we had ring side seats to her lectures.

There were lots of attendees, the guild offered a quilt raffle, quilted sweatshirt raffle, a silent auction with some great items, and plenty of complimentary food! – YUM 🙂 Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves especially Ami’s lectures, if you were there for the first one,

“HOW NOT TO MAKE A PRIZE WINNING QUILT”

then you definitely wanted to stay for the second

“LIVING WITH QUILTS: A SURVIVAL GUIDE”.

This was my third time attending an Ami lecture and she gets better every time! Ami had everyone rolling in the aisles, her down to earth quilting humor and slides assured us that we were not fabric hoarders, nope we weren’t – Ami provided photographic proof that people find the most unusual places to stash their stash, and that we all start somewhere and eventually our skills improve – all with a lovely bit of humor.  The room was full of laughter and isn’t laughter great, I think it’s like a little break from reality.

I presented a demo on Fusing Basics. It was well attended with lots of quilters asking lots of questions – yeah!  I had to beg forgiveness at the demo after starting early, it was only a couple minutes so I started again. Mumzy brought vintage lace and feed sacks to sell and I brought hand dyed fabrics and pincushions, the tables had a multitude of other items too.  We had great fun visiting with everyone who stopped by the booth – what a great day –  good friends, good quilting stories, and plenty of laughter!!!

Thanks Friendship Quilters of Windsor, great job!!

Off to Annual Gathering http://ghqg.org/events/annual-gathering.html in the weeee hours of the morning tomorrow, doors open at 8 a.m. so you can imagine the time vendors get to start setting up.  I’m definitely looking forwarding to visiting with everyone with my hand dyed fabric, beads, Angelina, scarf kits, my Mom’s feed sacks and all the other items we bring along.

Ami Simms is the speaker and I can comment from experience, I been to her lectures twice before – SHE is FUNNY and FABULOUS!!!  http://www.amisimms.com/   I can’t wait for her lectures tomorrow on

• How Not to Make a Prize Winning Quilt (at 9am) and
• Living With Quilts: A Survival Guide

Not a national speaker or anything, I will be giving a demo on The Basics of Fusing. I picked this topic because at the summer GHQG Quilt Show, I was amazed how many people asked about fusing in my booth once they saw my sample for my new line of landscape hand-dyes.  Hopefully a few people will attend and maybe learn something new 😉

There are a couple raffles, I donated a hand-dye and pincushion for one of them and there serving lunch and breakfast – hopefully I’ll see you there, make sure to stop by and say Hi!!!

My Mom, Aunt and I went to the New England Quilt Museum last Saturday to see the Caryl Bryer Fallert Exhibit. The ride was beautiful as the trees have moved into high gear for their fall change of color. There was lots of expectant conversation surrounding both the Exhibit and the Mass Shop Hop next weekend.

I’ve admired Caryl Bryer Fallert for a long time. I discovered one of her patterns in a book that was comprised of multiple designers. Although the instructions were a little hard to follow, I not only figured out the pattern but went on to teach it as a class a few times. The classes bought an individual pattern on her website but it was made to a different larger dimensions. I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see her quilts live and in person, especially a perspective from her first quilt to her latest.

When we walked up the stairs to the exhibit, the initial color impact was breath taking. Corona II, a favorite of mine, was directly across from the stairs and on the left wall was Birds of a Different Color, I couldn’t decide which one to drool over first. There was a bench across from Birds of a Different Color so I just sat and took them both in.

What a great show, there were quilts that seemed like old friends I had admired so often in books, but to see them in person was a whole new perspective. Ms. Fallert’s quilting designs that travel out into the borders, the multitude of thread colors used in a single quilt, the hand dyed fabrics all brought such uniqueness to her quilts.

It was all so inspiring – her unique piecing method, the hand dyes got me to consider additional options for my dyeing techniques, and the quilting – there’s so much to consider there:

• Although I often use multiple threads in one quilt, she stuck to solids (where I tend to use verrigateds) so she would have 10 times more thread changes than I might have previously considered
• She let the designs, like a quilted feather, carry out into and run off of the border
• Created ghost images (I have quilted an edge to edge twice but that’s not even close)
• Feathers that resemble realistic feathers

I could go on and on, I took lots of pictures (no flash is a requirement) which they advised were OK to post to a blog – so I’m sharing a few. Hopefully you can make it to the show, to see her first quilt with all the others makes it all feel possible.

So, I somehow trashed my Blog – the software didn’t ask, if I was sure after I hit the button by accident, if I REALLY wanted to trash it  🙁

I just figured out how to fix it on my own (yeahh!!!  😉  )  but it took a few days – apologies for my temporary disappearance.