Let's go to a quilt show!

Isn't this a lovely quilt? It's the opportunity quilt for the 2008 "Golden Threads" Quilt Show in Sutter Creek, California. It's based on my pattern "Bittersweet" and I think they did an amazing job, don't you?




"Golden Threads" is being presented by the Mother Lode Quilters Guild on June 28 and June 29 at the Sutter Creek Auditorium and Community Center.


There will be quilts, wearable art, a guild challenge and vendors--what's a quilt show without a bit of shopping?

Pam and I will both be there in the Late Bloomer Quilts booth for the entire weekend--we're really looking forward to it as we both love Sutter Creek--and it would be great to see you there!


Here's where to go for more info...

New friend

Way back when the kids were very young, there was a scrub jay who would come into the yard, fly right onto my hand, and take raw peanuts from me. He (she? only another scrub jay knows for sure) became so tame he'd even sit on my hand and stay awhile. The kids really enjoyed feeding him as well. My youngest son, who was around 4 years old at the time named him "G Bird". I'm not entirely sure why, but the jay's yell does sound a bit like the letter G.



So a few days ago I heard the familiar scream and went directly to the grocery store for some raw peanuts.
We have a new G Bird! 2 days later he is taking peanuts from my hand...you'll have to take my word for it since he's not too keen on the addition of a camera to our routine. It's just as much fun as the last time, except that this G Bird is a really early riser and starts his yelling, outside my bedroom window, at about 5 a.m. He knows when I'm down in the kitchen and even knows when I'm in my studio (and honest--I'm not that loud!) which is at the opposite end of the house, and he'll yell at me wherever he finds me.

Perhaps I'll have to include a scrub jay in a future quilt...for now, it's more crows.
This time with Alex Anderson's new "Never Enough Romance" fabric. Gotta love that red and white.
And birds.

A great way to start your day!

Never underestimate the importance of a good breakfast. MANY MANY many thanks to Monica for being so stinkin' clever and sending me this!


Another great way to start a day? With some quilting, of course! The new patterns are now on the website for you to enjoy, and here's one of them: Cherry Preserves. All fabrics are by LakeHouse Dry Goods.


The bright one was fun, but my heart belongs to pastels. And to Melvin, of course!


UPDATE: Who has the higher IQ...Melvin or the Late Bloomer? Good question! Of all the new patterns, there are 2 that haven't made it to the website yet. And wouldn't you know "Cherry Preserves" is one of them! Give me a day or two and it will be up there as well. Thanks to Robin for letting me know!


UPDATE AGAIN! Everything really is now on the website. Honest!

Astoria

Have to admit, Astoria is a lovely place. I personally prefer a little more blue sky in my days, but could this view be any prettier?


OK, possibly it's nicer from this angle.


Found this growing along the edge of a parking lot...


Here's Pam documenting the view from our hotel room.
It was great to live like little trolls under our bridge for a day or two.


And as Pam has already mentioned, Astoria is home to Pig 'n Pancake. Where the slogan is that EVERYBODY loves Pig 'n Pancake.


And what's not to love? Strawberries...whipped cream...souvenirs!



Then it was off to Long Beach, Washington...home of Anna Lena's Quilt Shop.


Here's darn close to the only shot I got of Monica...she was our ever so capable driver.

First we visited Karen Snyder. Who I have to say has THE BEST studio in the entire world. I'd think there would be no reason for her to ever be anyplace else, but I've also seen her house. (Insert sigh of delight here).



Here's Karen taking a Very Important Phone Call. With her aqua phone, natch.
Everything is aqua or orange, just the way she likes it.



Karen's mighty proud of her coordinated desk drawer. As well she should be!



So we all headed over to Karen's wonderful shop, Anna Lena's.
Where they take their store hours very seriously.


I wasn't any better than Pam at getting pics of the shop. Too busy shopping, I guess.
Had to pick up a copy of Karen's latest book--and it's wonderful. Quilts AND recipes.





Here's my loot back at home...had to get that darling greeting card framed asap.



So then we had a terrific time over at Monica's...her studio is incredible and I was able to meet the infamous Mimi myself! She actually helped me with an emergency mending task but somehow I don't have pics of that. Trust me--the little gal is amazing.

All in all it couldn't have been a better trip--quilts, quilting, and all the wonderful people who go along with it!

Gotta finish this up!

So Pam thinks her photos are lame? Well, just wait!

After Market ended we had a bit more time to explore. Somehow I'd never heard of Monticello...but I can now honestly say that my biggest fantasy would be to go there again. With an enormous trailer.
Un-freaking-believable.
But naturally the car was already beyond jam packed, so I had to settle for goodies that fit into the small and/or very flat category.




Which meant that coming home with a garden shed was completely out of the question.

Gotta love old seed packets...



Could not pass up this collage piece...



This has become my lucky necklace--I'm convinced that having it on is the reason I only had to spend 2 hours at jury duty on Monday.



Next up--Astoria! Home of MONICA!! And then seriously. I really need to get back home.

More market pretties

Gotta keep moving--haven't even discussed the most amazing antique store EVER...or more food, or the Monica-visit...so let's keep going!

There are some booths at Market that are just so lovely you have to keep going back to them. And stare into them seemingly for hours. Tanya's booth was total heaven for me this time around. I took pictures with my camera. I took pictures with my phone. I TOTALLY STALKED THAT BOOTH.
I saw Tanya a couple of times, but I don't think it was ever in her booth. Which confused me. How could she leave it????

Don't get me wrong. You could find worse places to be than at the Late Bloomer booth. From my preferred seating (in the back corner--where I'm happiest) I could look at Pam's new bags. She has 2 new ones--a quilted bag which uses charm squares and I especially love the tote bag. Anything with ruffled goodness, you know. I made several of them and that's what I love the most--she always designs bags that 3-D challenged people such as myself can easily make.

Hard to decide which of those totes I like the best. I love gingham...and diagonal print gingham especially. That particular piece, in case you don't recognize it, is by our friends the Urban Chiks! Pam and I can always count on them.

That bag is now living in Norway. How cool is that! Literally, I'm sure.

OK, next up? Antiques. And food. And stuff.

A People Post!

I have to keep going on this...there's so much more to share and there's POST Market stuff to get to as well!

One of the great things about Market is seeing people you only get to see twice a year...and the fun of meeting new people to look for next time.



One of my new patterns, "Winter Charms", uses the "Winter" fabric line by Minick and Simpson for Moda. How exciting to have Laurie Simpson come into the booth and admire it! I just love their fabrics.



Jackie Clark stopped by...she didn't have a booth this time so Pam and I will have to wait for Houston to swoon over her lovely stuff. She's a wonderful, warm person and her fabrics and patterns are all so beautiful.



Speaking of favorite gals going without a booth this time...Tammy Tadd and Sherry! We got to have a delicious dinner with them (with MANY funny stories) and Tammy brought us such lovely goodies, which will have to be covered in another post--they're still buried up in the studio.



Cyndi Walker of Stitch Studios did have a booth...and a wonderful new book! It's called Spotlight on Scraps and it's full of awesomely darling projects. Nothing like giving her a little pressure. "SIGN MY BOOK WITH SOMETHING HEARTFELT WHILE I STAND HERE AND WAIT".



I really hate to post this next pic, but Kay is one of my favorites! She designs the most DARLING garments--and those fancy jackets are all based on a sweatshirt. She's amazingly talented and so super sweet...but look at that picture. My freaking hand is about as big as her head.



Just tip your head to the side and admire those cute outfits!

Still more to come--please bear with me!

Near brush with fame

So Pam and I are leaving Market...and we see that our bridge is closed. You know, OUR bridge. The one that leads us to the only way we know back to our hotel.



As has been mentioned before, "Pam" is "map" spelled backwards and once again I was grateful that she was doing the driving.



We make it back to our street, and we see something going on. Something political.What could it be? Every side street was blocked with a motorcycle officer...


Once at the hotel, we didn't feel it would be prudent to double park right in front of one of the aforementioned officers, so I convinced Pam that it would be best to loop back around and try to figure out what was going on.



For some reason it didn't matter who the politician was, it was exciting to be so close to an official motorcade. At least I felt that way. Pam was a little more concerned about getting us safely back to our hotel.



Turns out it was an Obama event, so once back to the room I celebrated my new feeling of Obama-mania with a 100 calorie Snowpuff.



We found out the next morning that Bill and Chelsea had spent the night in our hotel. I'll assume the a/c worked for them (it was a problem a lot of folks had) and I bet their tvs were visible from their beds (ours jutted out oddly into the middle of the room.) However, I'm sure if they had brought their own snacks, they couldn't have been more tastefully arranged by housekeeping than ours were.

More!

Good grief, I've got to get caught up...Pam's already in Oregon!

We stopped for gas in Springfield and have to say, that whole you-can't-pump-your-own-gas thing they've got going is pretty nice.
Oregon also really likes their one way streets, which had us grumbling a bit, but that's also how we found Ruthie B's!



Sorry for the slanted pic, but Pam was On the Move--probably afraid I'd leap out of the moving car to run in and buy more stuff.



It's a challenge to only buy tiny things--and yeah, the pink basket wasn't exactly small, but looked so pretty in the booth filled with yellow snapdragons.



And the vintage basket I got held most of my breakable buys, so that made it practical, right?

More to come--I haven't even gotten to Portland yet!