I’m blogging this week from the beautiful town of Sisters, Oregon, a very special place for me. I have been to quilting workshops here, taught here during Quilt Show week, hiked here, and spent time with friends here. Sisters is surrounded by mountains, clear blue skies and tall, tall pine trees. The sound of the wind blowing through the trees reminds me of my childhood in South Carolina; it’s a happy sound.
Susan and I drove up yesterday and arrived at Jennifer’s house around 1:30. We started our vacation by attending a yoga class and getting totally blissed out and ready to embrace the week. The rest of the day was spent eating and knitting and watching the Tour de France. We took a walk after a wonderful dinner of wild trout cooked expertly by Susan, our resident chef for the week. Our local buddy Sue stopped in for a glass of wine and a chat and brought this adorable gnome that she had made.
Silly Susan
Sitting outside on Jennifer’s deck is a wonderful thing. Blissful. Her house backs up to Wychus Creek and the sound of the babbling water is heavenly.
I haven’t seen any deer yet but I’m sure I will. I plan to spend several hours lounging in this hammock soaking up the sights and sounds. Ahhhh……. I’m loving it.
Posted in Quilting, Trips |
My bff Kristy was here for five days and we had tons of fun. We ate out, did some shopping, knitting and hiking. We also managed to do a lot of sewing. The last time Kristy was here, we sewed a new quilt for her family room wall. It looked great when she got it home and hung.
This visit we worked on a new quilt for Rick and I’s bed. The quilt that is on our bed now is at least 15 years old, so I’ve been wanting to make a new one. I started this quilt last year and had all the blocks done. There are 324 blocks in the quilt and the finished size is 102 x 102 so we had to sew it together in four quadrants. We managed to get all the blocks sewn as well as get the borders on and the back pieced. I must say, it was a lot of sewing. It took us four days to get everything done, and I am very happy with how it turned out.
Kristy wanted to learn how to make one of the clothesline baskets that I’ve posted about recently. She decided on a fruit basket for her kitchen counter and chose bright red to go with the red sofa and quilt. It turned out great and I think she’s hooked.
Just imagine what kind of trouble we could get into if we lived close to each other! I love my bff, we always have the best time.
I said I would post more pictures from the Odessa trip and here they are, finally. My friend Kristy has been here for five days and we’ve been really busy. Next post will be the results of our industriousness, but first, here are the other projects from Odessa.
The second project in the value workshop is a basket weave quilt. The aim is to have a light, medium and a dark that will give the finished piece a feeling of dimension. This hinges on getting enough contrast between said light, medium, and dark.
The third project from the value workshop is the hourglass blocks. Here we are looking for a light, a medium and a dark that we sew into strip sets and then cut into 90 degree triangles. The fun is in arranging them and seeing what happens. You can get all sorts of different movement and emphasis depending on how you arrange the blocks. I love this exercise. Being the third exercise of the day, the students are getting tired by this point! We really work hard in this workshop.
And to finish off this post, one of the students had taken my yin yang class years ago and brought in her finished quilt. It was just fabulous. I love seeing the results of classes. It’s such a joy.
This past weekend I drove out to Odessa, Washington to give the Value lecture to the Odessa Quilt Club and to teach the Value in Action workshop. I had a wonderful time with my hostess and with the students.
But first I have to say what an incredible landscape is out there. The land opens up and becomes so vast. Coming from the forests here in Portland, I found it beautiful, although somewhat unnerving. Just miles and miles of wheat as far as you could see. After getting off the freeway, I drove about 50 miles and only saw about 8 cars. And no cell service.
The value workshop was a lot of fun. I really enjoy teaching this class because the students get a lot out of it and leave with some good information to use in their future quilts. One of the exercises that we do is “trip around the world.”
These two pictures show Lise’s project with several different arrangements of the fabrics.
This is such a good visual on how a project changes depending on where you place your lights and darks.
Here are a couple of other projects from the class.
I’ll work on getting up some pictures of the other two projects. I was very pleased with what all the students accomplished. I really work them hard in this class and they rose to the challenge!
I’ve really been enjoying making baskets; it’s so much fun. I made this orange one for Vivienne for her birthday. My intention was for this one to mostly be decorative so I gave it a base and it turned out kind of urn-like.
That’s one of Viv’s quilts in the background and it sure looks great with the basket.
My friend Anne just finished a remodel of her kitchen and the main color in there is red. So I made her a fruit basket. It’s pretty simple so I added the knotted handles and the buttons for a little something extra.
It’s fun, it uses up a lot of fabric so I’m just looking for excuses to make some more. Anyone?!
