Saturday, May 19, 2012

Week 4 of 6 on the CA Adventure

Although in my rushing around at home, I forgot to print the label for the commission quilt....alas you can buy these materials at retail prices wherever (just about!) But, I did save the binding for California since the domestic sewing machine I brought along with me has a great walking foot that assists with the binding so nicely. Photos of this quilt can be found on my posting last week.

On Monday, after dropping Duncan at work, I took off north of town to visit a couple of different friends. One the mother of a high school classmate of mine who had just gotten a new sewing machine. How fun was that to talk with her about some quilting basics since she says she'd like to try to make a quilt now with her new machine. The other friend was wishing for some strategy advice on creating a company, I'm always up for that! Good times!! I even got paid in cookies! ;-) Her FB page is www.facebook.com/sweetdreamsbysue. These samples she did up real quick for me don't tell the whole story....but I personally appreciated them very much. One thing is for sure, Sue wants the cookies to be special for your specific occassion.




The accomodations that we have graciously been blessed with are technically challenged, so the rabbit ears that convert the digital signals don't get ABC. Well, if you know what is on Monday night's on ABC, this is not a good situation since the Bachelorette season premiere was this week. Fortunately, I have friends in town with cable and we were able to convince them to let us crash at their place for a couple of hours ...much later than anticipated, but none the less with popcorn taboot! Thank you Lollie!

Also, Duncan told me that tomorrow (Tuesday) we'll be going to the beach! WHOO HOO....I hadn't had a chance to walk on the beach when we had gone to the coast the first weekend, so this would be great to work on those heels!! Yes, those are quilt magazines in the lower left corner as I enjoyed the sunshine and sand at Grover Beach (south end of Pismo)!

Here is Duncan's handywork for the day:

After getting our car load of students back to the school, Duncan and I enjoyed a night out of Thai food.

I got a few WIP projects done (posted last week) and on Thursday went to the local quilt guild's meeting. The guest was one of their own local quilter's, Cindy Seitz-Krug, who has had many quilts in the big shows, including Houston, MQS and AQS locations and won ribbons there too! She quilts on a domestic machine and gave tips on what she has found to work well then shared a trunk show of several of her quilts. Here is her website: http://quintessentialquilting.com and hopes to create a retreat location in Arizona in the next few years. My pictures won't do them justice, so check out her award winning quilts page. Her "Bluer than Blue" can be seen at the right edge of the photo below.


When googling about her, besides finding winning quilts, I also found the above photo--Apparently, she is quite a hunter too!

During Show and Share -- I thought this flag was very clever. The 50 white stars are pockets that hold the state quarters.

Nice to have a stage area like this so that all the show and share quilts are easily seen by everyone.


This weekend at Quilting Gallery is 'Wind, Earth, Fire & Water' themed showing....I entered my 'Mother Earth' quilt which was a practice Disappearing 9 patch during the first few weeks after getting my long-arm machine. I had collected Fatquarters in a selection of rainbow colors, but when making this D9P it started to feel real 'earthy', thus the name. I tried several types of quilting designs in each of the different colored shapes.


I had this milk and cookies fabric in my stash and decided this was just perfect--total comfort, right? !!


So...hop on over to QG and check out the quilts, there are some stunning ones! Vote for your top 2 through Sunday May 20.


This weekend we're enjoying the high sierra's once again. This time we went to Yosemite from the south side on Friday, seeing another grove of GIANT Sequoias at Mariposa Grove and making a quick stop at the Summer Camp (Camp Wawona) where I spent many weeks as a junior camper and one week as a teen camper. We made it just in time to take in a beautiful sunset from Tunnel View. Many photographers were camped out waiting for half dome (in the far distance center of the photo) to turn pink and everything else be in shadow. The falls is Bridalveil. We returned on Sat. morning to see beautiful El Capitan and saw several climbers on the wall. We drove through the park and I pointed out the usual haunts that our family frequented all the times we would go there when I was a child.
Then headed across Tioga Road (open really early this year due to the low snow fall). At Olmstead Point you get a view that few see. The east side of Half Dome. Many years ago my family hiked to the top of Half Dome and camped overnight. A treat that apparently people are not allowd to do any more. I really didn't think I'd see this side of Half Dome again, so it was fun to have this vantage point today.

We continued on to the eastside of the Sierra's getting to Mammoth Lakes by mid-afternoon. Neither of us have been to this area, so it was fun to explore it WITHOUT snow. It included finding this 'earthquake fault' which is really a fissure from molten lava hundreds of years ago.

This tree stump is all hallowed out. A fun photo taken looking up through the stump.
Just at the end of the road where we stayed at Cinnamon Bear Inn, was this restaurant called "Slocums". When reading about its history we discovered the name comes from Joshua Slocum (not plural). Joshua was the first round the world solo sailor. I have relatives with this same last name! Not sure if it is a direct relative, but could be related in the long lineage of the family, but fun to see it anyway. Made me Google the name and found my grandfather who ran track with Frank Wycoff (a 3 time Olympian) now part of the online world.


It will be fun to see where all we get to on Sunday! 'til next week......

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