To San Jacinto, CA 02-12-10

Oh dear, I got these pictures in reverse order, but I am too tired to start over again. Sorry!

My quilting friend Liz Williams and I did drive to San Jacinto/Hemet to the 30th Annual Valley Quilters QShow. I haven't gone every year, maybe 2/3rds, and it is always a good, small show. There are only about 150 members - I don't know how they manage to make enough quilts to have an annual show.

I don't usually do much shopping at quilt shows, it is just so easy for me to find whatever I need locally or at Back Porch Fabric in Pacific Grove. But Valley Quilters Guild has the

BEST 'boutique' at their QShow and I always find bargains and fabric I wouldn't find in a store. It is a great place to look for an old fabric that I need just a bit more to finish some project. The pieces above are mostly fat quarters at 25cents each - the two lightest colors are irregular shapes. The one in the middle is a little more than a yard in an irregular shape and I think it is rayon, but it has such a nice irregular pattern of loosely "painted" iris I know it will be just the fabric I need one of these days. The light one on the left is a soft flower print that I could use as a background piece or fussy cute for those soft roundish shapes. Total $3!

These bright prints at $1/yard are destined for philanthropic quilt backs (maybe!). The top two pieces are each 2.5 yards, the bottom one is 1.5 yards. Total: four yards for $4!
And there was a blue plastic 'box' which I opened and it turned out to be a magnetic pin holder - NOT a box and not meant to be opened. I felt I needed to buy it and take it home to re-glue it since it was only 50cents. So, my grand total was $7.50! Jackpot!

It was very hazy (maybe it was fog with all the soggy ground out there. We saw great 'lakes' of standing rainwater in different places. The region has always been grazing/agriculture, but each year there is more building, more roads, more vehicles, more.... of everything except open land. The terrain is very flat with strange hills that rise up like warts or moles and it is VERY rocky. In the distance behind the hills are the snow covered San Bernardino Mountains.

More "bumps" across some of the open range land that remains. Large new housing development to the right against the hills.

We are driving into the outskirts of Hemet on the right of this picture. See the house on the top of the hill, some people just "vant to be alone".

In the distance the snow covered mountains, closer are the funny "bump" hills and to the right is a great herd of earth movers, getting ready for more development. It has all changed dramatically in the last thirty years.