Empty Spools week has ended. 04-08-11

My Asilomar stay is over for this year and I am eager to get home and do some quilt making - but, as so often happens when I have been gone for nine days there is so much catching up to do.  Quilt making must wait.  Tonight I am with Mary and Joe, but think I will drive home tomorrow.  I'm doing the program for Surfside Quilters Guild on Tuesday and need to get the 30 - 40 quilts organized and print out a list to use on the stage.  If you are in the south Orange County area and would like to attend the meeting, check on the website:

http://www.surfsidequiltersguild.org/  It is a daytime guild and the meeting is called to order at 10am.

Ruth McDowell didn't do a Power Point presentation for the evening program, but brought quilts to show "in-the-fabric".  She sold three of the six the first week; the remaining three were hanging in our class and paraded for the evening audience.  Her pictures of the entire quilts are much better than mine, so I will give you the URL and also show some details that I took.

http://www.ruthbmcdowell.com/clients/rbm/ShowQuilt.cfm?Quilt=hepatica

Notice that the two halves of each petal do not meet exactly at the point - this makes the point appear to come to a very sharp point.   See the traditional tiny flower fabric used for the centers - it closely resembles the center of the actual flower. If you click on the image to enlarge it you can see the zig-zag machine quilting Ruth did to add texture and to contrast with the smooth curves of the flowers.

http://www.ruthbmcdowell.com/clients/rbm/ShowQuilt.cfm?Quilt=springbeauties

This quilt has what I think of as an "inset border", though it is part of the original design and sewn in just like all the other pieces of the quilt top.  Ruth pieces all of her quilts - the old fashioned way with front sides of the two fabrics together, 1/4" seam, flattened, pressed and another piece added.  The machine quilted surface is very textural because of the choices Ruth makes while quilting.

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This "new" way to upload photos to my blog is so slow it has taken me almost forty minutes to put up these three!  So the others will have to wait until I am home and can do some more research.  Sorry.

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Asilomar, but too late at night 04-07-11

Sorry, my friends, it has been a long day of exciting creativity and friendship and I must go to my room and get some sleep.  Tomorrow we must be packed up and on the road by noon and there are three hours of critique in Ruth's class.  So, here (I hope) is a picture of the fellow I had lunch with today - at the picnic tables sheltered from the wind by a stone wall and plexi panels.  He was very friendly and would have jumped right in my wonderful chicken salad if I hadn't kept shooing him off.  He ate the second piece of fococcia - but mostly he carried it off, so maybe he was feeding a mate or some nestlings or (as jays sometimes do) burying it for future meals! 

Mr. Scrub Jay with fococcia crumbs!

Anthers on Spring Beauty quilt by Ruth B. McDowell.  She refers to the technique as "scrunched fabric" - five or six little squares in a pile sewn through the middle to the quilt, then wet and scrunched with fingers so they stand up.

Bed quilt made by Designing Women friendship group in Del's sleeping room.

Maybe I will be able to do some picture catchup at Mary's house tomorrow night. 

Testing for pictures 04-06-11

I hope that loading pictures this way will work, I haven't had any luck with the "work around" offered by Blogger help.  Please let me know if you cannot see the four pictures below.  They were all taken at Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, CA, where I am attending the Empty Spools Seminars.   

So many of the trees have died from infestation by a foreign boring insect, but there are a few large trees left and the young trees planted in the last few years are looking healthy at this time.  This one is just outside the side doors into Merrill Hall. 

 Sorry, I got the night picture before the day picture!  Both taken from the same spot on the terrace outside the front door to Merrill Hall - looking toward the ocean/Monterey Bay.  I have cropped this image to make the moon more prominent.

 Unfortunately the back "yard" of the kitchen is right in line with the view of the ocean.  I've modified the bushes/trees a bit to cover it up.  Lots of white caps on Monday, but today (Wed) there has been howling wind all day.  If these pictures work I will soon post a few of the crashing waves.

Could I NOT take a picture of this little guy?  A very young poodle with a "puppy cut" like Corky's.  She (surely a she with a pink sweater) was so excited at this new adventure she was going around in circles.  Too young, I think, and I was glad to see them return to their car. 

Hope the pictures show.  I have quite a backlog.  Everything else is great here and we are all creating up a storm.  Some wonderful quilts being designed and started.  However, I miss my friends who are usually here - maybe next year.

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