Odds & Ends from Empty Spools 04-27-24

 Just a few more photos from my experience at EmptySpools/Asilomar.

But first a HURRAH for the outstanding  Nancy Ota of San Clemente, CA. She went to Paducah last week to stand beside her outstanding quilt, a Paducah winner in 2007 (I think) which is part of the permanent collection there.

"Infinity 2006"  Nancy Ota - CA 

Commercial cotton fabrics, Japanese indigo fabric.  Machine pieced and quilted.

Asilomar

  

Before I started my program on Sunday evening I took this picture of the audience in Merrill Hall, one of the original buildings from 1918 and a remarkable architectural achievement. The Cotton Patch shop is in the back at far left and my table is  in the far back on the right  The blurry spot at the bottom of the picture is where I marked out the glare of the spotlight.

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This is the path leading up to Merrill Hall from the Admin building and dining hall.  All of the paths are now bricked, not as bucolic as the bare dirt, but much safer and accessible to the handicapped.

With so many pine trees dead from the invasive beetle, most of the campus looks like this. However, new young trees are growing that appear to  be beetle resistance.  

I prefer to stay in the original 1918 buildings and this is my favorite room in Pirates Den where the boys originally.stayed.  The front of the building is level with Merrill Hall,but the back looks out on the parking lot below, so there is a wide view of north end of the property.  

When I decided I was too wiped out to drive home on Friday after Empty Spools ended at 11am,I was able to book a night in Stuck Ups, the 1918 building where the girls were housed back then. The four rows of rooms  surround an open space which  used to be  a sea  of  white calla lilies, but in keeping with the mandate that this California State Park have native, natural vegetation all non-native species are removed.  Not many flowers, though there were a few  wild iris in bloom.  

This was my room 209 in Stuck Ups.  It was a cozy corner for a very tired old lady and I slept about nine hours.

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Final Quilts from Empty Spools 04-25-24

 This is the last of the quilts on view at Empty Spools last week.  

On the bulletin boards behind my table I changed the quilts several times.

On the left is "Is This Me?"  Bodil Gardner - Denmark  2020

Machine and hand applique.  Machine quilted.

On the right is one of my quilts, I always take one or two just to prove I do make quilts!  "Palms" Del Thomas - CA  2023 Fused, machine  quilting. 

On another day I hung  these two quilts.

"Lowanda Does Hollywood"  Jean Ray Laury - CA  2000

Machine Pieced, silk screened, foiling, hand colored, and lots more techniques.

  Someone always asks if I was the model!  No, she did this before we met.  

"Rooster at Freddy's"  Ruth B. McDowell - Minnesota   2009

Machine Pieced, Machine Quilted

Ruth visited Freddy Moran's home in CA and based this design on a 2-1/2 foot rooster on the coffee table.  Only the real thing was all white, unusual for Freddy.

A glorious tribute to Asilomar, Empty Spools, and Pacific Grove. 

"Asilomar/Pacific Grove"  Mary Lou Weidman - CA  2013

Machine pieced, Machine quilted, hand and machine applique, hand embroidery.

All the places quilters know and love when they attend Empty Spools. 

"Cataclysm"  Judith Content  2009

Hand dyed (arashi shibori) silk fabric, Machine pieced and quilted. 

When Judith was working on this quilt her husband was reading "Krakatoa" about the Pacific island that erupted in 1883 and made the loudest noise ever heard at that time and also affected the weather around the world for several years. Mr. Content kept reading sections of the book outloud to her and she created this image.  The silk gives a shimmering effect that is lovely. 

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Even more quilts from Empty Spools 04-24-24

As I said last evening I didn't take as many pictures as I thought I had, or as I should have taken.  Perhaps someone  who reads this will  contact me and share pictures they took, especially the 12"X12" Bird quilts. Anyway, I will continue to  post the pictures I have. 

These two 12"X12" by Terry Grant of Beaverton, Oregon, were hanging on a separate bulletin board from the others.

Cotton fabrics, cotton batting. Fused, machine applique, machine quilting. 

"Making Quite an Entrance"  Yvonne Porcella - CA  

Commercial cotton fabrics, hand-dyes.

Machine appliqued, pieced, and quilted. About 45" square.

One day I posted three crows and three owls, all 12"X12"

"The Raven - Nevermore"   Pamela Burns  2019

"Another Collector"  Diane Wright - CT  2012

"Everyone Loves a Party"  Diane Wright  CT  2015

"Borrowing Owl"  Linda Frost - KS  2019

"The Sentinel"  Judy Warren-Tippets - CA 2013

"Night Owl"  Judith Roderick  2011

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More quilts from Empty Spools 04-23-24

Not many tonight, I am still just sooo tired.  I did not take as many photos as I thought. I guess I was too busy answering questions and talking quilts. These two quilts were on the stage.

"A Rash of Flamingos"   Ruth B. McDowell  - Minnesota  2000

Using her unique piecing technique Ruth created this fabulous flock.  It seems to be the most popular quilt in TCQC.

Cotton fabric, thread, batting.  Machine pieced and quilted.  52"LX100"W

"Oregon Rain"  Pat Pauly - NY 2023

Printed using silk screen, rubbing, masking, scrappers, etc..

Machine pieced, machine quilted.  52"X104"

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Friday Food 04-07-23

The food at Empty Spools is provided by the Asilomar Conference Center and they have different vendors in different years.  Sometimes the food is excellent, sometimes it is awful.  This year was one of the awful years!   I usually eat something in my room in the morning, don't usually go to lunch, but depend on dinner to carry me through.  The menu offers a regular diet or vegetarian diet, so one has a choice.  One night the choice was pork with chili verde or tofu with chili verde.  Since I don't eat pork I tried the tofu and found  it inedible.  NOT a good combination.   But there is always a large bowl of fresh green salad and bread or rolls.   I survived!  I do think they must have hit a  good deal  on black beans and polenta, because both were served at every dinner!  

The one night that there is not an evening program some of us go out to dinner in town.  My choice was Il Vecchio, an lovely rustic Italian place about a block from the Aquarium.  And my choice is always Carbonara and a side of broccoli.  Everyone tells me that all the food is exceptional, but since I can only go there once a year I always have the Carbonara, the best I have ever eaten.  This time I couldn't eat all of it, so had a doggy box to take back to my room and eat for breakfast! 

I like the "decor" at Il Vecchio.  

 On one wall they have assorted chairs hung high up, just to look at, not for sitting, of course.

 

And in the restroom they have this lovely large naked lady... 

  
                                          ....and strange tiling on the floor.

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Empty Spools at Asilomar 03-27-23

My laptop is telling me there is a "Connection issue try again later" so no pictures tonight.

All is going well, Sue Benner is such a great teacher, so helpful and so non-judgmental.  There are 20 ladies in the class and only a few are non-stop talkers.  I am so accustomed to working in silence that all the chatter is distracting.  We are in Merrill Hall so there is always noise from the shop and people crossing through the building only one door on each side is open due to the high winds.  I am only "playing", not going to make any prize winning quilts.   Right now I am going to bed so I will have a little vim and vigor in he morning.  G'night!

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Back 20 years 02-11-23

I started attending classes at Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar (Pacific Grove, CA) in March 1991.  Except for the Covid years I have gone every year.   I find a favorite teacher and take all the different classes they offer and then repeat them.  I suppose my motivation is to go and enjoy the atmosphere and the people and to restore my creative spirit.  Not necessarily interested in learning a new technique, but most of the teachers I take always have something new to share.  

Sue Benner Landscape class March 2003 

This is a really terrible image, but it is the oldest one from Empty Spools that I have in my computer.  Sue Benner is center front and the classroom is the chapel, the very worst location for a class.  There I am seated, wearing a hat of course.  To my right is Corky Ledbetter who now lives in Savannah, GA, and doesn't come out these days.  Behind me with a maroon undershirt is Elizabeth Byrom who now lives full time in France.   The second lady behind Sue is Mary Leakey, long time friend who lives in San Juan Bautista, CA.  On the far left of the picture the second lady in is Judy House who died in 2005.  I have class lists for every class and I'm sure that some of these students have been in classes with me in the last twenty years.  Some years I took two sessions and once I did three (which is a whole different story).  These days I am not in good physical shape and can barely manage one session.  I am registered for Sue Benner's class in late March and am so looking forward to going; hope I can keep up. 

Such treasured memories over 32 years.  More to come, I hope. 

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Quilt from TCQC - Karen Rips 05-22-22

 Revisiting a small quilt by Karen Rips originally posted 05-03-12

               

"Asilomar"  Karen Rips - Thousand Oaks, CA   2011 12" square

Hand-dyed and hand-printed cotton fabric, perle cotton thread. Machine quilted. Wool batting.

http://www.fiberartmusings.blogspot.com/

To create this gorgeous texture Karen used 100% wool felting for the batting. After stitching the front to the batting, she washed it in hot water to shrink it a lot. For a quilt this size, she started with a piece about 18 inches. She drew her inspiration from all the sea grasses growing on the grounds of Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, CA.

This piece is very flexible, which makes me wonder how a lap sized quilt would be to snuggle with on a wintery day. 

Her hand stitching and French Knots, along with the loose gauzy fabric sewn into the quilted lines, add more depth.  They give the feeling of the layers and layers of grasses.

 

Hand-dyed sateen on the back.

A minimal label, but it does have an e-mail contact.  

Catching up, I hope! 03-29-22

I am sorry I have not been able to blog while at Empty Spools.  Trouble with my cell phone and with my laptop, along with exhaustion every night!  And now, even at home, I cannot change the margins on this paragraph.  Computing doesn't seem to be my thing anymore.  Anyway, I will blog pictures from my class until I run out, maybe be the end of this week. 

I can't find words to say how FABULOUS it was to be back at Empty Spools.  I felt like I was home after a long trip away.  Some students I knew from the previous 29 years, but there were new people to meet and a couple new teachers.  Of course, Suzanne and Gayle, the owners of this seminar event were there and Carolee with her shop in the back of Merrill Hall.  I did visit all the classrooms on the walk-about on Thursday after class and attended all the evening programs.  This time I had two friends riding along with me, Andrea Bacal and Judy Warren-Tippets, from San Diego.  Andrea and I roomed together and our room in Surf was only four doors from our classroom in Surf and Sand.  Very convenient.  

The building is the furtherest west on the campus and this is the view out the sliders.  On the far left is Sunset Road that goes along the Bay and in the dip in the right middle is a view of the waves in the Bay.  Those spikes at the top are the ends of the rafters that extend the roof over the little deck outside the back of the room.  We had four beds - a double and three twins.  Lots of room to spread our our stuff and, by choice, no maid service so we never had to tidy up.  

The classroom has great light since it is just floor to ceiling windows on three sides, but it is a little small for twenty students, each with their own table and all their piles of fabric and equipment.  The noise level can be dithering.  But we managed as has every class that has been in this location.  I took this picture while standing in the door, pretty much shows how together we were.   The class was all about ABSTRACTION.

Our first assignment was to take the picture Sue Benner gave to each of us and abstract it into a 12X12 fused fiber image using five preselected 20" square fabrics.    The original timing was 20 minutes, but we managed to stretch it to more like 40!  We then pinned them up on design boards and critiqued. The smaller images are the original pictures.  

The picture Sue gave me is an aerial shot of tundra with trees.  And this is what I did with it.

       And in middle right is Andrea's image of a deep water fish and her abstraction. 

I will share more with you in coming days, but right now I need a night's sleep, even after all the naps I have taken today.  Old age is upon me!

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At Empty Spools - Asilomar 03-23-22

Sorry I have not been able to blog.  Mostly I have just been so exhausted I go to sleep by 9:30pm, but I also had to figure out how to get online and reset my laptop because I used it at Fed Ex/Kinko's to transfer my class list and that seemed to have re-set everything!   As time goes by I seem to forget how to do much on the computer.   It is 10pm and although I had a nap today I need to get to sleep.  Here are some pictures from out classroom in Sue Benner's "Abstraction" class. 

Well, change direction!  Cannot access pictures I took today, but here are two from the Tuesday evening program when Velda Newman showed her latest quilt "Roses" with the aid of 7 or 8 of her students.  I am not sure about the dimensions, but something like 52" TALL and maybe 16 feet long?  Huge, as are most of her works.

Velda is retiring and won't be teaching at Empty Spools after this year. 

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Quiet weekend = Memories 04-25-21

This is the week that in years past I have frequently spent at Empty Spools Seminars in Pacific Grove, CA, at the Asilomar Conference Center.  Due to the pandemic the seminars were canceled last year and again this year.  I have already sent in my registration for April 2022.  Fingers crossed.  After attending every year since 1991 I really miss this annual trek to one of my favorite places.  Most of those years I took at least one week class with Ruth B. McDowell, trying to learn not only her techniques but her method of choosing fabrics.  I think it is intuitive, not something anyone can teach and I certainly didn't learn.  However, I always learned a lot and I suppose I have developed my own "eye" for fabric selection.  But I still struggle. 

 

This is Ruth in April 2011 using her own quilt "Gilia"  (22.5" W X 38.5" L  All machine pieced except for those bright blue dots in the centers of the flowers) to talk about  technique.  The quilt came home with me that year and is part of the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection.  I especially like the lacy black and white prints she has used in the background - like the dried grass and weeds in the natural meadow where this flower would be found.   Ruth has retired from teaching, but still makes quilts using the extensive fabric library she has collected over the years.  

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Still on borrowed computer 03-26-21

 

This calla lily plant came from Asilomar in Pacific Grove, CA.  When the powers that be decided to only allow native or natural plants they tore out all the "invasives" which included the calla lilies when were abundan t.  They offered the plants to anyone who wanted them.  I took several, but this is the only one that survived.  It grows under the eaves and does well until the hot summer sun works its way under there.  Then it sort of shrivels up until fall. 

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A Little Sewing 03-12-21

I recently found out that one of my quilting friends has been in the hospital for Covid, but is home now.  Since the group only meets on ZOOM and there are usually 80 - 90 in attendance it is hard to know who is there and who isn't.  She is such a nice person and is always sending me cards and notes.  So, I made this mug mat for her and put it in the mail this morning.  I don't think she reads my blog, so it will still be a surprise for her.  She is fond of butterflies.

The background is not my work.  Another quilting friend doesn't save scraps or rejected creations.  In a workshop she wasn't happy with what she had done and cut it down, throwing the  already quilted pieces in the trash.  Being a confirmed "dumpster diver", I picked out the larger pieces and have been using them for fabric postcards and mug mats and...  whatever. 

 

This is the back side, not colors I would ever put in a quilt - orange and pink?  Never, never, never - nope!  But somehow this works for me.  

Here is a close up of the butterfly on the front.  I had fused a FQ of butterfly fabric previously for some cards and just cut out a few for this effort.  After I cut them out (with the fusing on the back) I outlined them with black fabric marker, fused them down and appliqued them with a straight machine stitch on the very edge using black thread on the top and monofilament on the bobbin.  So the stitching can barely be seen on the other side.    As usual with my combination of camera and laptop the color is washed out quite a bit.  

But I am so pleased with myself that I actually sewed something.  I have stacks of half square triangles and have used up all the precut triangles.  Now I am squaring them up which is such a tedious project requiring four cuts for each 3" square.   Still can't think of what to do with them when they are finished.  But, again, I am actually sewing every day for an hour.  Well, now I am just cutting, but I consider that part of the sewing process.  

The Empty Spools sessions for this year are canceled.  The State of California runs Asilomar, it is a state park, and it will not be open until (maybe) July.  The Empty Spools 2022 brochure is supposed to be out toward the end of April.   This year would have been my 30 year to take classes there.  It is such a lovely place to spend a week while sewing with like minded quilters from all over the world.  

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Another day in isolation! 01-03-21

The longer I am in isolation the less I seem to be able to accomplish.  Today we did our two walks around the loop, ate, read, napped, played toss Froggy, did a few little household jobs, dismantled the Christmas wreath, trolled Facebook, read and answered a few e-mails.  Didn't talk to anyone and only saw three people on both of our walks.  Is that a dull day, or what?  I must do better.  Make a list and stick to it.  

I had an e-mail from Suzanne at Empty Spools Seminars.  Looks like I might miss another year - after going every year since 1991.  They have had to cancel the first two sessions, so no class with Sue Benner.  I'll check to see where else she might be teaching later in 2021.  But I moved my reservation to Session V in April for the Independent Study.  I have taken that before, just taking a project from home and working on it all week.  As I recall I didn't finish it there, but that is my SOP anyway. Unless the vaccination program gets going there may not be any Empty Spools Sessions at all this year.  Here is a picture of one of the housing buildings at Asilomar taken maybe 15 years ago.  The blue flowers are ceonothus bushes, native to California, but I doubt these were natives.  Lots of deer all over the campus and the surrounding town of Pacific Grove.  

Asilomar is part of the California State Parks system, so when everything is locked down the entire campus is closed.  When I was up there last April to pick up quilts at Back Porch I thought I would just drive through, but the gates were chained closed.  Hope I do get to visit again one day, it is one of my most favorite places, I suppose because it hold so many happy and satisfying memories. 

Those of you who have been to Back Porch Fabrics may remember Dorothy, mother of Gail Abeloe who owns the shop.  Dorothy died recently at an advanced age.  I don't think she had Covid-19.  She was such a gracious, lovely lady, as is her daughter Gail.  

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Wordless Wednesday 05-13-20

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