NEW MEMBERS TO THE FLOCK

It continues to be a summer of birds for me. Here are some new additions to my flock. All hand-dyed, hand-pieced, free-motion quilted...lovely, yes?

FASTURN

Do you know what FASTURN is? When I first moved to southern Oregon I kept driving past this building and had no clue what it was all about.

The signs in front said SEWING, QUILTING, CLASSES and STRIPPERS WANTED. "What is this FASTURN place?" I asked myself.
It took awhile before I found out. But when I finally got around to going there, I knew I had found a new sewing home and community. Fasturn (http://fasturn.net/) is the manufacturer of one of the top twenty five sewing notions of all time. They produce all sizes of metal tube turners. I can't tell you the number of times I've sewn a skinny strip, attached the safety pin to the end and then struggled to turn that darn thing. When I saw that tool, I was thanking the universe!
But I was more thankful for finding this wonderful welcoming place. They offered open sewing (just come and sew!!!) every Friday and this sounded great to me. Living in my little mobile that happened to be torn apart with remodeling just didn't offer me the sewing time and space that I needed, so an open door session with other like-minded sewers sounded fantastic to me.
I've met a wonderful group of fun, talented and generous sewers. Everyone comes with their own agenda, maybe to make a bag, a table runner, a quilt, or a machine-embroidery project. For me, I was there to work on a "diamond" quilt that I started at a class on Quadra Island in September.I had hand-dyed the fifteen pieces for this quilt, and the 60 degree "stance" of this quilt really challenged my mind. But there was help and support surrounding me at FASTURN.

Open-sewing on Friday is not the only thing happening at FASTURN. There are classes held frequently throughout the month, and the facility is the home to the local faction of the American Sewing Guild. One corner holds shelves of folded yardage, batting, and hanging close-by are a number of completed quilt tops. In the midst of this area is a long-arm quilter, where ASG members take turns to put together quilts for local charities. And let's not forget the shop full of beautiful fabrics and notions (not to forget FASTURN products), and unbelievable samples that have been made up by the friendly staff. It's a great place and I thank the universe that I found it!

MATERIAL GIRLS

It was a bit of a blustery November day and with my friend Corrine visiting while on her yearly sojourn from Refuge Cove to Long Beach, we felt it was the perfect day to take a drive up to Shady Cove for a quilt show.

I had heard about this show, sponsored by the local guild Material Girls, from Christine who had a booth there to sell her beautiful hand-dyes. It was great to see her there midst all the amazing, very organic, screened prints that she and Cynthia have produced over the last year or so.

The show had some beautiful quilts, both big and small, traditional and whimsical, and a great collection of hospital quilts made by this active group of women. Corrine and I both enjoyed our visit to Shady Cove.

We topped off that event with wine tasting in Ashland. What a fun, blustery November day!

SUMMER CHALLENGE 2009: KAYAK GARDEN

Even though I'm a part-timer in my quilt guild (Quadra Quilters), I cherish those monthly meetings and get-togethers with the other 40+ talented, energetic and warm-hearted women in the guild. When we break for summer, we are always left with the choice of participating in the "summer challenge." The winner from the previous year has the privilege of choosing a theme and a very ugly piece of cotton to divvy out among participants, and then she challenges other members to put their creative summer talents to work. In September, pieces are anonymously hung and we each get one vote. The winner's prize? ....to be in charge on next year's challenge.

I love this. I think I'm a competition junkie at heart. In June, Norma presented us with a teal-y piece of cotton with the theme of "the enchanted universe" and told us to have at it. I cringed at both the fabric and the theme....neither struck a cord with me. I hung the fabric on the wall and looked at it for 2 months while ideas drifted in and out.

A week before our September meeting, I realized my thinking time had come to an end and I had to get moving. The three best ideas swirling around in my head had to do with 1)my backyard pond, 2)the quote "if my heart were a garden, what would I plant?", and 3)trying to recapture the magic I experienced during a nighttime kayak trip with a group of women friends. The latter became my choice and I set to work.

The ugly teal-y fabric became both the land and the water by using the reverse side. I then called upon the remnants of the palette I produced at the Cortes class. That earthy yellow worked so well and even pulled out a bit of the similar color found in the dark teal piece. I had very little left to make kayaks but did find enough in pink, blue, rust and purple. Not the greatest colors, BUT because they are from one palette, worked so well together. After sewing them to the background and my batting, I proceeded to free motion the kayak seats into the "kayak flowers", along with the paddle leaves and paddle rays of the sun. I filled in the rest with my favorite spiraling, and then was ready to discharge the seats and paddles to accentuate them. This time I used Soft Scrub with bleach in my little metal tipped bottle. It discharged the color, I then washed out the bleach, let it dry, and added the binding and the sleeve. For the final details, I chose some sweet buttons to add as flower centers, etc.. I completed the piece the day before the meeting. Phew!

Happily, might I add, I won this year's competition! There were 7 entries and they were all amazing, as they usually are! My prize was a fantastic book titled "Skinny Quilts and Tablerunners from Today's Top Designers" (thank you Norma!) and the privilege of planning next year's summer challenge. I've already got some ideas.

While I'm at it, I might as well display my other 3 challenge pieces from past years....but that's for tomorrow.

LOCKED OUT OF LIFE

My quilt journal assignment for June is "sometimes a great notion"...so I went to my sewing box and pulled out some oddball notions that I could use to interpret something of interest or going on in my life. Our current situation is so powerful that it all just flowed out onto the cloth....a heavy-duty zipper as the border, an old emblem for the Canadian side, and some cloth tapes to represent the U.S. side...I know, stars would help, but I couldn't find any. Then the safety pin just had to go onto the wrist of the "southern" wrist, as that is my husband, Tom, who was turned back at the border last week as inadmissable into Canada.

We have been traveling to Canada (as U.S. citizens) for many years, first as boaters, enjoying the waters of the Gulf Islands and Desolation Sound, then in 2000 purchased a share at Refuge Cove and have since been spending our summers here. It is heaven on earth here for us. We respect the laws that say we have a 6 month limit per year, so annually migrate between Canada and Mexico (via the U.S.)...two countries we have grown to love, and thank our lucky stars that we are retired and able to live the lifestyle we do.

BUT, last week something came up on their computer screen that caught the Canadians' attention. In 2004, Tom and I went to a hockey game for our beloved UAF Nanooks in our hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska. We were avid fans, and we were at every home game. At this one very exciting game, the fans were up and down in their seats, but this one very tall man in front of me failed to sit down. In my polite, reasonable, non-confrontational way, I asked him to sit down. From that he began to verbally abuse me. My husband got into some verbal discourse with him which I thought might have ended everything, but no, he had to turn one more time and go at me. At that, Tom punched the guy, then the police came, which followed with a court case....and now we are separated by the forces of Homeland Security that are dominant in our world today. (Thanks to George Bush!) Even though the judge reduced the case from a felony to a misdemeanor with a $50 fine (maybe like a traffic ticket), it is that word ASSAULT that Canadians don't like. I just keep thinking there should be a different category for assault at a hockey game...like maybe making him an honorary citizen with a parade and such! But no...that is not our lot.

So he is in the land of lawyers and fbi checks and fingerprinting and fighting this battle which the Canadian consulate says may take 3 years, and I am up at our cabin, managing the garden and the boat, and keeping up with all the little maintenance issues we have here. I have custody of the dog and he has the truck. Phone calls and emails keep us connected. Once the family visitors come and go in August, I will join him south of the border in his fight for re-entry. Unless the immigration lawyer from Vancouver happens to have the middle name of God.

Again, we wait.

CALENDAR CONTEST

I FINALLY got this sent out to Quilting Arts magazine for their 2010 calendar contest. At least I hope it's going out. Its traveling via a friend of a a friend who is flying back to Walla Walla, Washington, tomorrow and promises me it will be sent out by U.S. Postal Service. Due date is March 6, 2010. It should make it, I hope, I hope.

This project was met by one little problem after the next. That's where the FINALLY comes from.

The theme of the contest is "fresh picked", celebrating the bounty of gardens and growth. I was inspired after reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and decided to portray on fabric an image promoting the support of local growers.

After taking Pamela Allen's class in early October, I began using my fabric for more compositional work, and also incorporated more hand stitching. I think it was finished, but without the border, by the end of October. I added it to my suitcase of fabric (not to be confused with my suitcase of clothing and personal items) and brought it to Mexico for finishing.

Once settled in my Mazatlan studio, I found a good purple in my stash and set out to complete the border. Two inches before the final stitching and my foot pedal blows up! That was another month of waiting ... sometime around Christmas I was able to call it finished.

I knew I needed to send in 3 photos so I carefully photographed iy with good lighting, meticulously cropped it by computer, transferred the images to my USB chip (I can't remember the correct name for this wonderful little tool) and set off for the photo store 3 blocks away.

Lo and behold, their cropping is totally different than my cropping and I had to retake the pictures. Then, just before sending off the perfect set of pictures, I decide to re-read the entry rules and realize the photos need to be 8"x10"....damn! Off to the the Kodak store again for bigger prints. (I have a lot of history with not reading directions CAREFULLY!)

And while I was at it, I stopped at the papeleria (stationary, etc.) and bought the perfect size (tamano carta) of envelope (sobre) for my entry. (I love those built-in Spanish lessons1)

From experience, I know that Mexican postal service is very slow, so I asked Tom to stop by the private postal office (similar to Mail Boxes Etc.) to see what they could offer. He returned, sobre in hand, and said they only accept letter sized envelopes for their service from the states (they have a truck that takes mail once a week up to Arizona). Otherwise, my option was Mexican post and they said 3 or 4 weeks...5,6,7,8.....who knows.

So the friend of a friend option is what I chose. I kissed it before handing it over, wishing it well on its journey, visualizing my farmer's market scene on the COVER of the calendar.

I just love the HEART on his tie-dyed shirt!

TRIP TO THE FRUTERIA

I am so excited to be traveling to Oaxaca next month. Oaxaca is fiber-central and alive with dyers, weavers and the like...a virtual fiber feast. It also is bursting with other traditional arts and crafts of Mexico which I know will be the source of much inspiration.

Once a year I make a "women's trip" to a Mexican destination. The past few years, we have gone to the Guadalajara area for shopping, exploration, and good fun, but this year a few of us had Oaxaca on the brain. Airfare was amazingly cheap so a date was set and word went out among the ranks. We future travelers are now up to about nine and all are doing a little bit of research to share with the group so we can make the most of our time there.

I love to visit Nancy Crow's website to see what new pieces she has up her sleeve, what's going on at her barn, and trips she has planned (fantasy land for me!). I remembered seeing a Oaxaca trip advertised so I clicked to see what her trip included. In the accompanying photos, there was a wonderful shot of a local market scene, with the foreground devoted to the colorful signs of fruit for sale. I instantly knew I wanted to reproduce that simple shot (minus the stands in the background). Black fabric and some medium-value colors skew-cut for signs were where I stitched in the names of local fruits we have here in Mazatlan. My signature bleaching pulled out the color in the words, buttons added and the whole piece trimmed. Simple and fun! With all the time in the world, I would find myself at the quilter's vegie stand, meat market, taco stand, ice cream stand, cheese mart, etc.

For now, more research is on my list and dreaming of new inspirations.

MAJOR PROBLEM!!!!

Lo and behold, the foot control on my trusty Bernina 910 went out two nights ago. My machine is now out of commission and as you can imagine, I am not happy.
The first quest was for another pedal that we could just change cords on with the help of our amazing electronics guy, Gilberto. Tom went to the local Singer dealer (the name of his shop is CASA CONTENTA) and bought a new pedal for 250 pesos (about $20). For 30 pesos, Gilberto changed the wires and Tom returned home with my new hope. Wrong! I plugged it in and nothing happened! (We hope Gilberto can replace the original wires and we can get our money back!)
Now my quest went to the internet. I first wrote to my friend Janice in Mount Vernon, WA, who manages the Humane Society Thrift Shop and she takes home every machine that comes in for her husband to refurbish, and along with that activity, she has shelves full of parts. Janice, can you help me?
Next I called the wonderful Bernina repair man, Kevin, at Huckleberry's Fabrics in Comox, B.C. His advice was to get some super glue and secure the broken part. He warned me that a new one would run about $300, and $5 in glue couldn't hurt. Unfortunately, I already knew that my foot pedal needed more than glue.
Then to google dealers etc., and with this I found out that I needed a specific model of foot pedal: 347 or 367. Onto e-bay and I found a dealer selling those for $249! Please Janice, I hope you have one.
Out of the blue, I googled "Bernina dealers in Mexico" and up came a site for the Ajijic (near Guadalajra) Quilt Guild. I wrote to the email address with questions etc. and was happily greeted this morning with a letter from Marianne telling me about 2 contacts in the country. Plus, I have become acquainted with a fellow quilter and now know that there also is a Guild in Mexico City! I also shared with Marianne that my friend Anne from Mazatlan just moved to Ajijic so of course I am planning to visit there AND connect with new quilting friends.
Sometimes problems have the most interesting outcomes!
Now a letter from Janice has arrived and she is in Minnesota, but she will check on her return. Be patient Maria!
In the meantime, I am doing all the other things I love to do that don't require a machine. I just bought a new 3 set DVD from Dharma titled "Learn How to Tie-Dye". I finished the video set last night and found Tom and Martine to be great teachers. I learned new tips for my own dyeing and now know how to make a beautiful mandala. This morning I prepped 4 pieces, soaked them in soda ash and now they are air drying to be dyed in a few days.
I'll dye up some linen napkins this afternoon, and move on to some hand sewing later, but my quest for my Bernina 910 foot pedal continues.
Anyone have a spare one hanging around?

MARATHON WEEKEND

It wasn't a running race or a cross-bay swimming venture, but a QUILT MARATHON.

Place? Quadra Island Community Center.

Who's involved? Quadra Island Quilters' Guild.

Purpose? To make quilts to be given to young patients at the Vancouver Children's Hospital.

And yes, I was so happy to be able to attend.

For two full days, over 40 quilters and volunteers gathered at the Community Center to participate in this annual event that produces over 40 beautiful quilts for children. Comfy clothes, yummy treats, friendly advice , and of course fun companionship were also a big part of the weekend. The Quadra Guild is an incredibly generous group of talented quilters from all walks of life and with a wide range of sewing interests. There was never a dull moment, and one by one the quilts lined up on the stage. Here are a few of the projects and quilters hard at work.Thanks to the local Fire Dept. for set-up and take down, Linda for a super rosemary chicken dinner, all volunteers, all organizers, all businesses who donated goods and services, and all cooks who brought yummy soups, goodies, etc.

It was a super and productive weekend!