Yesterday

Good morning peoples! How goes it? It's a sunny morning here, have no idea how long it will last. I'm off to the mall today, need to pick up a couple of little things for Easter. Which inspite of the condition of my dining room table, will be here on Sunday!

Yesterday I went over to Diana's to drop off my quilt. On the way I saw this truck, Vieira Dairy Farm. I hardly ever see it spelled like we spell it, so of course picture time. Weird color picture, sorry, camera on a setting for indoors. I didn't notice it till later.

Diana lives in a neighborhood filled with wonderful homes and I usually spend some time driving around looking at all the cute old houses. And usually it's accompanied by my own feelings of serious envy. But then I saw this turkey vulture in front of a completely cute house and had to laugh.

Back home I got some machine quilting done. Hope to finish this up today after the mall. You know, if I survive it. The mall that is.

Hope you guys have a great day.

Rain

The rain has started but somehow it's not so bad this time, maybe it was that week of sunshiney goodness we had. And the fact that it's washing away all the pollen from my fruitless mulberry tree. I'm hoping for a sneeze-free day here.

More blooming trees. I could spend hours taking pictures of those little trees. The last one is a little crabapple and omg people, crammed with flowers.

I'm off to Diana's this morning. I can't wait to see what she does to my quilt. She's amazing. Back home I'll work on my machine quilting. Yesterday's allergy meds robbed me of any ounce of creativity, today I feel better and hopefully I'll be able to get my act together.

I hope you have a good day peoples.

Sunny

It was a gorgeous sunny weekend here. Achingly so, considering we're facing more and more AND MORE days of rain. Yes, it's true, we need the rain, and I'll suck it up, but man, the sunshine was wonderful. Now if only the snails that come with all the moisture were so cute.

My new crab apple tree went in the ground thanks to Bret. My faithful old apricot tree is on its last legs, so we planted this pretty flowering tree next to it, so when the apricot finally goes, I'll have a tree there still.

There was sewing too. Lots of tiny pieces last week turning into a quilt that hopefully will be heading to Diana for her special treatment. Thanks again to Holly for sending along some of her amazing Dolly Dresses fabric for our use. It will be nice to have a pattern ready when the fabric becomes available. I'll work on getting my instructions to Elizabeth who can turn them into something people can actually use.

So, how was your weekend?

The last of it.

Oh, almost forgot to show off my loot! I had a blast shopping for fabric. Most of our sewing is for patterns, and we use, for the most part, fabric that will be coming out the next quilt market. But these little goodies will end up in my own personal stash.

We rounded out our long drive home with a stop in Bakersfield at Strawberry Patches. What a cute shop, I wish it wasn't four long hours away from us!

I'm not going to lie though, the valley is beautiful this time of year.

Things you don't see everyday.

(something you'll never see me on)

A bit of California history.

Where it all happens.

Shop Hopping

We had a fun day shop hopping while we were in Las Vegas. We went to five shops and all of them were a lot of fun. First stop, Nancy's Quilt Shop. We got there when it opened. Lots of inventory, nice and bright and clean. Next up was the Christmas Goose. This store was great and Elizabeth and I went back the next day for another quick peek. I love a store with nooks and crannies and CG really has it! Plus it's a very friendly shop.
We went to The Fabric Boutique next. No pictures there, but it also was huge. They had tons of samples and I picked up a couple of pieces of Bubblegum Basics that I had hoped to see again. (don't you hate using up all of something great?)

Fiddlesticks was next up, and it was a darling shop. The people were friendly. We were tweeting a long the way and a lot of you recommended Fiddlesticks, and I can see why.


After lunch we headed over to Quiltique. I can see why we needed to eat and get rested up, it was the HOLY COW shop of this trip.


Thirties fabrics.. I haven't seen such a nice collection in ages. And the displays.. I love beautiful displays.

It was a great day all around. So fun to see so many great shops, all friendly and nice. There really is something for everyone in Las Vegas when it comes to quilting.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAMMY!

Today is our sweet friend Tammy's birthday. We were so lucky to be just down the row from Tammy on our first Quilt Market in 2006 . Little did we know that it would be the start of a wonderful friendship.

We celebrated all week with Tammy and her crew in Vegas!

Hope you take a minute to hop over to her blog and leave her a birthday message.

Viva Las Vegas

It started like this...
and ended like this...

It was awesome! The weather was made to order, absolutely perfect. We did a ton of sewing, driving around to quilt shops, eating, swimming, staying up late sewing some more.. and then we had to go. We really enjoyed hanging out with Tammy , Sherry, MaryLynn and Cally. They are so much fun. And man talk about sewing maniacs. They know how to get stuff done. Elizabeth worked on some projects that will be patterns, then made some tiny little purses. I worked on my Victory Garden blocks. I hope to get those finished up soon. I made an error with my template on my second block, cut two then cut two reversed.. only cut one reversed. It really threw me for a loop. Tried to figure a way to recoup but no luck. Thank goodness back at home I have enough of the fabric to make the block.

Anyway peeps. You've not seen the last of this trip. Happy Monday!

Off my nut.

Good morning! Didn't want you guys to be bored while I was gone so I thought I'd brighten your day with some of my favorite fabric! Holly has totally outdone herself with the latest Dolly Dresses line... and I'm nuts over it. She sent a huge box to Elizabeth and I last week and we both have great plans for it. You know, once we finish fighting over it.

The blues are wonderful, and as usual even though it's sunny, my pictures aren't the greatest. I want to make a blue and white quilt. Can you stand these? I'm completely in love. And I have a plan already.

And ohmygosh a pink and red quilt. I'll be drawing up my plan while we're on our trip. I'm thinking something churn dashy maybe?

Or maybe I'll just covet them. Yeah, that's the ticket. Seriously, could they be any cuter?

Something you don't see everyday!

Hi you guys, how was your weekend? Mine was FANTASTIC! Saturday Alex invited me to sit in on a taping of The Quilt Show over at Alden Lane Nursery. And take a peek who's segment they're taping.
That's right, its Camille!! CAN YOU STAND IT???? Honestly I could barely stand it! She's a natural too, she talks about quilting and her new book and shows off some of the upcoming fabric line.. it was an OMG morning my friends.
Camille is having her year, fabric galore (and it's even better than the last line if you can believe it, which yeah, I know, it's hard) a new book with C&T and the TCC event all in September! And just the other day Where Women Create was photographing her studio for an upcoming issue.

Here she is clowning around with Jarom, her husband. Are they darling?

Next segment up was with Susanne, the acquisitions editor for C&T Publications. The quilt going up in the background is our friend Cherri's quilt from her new book City Quilts. Susanne shared a lot of the upcoming books in the new Stash line that C&T is publishing. Both Cherri and Camille's books with be published in the new imprint.

And just because I want to drop as many names as possible in one blog post, a lot of the cute birds from the new book Little Birds were there, including the darling bird mobile by my friend the Famous BariJ!
It was so much fun hanging out there for a few hours. It's very interesting to see how things are done. And challenging to stay quiet and out of the way!

Hurry up and check in with Camille ... she'll be blogging all about it. And I think I saw some very incriminating photos of our Favorite Fig on her camera. So don't miss it.

NOW.. I'm off at the crack of dawn with Elizabeth heading to Las Vegas. Our friend Tammy has invited us to spend the week celebrating her birthday with her! Lots of shopping and sewing are on the menu! Can't wait.

Out and About

Yesterday was the last sunny day this week, so Elizabeth and I took a quick trip up to Quilter's Inn. The weather was lovely and the outing very fun. Look who we ran into, the (very famous) BariJ! She's excited about her new line of patterns just out this week!!! They're darling.
Jane also showed off this quilt just back from the machine quilter. I'm super excited, she's made her own version of my Simple Squares pattern. The store was chock full of shop hoppers and Janis's class was going strong. While we were there, Jane told us Diana and Laura have started a blog, check it out! We are so lucky here to have so many great designers local.

Back home I tangled with some Peltex 71 for the afternoon. I'll be back at that today. And because misery loves company, I'll be heading over to Elizabeth's later to rob her off some Doll Dresses fabric and to have her do some work on this project as well!

Hope you guys have a good weekend! xo

It was great.

All that sunshine yesterday, I feel rejuvinated. It was a great day to sew, to walk outside with the dogs, to go run errands. All of it. And its sunny again!



Elizabeth and I are headed out for a quick run to Quilter's Inn. She needs an oven mitt pattern by a very famous someone and I'm going to be greedy and hog up some more sunshine. DO YOU BLAME ME?