I need a Breezepod

I interrupt this long period of silence with a blog entry.  Surprise!  I've been consumed by real life matters that haven't left me in the chattiest of moods, but today I took a break from the dull business of reality to go on a fun outing.

Have you heard of Sunset Magazine?  If you live on the west coast, then you surely know that it's a well-established and beloved home decor, gardening, cooking, west coast lifestyle magazine.  And from time to time they build or decorate an "idea house" that is open for touring.  Well, imagine my delight when I realized that the current Sunset Idea House is right here in my town, Healdsburg.  And I was even more delighted when I learned that it's in my very neighborhood, about 6 blocks away and up into the pricey hillside area with gorgeous views.

So off  I went today, with my friend Sally, to tour the place.  Here's what it looks like as you approach from the end of the road.

 
This "Breezehouse" is a pre-fab home by a California company called Blu Homes, designed to be green and energy efficient and affordable.  While this sort of modern design isn't usually to my taste, I liked how the inside felt open and functional and, well, breezy.   

That deck up there, right off the living room, had the most gorgeous view of oak-covered hills and I could pretty much have stayed there all day.

 

Okay, here's the photo that made me pull out my phone to start taking photos.  Look at that tile!  Doesn't it look like buttons?  I just love the texture, modern but funky.  Here's another look:

It was on all the walls in the shower, too.  (In case you need this for your next home, it's from Walker Zanger, from the Tu Collection, in cool white.  And oh my gosh, do they have beautiful tile products and a stunning blog. If I ever win the lottery and end up in a position to do a home, I'll know where to go for tile.)

And speaking of tile, here's a shot of me and Sally as we admire the pretty blue tile in this bathroom.  (We were in focus in person.  Honest.)

The kitchen had a similar warm teal subway tile for the backsplash, that looked so pretty with the light wood.

Who knew it would be the tile that would get my attention today?  And speaking of tile, look at the beautiful fireplace surround in the living room:

 The artwork throughout the house was delightful -- pulled together by designer Sharon Portnoy.  (When I win that lottery and do that house?  I'll call her.  That woman has great taste.)  Here's a piece I fell in love with, and I'm sorry that I couldn't find any artist attribution at all:

Kind of makes you want to get out the scissors and glue stick, doesn't it?

There was a little wine room, which Sally and I figured was designed especially so a parent could go hide away alone and get sloshed after a hectic day.  Notice: only one chair in here.

 
I think my favorite part of the house was what they called the "Breezepod," a separate room across a gorgeous deck from the main house.  It would make the perfect quilt studio, and I was eying the sunny deck thinking what a great fabric dying spot it would make.  I think I'd call mine the Artpod. 

I am happy to report that the house is currently available and on the market, if you happen to have $2.6 million to spend.  You can see the listing (and more photos) here.

It turned out that Alice Waters, the chef and founder of legendary restaurant Chez Panisse, was going to be there later in the day to give a talk about kitchen gardens and her Edible Schoolyard Project.  When I asked one of the home tour reps about her coming, she went off and got me a signed copy of Alice Waters' new book, In the Green Kitchen, which they were going to be giving to the first 500 visitors later on.  She whispered that she'd just consider me one of the first of those 500.  What a  very nice treat.  I'm looking forward to reading it.

 After Sally and I oohed and aahed, we headed into town for a delicious mexican lunch and lots of talk.  Like me, Sally has a child with Aspergers so we often talk parenting stuff.  In fact, we laughed as we went through the house, seeing how impractically decorated for living with real kids, even though the imaginary family the house was staged for was imagined to have twins (and a nanny living in the Breezepod.)  Our kids and our respective dogs would have dirtied up all that white upholstery and smudge-free expanses of glass in no time.

Still, it's fun to step into an imaginary life for an hour or so. 

And it's only been 5 years...

Goodness, but it feels good to finish a big project.  It was this in May, 2007...

And for a long time -- years -- it rested in the closet in the form of these blocks...

You might remember that I played with ideas on Electric Quilt to get to this:

And then, after some more piecing and sandwiching, it looked like this for a while in July:

(If you click on the photo, you can see how I quilted it, with a mix of straight parallel lines and in-the-ditch quilting to outline the star triangles.)

And as of yesterday, it looks like this, ALL FINISHED!

Well, okay.  It needs to be blocked.  And labelled.  But it's finished enough for me to celebrate.  I call it Independence Day. 

Now, on to the next UFO!

Olympic Training

Are you enjoying watching the Olympics as much as I am?  I'm enjoying the events and the scenes of London, especially as they remind me of the lovely trip I had to the UK last summer.  It's too late to make some of the fun British themed projects to celebrate...

like this quilt, by Sarah Brazier (quilt pattern available on Etsy)

or this multi-flagged quilt by Amy at Diary of a Quilter...

Or this shabby chic union jack wall hanging, from Moda.

But wait! There's good news!  There are a whole TWO YEARS until the winter Olympics, which start on February 7, 2014 in Sochi, Russia.  We have plenty of time to get a Russian Olympics project done!

Amazingly, quilts are being incorporated into the official look of the Sochi Olympics.  These banners went up in Sochi when that city was selected as the 2014 Winter Olympics host:

According to the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee, the concept of the "look of the Games" was designed to revolve around “the principle of the ‘patchwork quilt’ — a combination of 16 designs representing the most famous traditional Russian arts and crafts, ranging from Gzhel to Khokhloma.”

If I get started now, I may be ready by February, 2014.

FANtastic

 

I've mentioned before how much I like my portable design wall.   One day last week, I decided to set  it up in the bedroom and lay out the blocks I've been piecing.  Fun!  I spent a lovely afternoon moving things around and arranging fabrics so there weren't random clumps of one color or similar prints lined up next to each other.

And then I got interrupted.  So what else is new.  And that night, because it was a rather warm summer night, I clicked the ceiling fan onto "high," and rolled over and went to sleep.

Yep, this is what I found in the morning. 

Oops.

"Rituals" book available on Blurb!

RITUALS
An exchange between friends. A handshake. A kiss before bedtime. The artist at work.  A sun salutation. The wave before boarding the school bus. A song, a word, a meditation. A habit, a custom.  The traditional toast at a gathering. A rite of passage. The sacred moments of the ordinary.  Rituals:  What are yours?
A collection of 42 Art Quilts 

 International Quilt Festival, Long Beach, CA  - July 26-29, 2012
sponsored by Moore's Sewing Centers


If, like me, you can't get to the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach to see the "Rituals" quilt exhibit by the Dinner at Eight artists (including me!), you might be pleased to know that you can order a book with all 42 quilts in the exhibit. 

The book includes photos of all 42 quilts as well as information about each of the artists.  The artists include Susan Brubaker Knapp, Natalya Aikens, Jane LaFazio, Kathy York, Terry Grant, Jane Davila, Deborah Boschert, and more.  It's a lovely book and the quilts are very inspirational.  And it's fun to see how each artist responded to the theme "rituals."  

You can order your book HERE, directly from Blurb.

book designed by Loris Bogue

Long Beach Longing

Oh, how I wish I could be at the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach, which starts this Thursday.  (It starts on July 26 at 5pm and runs through Sunday, July 29 at the Long Beach convention center.)  Earlier in the spring, I'd planned to go, but life circumstances got in the way and I will be experiencing the festival vicariously through friends and bloggers who post pictures and tales about it.

If you are going, be sure to see the Twelve by Twelve exhibit, which will feature all 288 quilts from the original theme series and the Colorplay series.  Terry Grant, Gerrie Congdon, and Karen Rips will be at the festival so you might get to encounter 3/12s in person!  Also, Del Thomas who has been our 12x12 angel and benefactor -- and who has made our exhibiting the quilts at Houston and Long Beach possible -- will be there.  If you see Del, be sure to introduce yourself and thank her for all she does to support art quilters! 

And be sure to see the Dinner at Eight exhibit "Rituals."  My piece "Swirl, Sniff, Sip" will be there along with 41 other quilts from artists including Jane LaFazio, Judy Coates Perez, Terry Grant, Deborah Boschert, Karen Rips, Susan Brubaker Knapp, Sarah Ann Smith and more.

Against the Grain

Hudson - Against The Grain from Dropbear on Vimeo.

A great song, lots of pencils, and wonderful animation. Happy Monday!

Electric Quilt to the Rescue

It felt so good to resolve one UFO problem that I decided to tackle another today, maybe related to a leftover 4th of July mood.  See the blocks up there?  I starting cutting the pieces back in May of 2007, according to this blog entry.  Yikes.  I know I sewed the blocks at one of the ranch retreats, and put them up on a wall and decided I liked them better on point than straight.  I remember that I was unsure how to set the blocks, and after input from all my retreat buddies, I came up with a brilliant solution which I scribbled on a sheet of paper and tucked away because it required different fabric than I had.  You can guess what happened next, right?  By the time I got home and found time to look at this project again, I had no clue what the scribbles meant.  No clue whatsoever.

Which explains why it has been sitting in my closet from 2007 until now.

(By the way, in case you want to know, this block is called Dolly Madison's Star.  I used a pattern designed by Becky Goldsmith called "Dotty Stars."  Hers was all done with bright polka dots.  You can find the pattern online and free here.  )

After putting it up on the wall and testing out some big fabric pieces (you can see above I tried a light and a dark blue option) I returned to my original (vague) idea that those corner triangles need to be pieced.  Here is when my Electric Quilt software comes in VERY handy.  It's ideal for testing out design options and color choices without a whole lot of drawing on graph paper.

I started by drafting the basic block I'd already sewn, so I could set up the center field I already have.
  

 And then I started playing, experimenting with different blocks and color options. 

 

 

It's not hard to get carried away trying lots of options.  It's so easy to just drop color into squares to see how things look.  Fortunately, I remembered that the goal is to come up with something I will actually SEW.  At the moment, the one below is the one I think I like best,  or maybe the one in the middle above... both have enough piecing to look detailed but not too complicated to take away from the center blocks, either.  It's really just nine patches so the sewing should be easy.. 

Of course, I could just try a few more designs.... I just had another idea that I think I need to try out. Who knows where this will go?

Shape-shifting

We revealed our newest challenge quilts yesterday over at the Twelve by Twelve blog.  Our challenge theme (and boy, was it a challenge!) was "Mythology."  Click on over to see what everyone did, and to read the story behind my challenge response, "Shape-Shifting."

Interested in a class with Carol Soderlund?

This is Carol Soderlund, who is undoubtedly one of the best fiber arts teachers I've ever had.  She is well known for her thorough and clear classes on fabric dying, teaching often at Nancy Crow's barn and at the Pro-Chem dye facility.  You can read a great interview with Carol here.)I just adore her, and I've been eagerly looking forward to taking her "True Colors" class in Southern California at the end of July.

Unfortuately, life has gotten complicated and family matters have required that I cancel.  But Carol's classes usually fill fast and spots in them are eagerly sought.  So I thought I'd mention the opening here, in case any of you might want to take my place!   The class begins on the Tuesday following the Long Beach Quilt Festival (which runs Thursday through Sunday), so if you're going to be at the Long Beach show, staying on for Carol's class works beautifully!

If you are interested, please email me!

So here are the details:

When:  Tuesday, July 31 -  Saturday, August 4, 2012 (class runs 9am to 4:30 pm each day)
Where:  The Quilters Studio, Newbury Park, California

Course:  True Colors: Developing a Personal Palette 
  
       It is not necessary to have previous dying experience.  You can see Carol's slide show of student work from previous True Colors classes here.  And here's an excerpt from Carol's description of the class:

This class will help you choose the pure color that will suit you in developing your own personal palette. This class will focus on
* developing skill in intuitive color mixing, based on primarily on training the eye
* an understanding of the relationship between colors
* understanding warm and cool contrasts
* choosing your personal palette of pure reds, yellow, and blues, from which all hues can be mixed
* how to dye saturated, brilliant colors, and avoid mud when you choose to
* how to create interesting complex neutrals (Bring on the mud puddles!)
* how to shade from value to value and hue to hue

Students will dye up from 8 to 30 yards of cotton (depending on whether one-yard cuts or fat quarter cuts are chosen) using low water immersion techniques. On the first day, we will develop concepts through lecture and discussion, and do some exercises to get familiar with the pure hues. On the days following, we will dye yardage using low water immersion techniques, resulting in both solid-colored and multi-colored cloth and explore the possibilities of layering color to enrich the palette, both through overdyeing and through numerous printmaking techniques.

You can see a slideshow of some student work from the True Colors class here.  (Oh dear, seeing it makes me feel so sad that I have to miss it.)  

But if you're interested, do email me!

Happy Independence Day!

To my American friends, I hope you are having a glorious holiday with family, friends, and food!  Here's what I'm making for the fireworks-watching party at Miss C's riding barn tonight:

Berry Sparkle Cake, courtesy of The Pioneer Woman.  It's basically an angel food cake filled with a berry-gelatin mixture, then frosted with whipped cream and decorated with more berries.  You can see the step by step instructions here.  Thanks, Ree, for the easy and fun idea!

To friends in other parts of the world, I hope you're having a good summery week!

Best Beach Vacation Ever

What a lovely time on the coast we had.  We got home this afternoon, but I still feel the slight tingle of sunburn on my nose, my shoes still have a sprinkling sand inside, and of course there's the tell-tale pile of sandy laundry upstairs on the laundry room floor.  I'll worry about that tomorrow.  I figure today is still a vacation day and now that I've unpacked, I am going to just savor the lovely week. 

There's something so inviting about seeing a path that disappears over the hill, with a glimpse of the ocean beyond, isn't  there?  I took lots of pictures like this .... I just couldn't help myself.

We walked the loop that went from the house, to the edge of the bluff, along the bluff, and then back several times a day -- to give Gemma a chance to run and for us to enjoy the gorgeous scenery.

I still can't get over the luxury of the long empty stretch of beach below the house.  If I were a runner, I'd have run there... but I'm not, so I didn't.

I did walk a lot, though.  We were told that if we started at "our' beach, it'd be six miles along open, flat sand like that all the way to the lighthouse at Point Arena.  We never did walk the whole way.  Maybe next time.

 We were also told that the lighthouse point at Point Arena is the closet point to Hawaii in the continental United States.  Aloha!

And of course, there was lots of digging and general sand play.

Both of "the kids" had a grand time.

Some fancy camera play, too.  (This isn't Photoshopped.  This is a real, live action shot.)

 One afternoon, it was so wildly blustery that sitting outside was like sitting in the middle of a typhoon.  While the rest of the family napped in the house, I created my own sun room by taking the the car to the crest of the hill, opening the sunroof, cracking the windows.  It was a lovely reading and viewing spot.

But when we weren't out wandering, we spent a lot of time right here.  It was the perfect spot for morning coffee and after-dinner wildlife and bird watching.

It was just what a summer vacation at the beach should be.

Evening at the Beach

Wanna come?

My New Screensaver

We're still having a lovely, relaxing time.  (Some of us are more sandy than others.)

Beach Fun

All of us, especially Gemma, are having a wonderful time.

A Busy Week Ahead

I might not have much time to blog this week, as things are looking rather hectic now that we've come to the Mendocino Coast for the week. You know the problem: books to read, tide pools to explore, beaches to stroll, naps to take, hot tub soaks to endure, magazines to peruse, jigsaw puzzles to do, margaritas to drink... I will hardly have a minute to spare.

Not a bad set of problems to have. I think I will manage.

 

 

Now, here is something I never thought of doing with my books.

What I Have Learned About Exercise Over the Years

I have been reflecting on the wisdom I've acquired thus far in life, and I thought I would pass along  a few hard-earned lessons about exercise.  You may be amazed, but I have found these facts to be true:

Buying an exercise machine, no matter how persuasive the late night commercial, does not result in weight loss.

Placing the exercise machine in the bedroom and gazing at it from the bed does not cause weight loss.

Hanging clothes on the exercise machine does not result in weight loss.

Joining a gym does not result in weight loss.


Driving by the gym while going to and from the grocery store does not result in weight loss.

Watching exercise videos from the couch does not result in weight loss.

Watching exercise videos while eating lunch does not result in weight loss.

Calculating how many calories one can burn in an hour's brisk walk does not result in weight loss.

Sitting in a restaurant in San Francisco watching joggers pass by does not result in weight loss.

Perusing catalogs of exercise clothing does not cause weight loss.

Buying exercise clothing does not cause weight loss.

I speak from personal experience on these matters.  But I think I'm honing in on something that *might* work.  I'll keep you posted.

Just What I Needed

 Some days, you stumble onto the very message you need to hear.  Maybe it's  not a fortuitous stumble, but that miracle of the universe giving you what you need.  This week, Jess at A Diary of a Mom sent out words to those of us parents with kids with special challenges.  I read Jess's blog regularly, and relate so often to the events and feelings she talks about.  But this post and this post were exactly what what I needed this week.  Thank you, Jess.

Do you know a parent of a child with special needs?  Please send them to Jess's "Dear You" posts.  Or print them out and hand them to them with a big hug.  Or pop them in the mail.  But trust me, they need to hear Jess's words.  They really do.