Quilters by the Sea Quilt Show

Today and tomorow Quilters by the Sea is having there Quilt Show. If you're in the Long Beach, CA area, stop by and say hello. You can visit the QBS website to get all the information. Here are some pictures of our Two Wacky Women booth.

Cupcake Pincushion

At our retreats we give out welcome packages, door prizes, contest prizes, food and other goodies but we don't normally receive gifts. What a surprise that one of our guest, Lori Eckland gave both Marilyn and I these terrific pincushions. She made them using silicone cupcake liners and filling it with walnut shells. There is a really cute button on top. She said the hard part was gluing the pincushion in side the cupcake liner. Her husband came up with the suggestion to use "Gorilla Glue" and she said it worked perfect.
Thank you Lori for such a thoughtful gift. I love it.

Happy Quilters

Just a quick post to show a picture of all the happy quilters that attended the TWW retreat this weekend. We had a wonderful time. Lot's of sewing, eating and laughing and not necessarily in that order.

BTW, that's me sitting on the ground on the left side of the photo and my partner Marilyn standing right behind me.

Quilting Retreats

I'm up early this morning getting ready for a Two Wacky Women quilting retreat this weekend. As you may or may not know, my friend Marilyn and I are partners in a quilt related business called Two Wacky Women. We vend at quilt shows, develop and publish our own line of patterns as well as host retreats of our own and facilitate retreats for others. This weekend is a TWW retreat where everyone is encourage to work on their own projects although many of them will be making my "Magnolia Lane" quilt.

So enough about this weekend (it's been sold out for quite awhile), but we still have a little bit of room in our May 22 - 24, 2009 machine quilting retreat with Frances Moore. I own two Frances Moore quilts (I like to say I'm a Frances Moore collector). Both of these quilts were purchased by me at a quilt guild auction. Here's one of the quilts. Unfortunately you can't really see the quilting. This is the second retreat we have facilitated for Frances and at the first retreat I was able to participate in the class. What you need to know is that I'm a very good piecer but an awful machine quilter. Now I'm not saying I'm a great machine quilter yet but here's a sample of what I was able to accomplish after just a few days with Frances. The "Quilting by the Sea" machine quilting retreat with Frances Moore will be held in San Clemente, California, May 22 - 24, 2009 and is very affordable. We'd love to have you join us. For additional information follow the links at our retreat page.

I'll be sending updates from this weekends retreat, so stay tuned.

Happy Quilting!

Friendship Group Quilt

A while back I posted a picture of the block I made for a quilt my friendship group is making for our local quilt show. My block is the third one own on the right. I helped my friend Linda Castle assemble the quilt and then she quilted it. I have to tell you she did a really terrific job.
If you click on the photo you can enlarge it so that you can get a better look at the blocks.
I'm not sure what we're going to do with the quilt after the show but we might enter it in the L.A. County and Orange County Fairs.

The Evolution of the ORT Jar

The first thing you need to know is that my friend Terri's husband, John, is quite a character. He's very funny but also very clever. After making ORT jars at my friendship group last night, Terri took her ORT jar home and showed it to John. Here's the message and pictures I received.

"John liked this little project and sees great potential for holiday themed print to be used as a coke or beverage container at parties to identify your drinks. Here are his pictures."

Thank you John and Terri for sharing. If you'd like to make an ORT Jar or a beverage container visit my sister, Melinda's blog.

Oodles of ORT Jars

My friendship group had a fun and productive evening tonight. Several of us made ORT jars using a tutorial on my sister Melinda's blog.

They were pretty simple (although you have to read the directions) and very cute.

Thanks Sis!

Mini Shop Hop

Yesterday Marilyn and I went on a Mini Shop Hop. We decided we needed to support the local economy and what better way to do it than visit 7 quilt shops and 1 fabric store.
Each of the shops passed out 5 charm squares and a pattern utilizing charms. Each shop kind of did they're own thing with they're own fabric so nothing really went together. In fact onw shop passed out a fat quarter instead of the charm squares but that was fine by me.
Marilyn and I had each decided to collect Amy Butler fabric. I want to make a quilt just for me since most of the time I am making something for "Two Wacky Women", my business with my partner Marilyn. We were both surprised to find very little Amy Butler fabric out there. In fact only one of the quilt shops had any, but thank goodness M&L Fabric Store had a bunch. I bought enough to make a "Wacky Devine Nine" quilt just for me.
The other fabric in the picture is coffee fabric to make a new pillowcase for my husband and candy and chocolate chip fabric for a new pillowcase for me. I also found some cute sewing fabric that I will probably use to make Christmas gifts for my friendship group.
At the bottom of the picture is the charm squares I received. There's only 5 plus the fat quarter, somehow I must of misplaced a package of charm squares. Oh well, no biggie.

Sue Salinger

Today was a really run day. My Two Wacky Women partner, Marilyn and I did a mini quilt shop run today. If was very do-able, only 7 shops. We had a great time, helping the economy as we visited each shop.





On of the shops Timeless Quilts is managed by my friend Sue Salinger. Sue had mentioned that she was making a quilt using my pattern "Magnolia Lane". She had some fabric that she thought would be perfect for this pattern. Well, see for your self, it's wonderful.

Sue is an excellent piecer as well as a wonderful long-arm quilter. Visit the Timeless Quilts website for information about her quilting and her classes.

Thanks Sue for letting me share a picture of your quilt.