Long Beach Quilt Festival

Well, tomorrow I'm headed to Long Beach for the big Quilt Festival, put on by the same folks who do the big wing-ding in Houston! We are all so excited that they decided to start a festival here, too, in Southern California. Long Beach is about a half hour's drive from Irvine. Woohoo!

I'm staying at the Hyatt next door and will be at the festival until Saturday afternoon. Thursday I signed up for a luncheon hosted by Pokey Bolton, "Surviving the Runway Challenge." I'm working at the SAQA booth on Friday morning, so if you're going, stop by and say hello. Then I signed up for the Bernina Fashion Show, and I'm going to the SAQA/Quilt Art List reception Friday evening. It's going to be so much fun! Saturday morning I signed up for a mixed media sampler. I also need to carve out time to see all the exhibits and check out the vendors - probably Friday afternoon.

I'll have two quilts in the show, one of them in the "Surf's Up" exhibit: "If I Ever Tried Surfing." Here's a detail shot of it. I also participated in a group quilt that will be in the "Everything Under the Sun"exhibit. Look for the pink carousel rabbit.

SAQAFoot Square Auction 2009

The quilt that I donated to SAQA for their Foot Square Auction this year is up on their website! Check it out at:

http://www.saqa.com/newsebulletins/Squares08_6.aspx

I finished the mixed media pages for Stacy's book. Her theme is "Words of a Feather." I thought a lot about this one before putting it together - what a cool theme. I went with the words from Emily Dickinson, "Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul..."

My cat, Matilda, was really curious about all the

feathers sticking out of the top of the book! I have to keep the book secreted away so that she doesn't get TOO curious.

Speaking of pets, here's a photo of my California desert tortoise, Grampa T, peeking out from under the barbecue cover to eat breakfast. Corn on the cob is his most favorite food in the whole world, and it has to be yellow, not white. Isn't he darling? He lives in our backyard except in the winter, when he hibernates in a box in the closet under the stairs. When I adopted him from the tortoise society, they told me he was between 50 and 60 years old, and it's been over ten years, so now he's between 60 and 70. I've always wanted to make a tortoise quilt, but so far I haven't.