VW quilt

I love to see what people do with my patterns, and once in a while someone sends me a photo. I thought this one was a lot of fun. Debbie Allan made the quilt as a gift for her sister, who turned 50 - hence the 50 VW's. All the VW's are in dotty fabrics except for one in solid robin's egg blue, the color of her first car.

All my patterns are available at http://www.jukebox.com/.

Beneath the Surface

I'm happy to announce that my quilt, "It's Your Fault," got accepted into the Beneath the Surface special exhibit at Long Beach International Quilt Festival. I have permission to show the quilt, so here it is. You can see it in person in Long Beach in July.

Also, I've finished my daughter's baby quilt. I'm excited to show it, but I will wait until I give it to her in April. Now to start my niece's baby quilt - rockets and robots, here we come!

canvas purse

Here's a photo of the purse I made from my section of the painted canvas, described a couple of posts earlier. It was an interesting challenge, although it's probably too small for me to use. Maybe sometime, just for fun?

This is a view of the other side. I just love the colors! It's very playful.  It has a zipper.

As you can see, I lined the purse. Matilda always has to get into the picture.

I've been a juror in a criminal trial but it ended yesterday. Back to la vida creativa! Mostly I am in grandbaby mode - hope to share images soon.

Pretty Little Mini Quilts

I was excited to receive my copy of the new book, Pretty Little Mini Quilts. I have two quilts in it. They gave my quilts new names: "Spanish Flowers" and "Hearts on Fire." That's okay. I'm pleased that in addition to their featured pages, both quilts appear elsewhere in the book. One is on the inside flap of the cover and the other is on the "Pretty Little Mini Quilts Basics" page.

You can see the cover of the book on the right side of this blog if you scroll down. It's available in stores in March. Check it out! Jamie has a quilt in it, too.

Also, here's a photo of the newsboy cap I made about a month ago. It turned out okay, not perfect. If I made another one, I'd want to find buckram for the brim. This cap has lutrador in the brim, which is adequate but kind of floppy. I haven't worn it yet. I'm still kind of shy about wearing hats. :-)

Oh, and I just made something with that painted canvas that we made in Cut-Loose! Photos of that next time. I'll let it be a surprise until then.

An Artful Tour of Pacific Beach

We're here in Pacific Beach in San Diego, California, visiting our son. Rain was forecast, but it has been mostly sunny, except for one brief dousing.

I took a walk this morning with my camera. It was so beautiful. This is the pier in Pacific Beach. People can stay in the little cottages on the pier! I want to do that sometime.

As I walked along the beach, I came upon a view of our hotel, the Pacific Terrace. It's a nice hotel, and we have an ocean view, but it's a little scary to see the unstable-looking cliffs below. Our room is on the bottom floor, you can barely see it.

I thought this was an interesting tangle of seaweed in the sand.

I noticed several sand berms along the shore, to defend against the promised rains. They say more is coming in the coming days, but for now it is a glorious day.

my childhood house

I've been neglectful of my blog, sorry. I have been busy working on a quilt to be considered for the Long Beach Quilt Festival - I'm doing the binding now. I also have put my daughter's baby quilt top together, and I have begun embroidering on it. I can't really show you either thing, so as not to spoil anyone's surprise.

Since my niece is also preggers, I am thinking of a quilt for her, too. The theme in her baby's bedroom is Robots and Rockets - won't that be cute for a baby boy's nursery? I have an idea in my head, but nothing on paper or cloth yet.

A couple of weeks back, I went with some friends to South Pasadena. Terry showed us a fun little vintage neighborhood where we walked around, had lunch, peeked in shops, etc. We were also able to stop by my childhood home, which was not far away. Here's a photo of me pointing to what was my bedroom, in the corner. All the old trees are gone now, but otherwise the house looks pretty good. It looks much better than the time we looked and it was an ugly dark gray!

Fun Group Project!

We had a really fun time at Cut-Loose last night. Jamie Fingal had us painting on a huge piece of canvas. Every fifteen minutes or so, we switched seats, so that we could take turns working on every section.

It went together quickly, and we had a blast!

The plan is to cut up the canvas and each of us can make something with our piece. Hmm, book cover, purse, art piece, cushion, or????

That's Peggy Calvert sitting next to me in this photo. There are more photos on the Cut-Loose blog, http://cutloose.blogspot.com/