Grandpa T is in the "Animals We Love" contest

Voting has begun for the "Animals We Love" contest by the Quilt Alliance. I entered a quilt this year for the first time, and here it is. 

Testing Marie Kondo's magical 'life-chan

If you are a member, I hope you will go to the voting page to see all the wonderful animal quilts. If you aren't a member, now is a good time to become one, because only members can vote in this contest. And if you vote for "Grandpa T and his Salad," so much the better!

Fun little creative getaway....

Some random photos from the recent Fibreye retreat at Casa de Maria, near Santa Barbara. 

My Jukebox patterns

Some of you know that I have designed several patterns for Jukebox. What you don't know is that now they are available digitally! Cool! Here is the link to Jukebox where you can see my patterns.

http://www.jukeboxquilts.com/category/?cat=Quilt%20Patterns

Here is a closeup of my original Jukebox pattern, "Hidden Investments." It was the pattern that launched Jukebox.

Huntington Garden photo trip

I had a fun adventure with friends yesterday at Huntington Gardens. Here are three photos I took, plus one Terry took of me and Linda. 

My favorite, the pomegranate bonsai! Imagine this tiny tree with fruits on it. 

Lunch in Encinitas

We had a delicious lunch at the Lotus Cafe in Encinitas with our son Warren. Here he with Lily and Warren - glad Gingie behaved herself and didn't act grumpy around frisky Lily. 

 Here is a photo of orders being prepared for Om Balm, soon to be available at a yoga studio near you, perhaps? This is a promising entrepreneurial endeavor by my son and his girlfriend Cia. 

My quilt is on tv!

I was watching the latest Quilting Arts show over breakfast this morning. Jamie and Leslie were guests and were discussing how to enter shows, and there was a slide show of many of the quilts in the 2014 Reflections exhibit, curated by Dinner at Eight. So anyway, it was a thrill to see my "Saffron in the Park" on TV! Nice way to start the day. 

I know, the colors look weird. 

Sizzix Blog Hop: Flower Frenzy

I am so happy to be part of the Sizzix blog hop. It was really fun playing with the Sizzix flower dies. 

These are all the flowers and leaves that I cut. It may not look like much, but it was! I cut mostly cottons, plus some corduroy, silks, linen, etc. So easy and fun! All fabrics had Misty Fuse on the back.  The dies I used were Flower #6, Flowers Leaves & Stem #5, and Flower, but there are other similar dies available. Then I made a simple quilted background with my favorite gray fabrics. 

Then I arranged the flowers the way I liked them. My granddaughter Samantha watched me do this, and I let her play with button embellishments, just for fun. 

She had so much fun that I invited her to take some of my leftover flowers and arrange them on a smaller background, that I made just for her. 

After she arranged her flowers, she picked out some buttons that I could add after I quilted the flowers. She had the best time!

Meanwhile, I fused down the flowers on my quilt. 

Then I did some machine quilting on the flowers, as well as lots of hand embroidery.

 I also quilted and embroidered the flowers and added buttons on Samantha's quilt. Here it is, all finished.

Here I'm auditioning buttons on my quilt. 

And here is my final quilt! I really enjoyed making both these projects.