Seine

The net is called the "seine" on a boat that is a seiner. Here is the jitney's seine, in the back of Tom's truck. After working on the skiff outboard all morning, launching the jitney, filling her tanks, standing up the mast and then dealing with my broken down car, he and I loaded the seine from the warehouse (where it is stored for the winter) to his truck. I am so tired that I can't believe that I can type, and I didn't do a quarter of the work he did! Tomorrow we will load the seine onto the jitney and mend it. I'll try and get a photo for you.

The pretty house in the background is a B & B on our street, and that's the bay that Tom will be fishing in come Monday morning at 6am. Please wish him luck for a good fishing season.

Crazy Shortcake Quilt finds a Home

While at Spring Quilt Market Sarah and I bumped into Maret from Seams Like Home Quilt Shoppe in Anchorage several times! I love going all the way to Portland, Oregon to meet up with the Alaskans - lol!

We showed her the Shortcake Quilt and offered to let it go live in her newly relocated Shoppe and she took us up on it. I haven't seen it there yet, I stole this pic from Sarah's Blog :)

We will both be at Seams Like Home on June 21 for a book signing and hugging day. We end up seeing lots of quilters and giving and getting lots of hugs. How nice is that!

Fabrics from Spring Quilt Market

I let Sarah do my fabric shopping for me and here's what she chose:
a beautiful collection of soft earthy colors called "Victoria" by Benartex
and a nice set of complementary fabrics by Andover (the lighter fabrics) and Quilt Gate (the darker maroon colored fabrics). It is absolute heaven to have a "fabric advisor" that I can trust! Now I just need to decide which quilts to make and who gets them....fun!

NQR stands for Not Quilting Related

I've been a busy gal since coming back from Portland Quilt Market! The boats still need work & maintenance and that is first priority in our lives. So, it's been the usual routine of scrubbing the fish hold, mending nets, launching skiffs and stocking the big boat with groceries and supplies.

The jitney is in the driveway (what a sight!) so that we can repair hydraulic lines, the ram for the power block and the hatch covers.

And then there is my pal Vanta's new bookstore! When I haven't been working on boats I've been at Vanta's store, helping with inventory and painting the interior and exterior of the business. She's going to call it Cover To Cover (isn't that cute?) and she hopes to be open for business in the next few weeks in downtown Seward, Alaska.

All this is in addition to my "day job" - the one that pays the travel bills and fabric expenses - lol! I hope your spring & early summer are just as much fun or more :)

Green

My favorite color is green. I found a green batting at Spring Quilt Market, it's green because it's made from recycled soda pop bottles! Sarah bought a case of it and I'm going to get a batt from her to use. Sarah spent a significant amount of time at Market looking for organics and other eco-friendly products. I recently welcomed my towns adoption of recycling plastic (should have been doing so 20 years ago like some states) with open arms full of plastics I've been washing and saving for a year (what a mess!)

Last night we watched the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car". What a shock. I drive a 13 yr old vehicle and Toms is 12 yrs old. I have over 200,000 miles on my car and I'm not buying another vehicle until I can buy an electric car. By all information available and confirmed, I should be able to buy it today. Check out the movie at Netflix or Amazon or the movie's own website or ev1.org or even Wiki.....please....watch this movie. I'd love to hear what you think of it.

We made the Catalog Cover!

I am back from Quilt Market in Portland and what an experience! Sarah and I had an awesome time at Market and even though she did all the hard work (and she did a spectacular job!) I am the one who is exhausted! How did that happen? LOL

I am a behind-the-scenes kind of person so I did all the prep work for the demo and then Sarah does all the talking at the demo and she really makes the quilters happy. She received lots and lots of compliments about her demos and when we were all done showing off, we walked the aisles of Market together. She was looking specifically for organics and eco-friendly products and I was looking for info for another blog that I write called "Quilt News". With only 2 exceptions, we were happily received by all. Sarah will be back tomorrow and will probably post about her finds on her blog. I'll post again with photos of fabrics and a few other tidbits from Market.

We started off on Saturday morning with a bang when we realized that our publisher, Krause Publications, has a photo our our very own quilt on the cover of their Spring 2008 catalog. Yayyyyyy!

Spring Quilt Market in Portland, Oregon

I am in Portland now, a city I truely enjoy visiting. This is my third Quilt Market in Portland and I stay in a different part of the city every time, using public transportation to get around. Yesterday I went to Powells Bookstore, the largest used bookstore in the nation. I walked for hours through old downtown Portland and it was just fun. The flowers are blooming here and I even got a bit of sun sitting outside the convention center waiting for the admin booths to open.

Fishing Season

It's that time of year again. I've been on the boat, which is dry docked right now, cleaning and making her ready for another fishing season.

Here's an older picture of me, when I worked on the boat as crew a couple of years ago. In the first photo I am surrounded by fish, hand pitching them for delivery. I am also very tired - lol! In this photo we have just caught the fish on the jitney and are transferring them to the big boat for icing and tendering.

We are incredibly careful with our fish because a good percentage will make it to your store as fresh Alaskan Red Salmon. That means frequent deliveries of heavily iced fish and "hand" handling, not pumped by machine. Here's a photo of Tom's seiner, the F/V Dolly B, at the dock for delivery. This is his photo, I was probably asleep in my bunk!

Crazy Shortcut Quilt

I just received an email that made a very sad day so much better! There was a tragic accident with some of my free roaming bunnies, and my heart has been heavy for days. Then I received this message and photo:

Marguerita,

I thought I'd share some pictures with you and Sarah on my first attempt at making one on the quilts in your book. I'm sure it won't be the last. I had a blast!

Julie

I am going to put her photo on our website, along with quilts from Sarah's recent class. Wasn't it so sweet of Julie to send us her photo? Thanks Julie!

Quilt Room Photo

I just love having a cutting table that I can stand at and walk around! Sarah gave me this table and I use it all the time. The other thing that I really like is the pegboard that hangs next to it. I have the table shoved into a corner (no wobbling) and my rulers, rotary cutters and scissors hang from it along with a comfortable mish mash of stuff . My mess, take a peek.

That cute quilt on the wall is, I believe, the first quilt Sarah ever made...isn't that sweet! She gave it to me!