...5" square, give or take a quarter inch.... Sarah and I make these for Quilt Market, which we will be attending in less than a month. This year we will have a Take & Teach on Sunday morning as well as a few "in-booth" demos through the weekend and a Schoolhouse session on Thursday. Notice my blue foam quilting table? :)
I have enjoyed a wonderful fall weekend, full of sun, fabric and quilting, while Tom and his son have been building a shed for a friend. Tom is in his truck, answering a call and is son is inside the building...
I teach quilting on a midarm machine whenever I can and at the Valdez Quilt Festival I was invited to teach this class twice. I really enjoy showing quilters why I love this system more than the longarm :)
I've owned both a longarm and midarm system and quilted on the home sewing machine as well, so I try to give the students a full perspective on all three but the class really is about using one of these new, quilt friendly, frame quilting machines. Here's a pic from my Thursday class.
Whooooowheeeeee!! I had the time of my life!! Sarah and I taught the most fun class I've ever been in and the quilters went home with just an hour or two of stitching left to have finished and quilted quilts!
And guess what I found in Valdez? Rabbits! :)
I taught my class on using a midarm quilting system on Thursday and Sunday and on Friday & Saturday we did our shortcuts quilt as-you-go method.
The drive home was just lovely. It's been years since we've driven to Valdez, a 425 mile trip for me from Seward, and we visited some familiar places and a few new ones too.
This is Tiekel River, at about mile marker 50 of the Richardson Highway. I have a few more photos on Flickr here and you are invited to take a look. There are photos of Worthington Glacier, the top of Thompson Pass (in the clouds, of course!) and a couple of the Wrangell-St. Elias mountains and last is one of Sarah touching the Alaska Pipeline at about mile marker 82 or so. We have the same photo from when she was about 9 or 10 years old :)
Next trip is to Houston, Texas, at the end of October and my thoughts are with the people of Texas as they struggle with the damage done by the hurricane.
Some photos I've take recently. Tom came home briefly, bringing the jitney in. This photo was taken about about nine or nine thirty at night. 
Earlier 
that same day a cruise ship left port. Notice the fireweed? The story goes that when the fireweed is done blooming, two weeks later it will snow.
Today the silver salmon must be jumping right off this side of the bay because the fishing boats moved over here, at the end of our street. In the distance are the lights of a tender coming in from Prince William Sound with pink salmon for the cannery.
We are going to Valdez!! Sarah and I haven't been there for years and we are looking forward to seeing the town again, cruising through Thompson Pass, taking photos of Bridal Veil Falls and Horse Tail Falls, and maybe finding some salmonberries.
I used to drag Sarah (and sometimes her friends and cousins) all over the state as she was growing up. I love traveling in Alaska!
At the Festival we will be teaching the Crazy Shortcut Quilting in a two day marathon class (Sarah will stay up with the night owls and I'll get up with the early birds) and I'll also be teaching what I know about using a mid-arm quilting system to quilt for yourself and others. I am *SO* looking forward to the drive, it has always been one of my favorite trips. The mountains up at Eureka are just breathtaking, the St. Elias range is so impressive and so far, unless I've been in an airplane, I haven't found a view like the one from the top of Thompson Pass. You can almost see to Cordova!
Here's info about the Festival, we hope to see you there!
Whenever Sarah does a demonstration of our Crazy Shortcut Quilt techniques she mentions "stitch envy". It happens during class when the students are quilting their squares using the decorative stitches of their sewing machines. They look at the quilters next to them and the stitches they have on their machines, and well, you get the idea.
We teach a lot of ways to get the most from your machine no matter how many stitches it has and I've quilted on machines with just 5 or 6 stitches - changing width and stitch length just to get some variety.
Today I got an email from a really cool lady who couldn't wait to show me what she'd stitched up after reading our book. "We inspired her" she said, "and be sure to look at that crown stitch" she said. So I looked at her photos and now I have stitch envy!
She has crowns!
I want crowns!
Look at those stitches. I am so broke that I just couldn't ask what machine she has - - I'm afraid to ask! LOL I'll be dreaming of stitches tonight....thanks to Sandra Wucher of the Stashbusters Group on Yahoo!
Sarah's playing with some quilt design options on her blog. Take a peek and let her know which layout you like best. I've been cleaning and organizing stash and paperwork. Pulling out old notes, unfinished tops, stuff like that. My theory is that if I surround myself with unfinished works I'll eventually finish something! :)
At what point does "whew, I am so glad I don't have to clean up after them anymore!" turn to "Oh, how I miss the pitter patter of their little feet..."?
My answer - -'not yet'! LOL :) Hehehehe
The baby bunnies went back to their outside home, as healthy as I can get them, my 22 month old granddaughter is home in Anchorage after spending the weekend with me and Tom is fishing in Homer (a long way away). I am......home alone!
Let's see if I can finally be productive. You should see my 'to do' list. I was remembering quilts that I need to finish in my sleep last night. Then there's some painting I've been putting off, cleaning out more stash, scanning photos & backing up computers....
My little helper got me started yesterday before she left....
On July 5th Tom brought home 2 baby bunnies that each had conjunctivitis in one eye. It just broke my heart. I didn't post about them, or take photos, because I was sure that they were going to die. They were very, very infected, starved and barely 10 days old. The only hope I had was that they moved around and wanted to eat. So, we regularly soaked and cleaned their bad eyes, painstakingly cleaned up their fur, fed them alfalfa hay, fresh dandelion greens, ground pellets and goat's milk (by eyedropper). They lived.
They are still under "clean up" care in my living room but they are eating, playing, grooming themselves and each other and their fur is almost totally clean. I believe that they will both be blind in their infected eyes, but I am not positive. The white rabbit's bad eye almost looks normal now. I just can't figure out how to give an eye test to a bunny! Lol :)
Here's the F/V Dolly B towing her jitney and skiff out of the harbor and in the second picture you can see the boats as a tiny spec. They are on their way to Nuka Bay. It's about an 8 hour run and fishing there opens at 6am tomorrow morning. Please wish them safe travels and successful fishing. This trip is for Wild Alaskan Red Salmon.
So, what this really means is that I am free!!!! Yayyyy! 
I've been working my day job and then working on either the property (clearing & cleaning) or the boats (endless maintenance) afternoons and early evenings, and in between caring for the baby bunnies Tom rescued (long story - coming soon). No quilting. I want to finish my funky quilt and now Sarah has posted a design that I like and want to try too... And my pal Margie has found a great plugin for WordPress photo management and it looks both incredibly learning intensive but everything and more that I've been looking for!
I made the mistake of being tired and worn out just before spending a weekend with Audrey. At one and three quarters, she has about twenty thousand times the energy that I do! Lucky baby :)
We had fun in the front yard watching people and their kids and dogs walk past the house on their way to the festivities on Third and Fourth Avenues downtown. Here's Audrey reading the instruction book for Sarah's videocam. Can you see the baby foot in the second picture? That's her taking a nap while I work on the computer. Why didn't I sleep then too?
Here are a few photos from today. We took our two vehicles out of the driveway to accommodate visitors to the festivities and at one point we had 4 vehicles in front of the house and 5 in the driveway.
The street, as usual for the Fourth of July, was packed. The men's race is the biggest draw and it starts at 3pm so the crescendo builds up until then. 
Look at the difference in photos from a few days ago in the post below.
If you click on the close up of the mountain you might just barely make out some of the runners on the right of the lower snow patch. The runners had to ascend through the clouds this year and although it might be harder to see, it's cool and refreshing in this grueling race.
The Melissa B has been in the driveway for renovations. She gets a lot of looks from passers by! She was originally owned by Perry Buchanan and he taught his sons, Steve & Tom to fish on her. She's seen a lot of modifications over the years.
Eventually Steve bought a boat, the F/V Marathon, and Perry commissioned a new boat, the F/V Dolly B, and Tom bought the boat and renamed her to his daughters' name - Melissa. Tom fished the boat for many years, and taught his son Thomas and daughter Melissa to fish on her.
In 1998 Perry retired from fishing, Tom bought the Dolly B, and his son owns the Melissa B. Here they are working on her today.
Sarah and Audrey are coming to see me on Thursday, and Audrey will stay with me for a few days. Seward is known for it's 4th of July celebrations, the most famous of which is the Mt. Marathon Race. This internationally known race begins 2 blocks from our house, which is downtown. The race trail goes to the top of Mt. Marathon and down some snow slews and ends back at it's starting point. It's a rough trail race. If you look closely, you can see the trail to the peak in this photo.
Seward is a small town of about 3,500 people. No traffic lights. One main street. Several thousand people will be here for the 4th - even more if there is a cruise ship in port. Fourth Avenue is blocked off completely for about a mile, as is most of Adams Street - the street we live on (seen here). Usually we stock up on groceries in advance and just don't plan on leaving the house because it's almost impossible to do so with the traffic that converges on downtown.
Audrey and I will have a front row seat for the festivities - it should be a blast! Here's a list of the events - if you are coming here please note that the fireworks are on Thursday night not Friday night.
I have not had time to do any more sewing on the Funky Fuzzy Quilt, but I will post as soon as I am able to get back to the project :)
I've been playing with ones and zeros again. While in Portland I was desperate to go to Powells Bookstore, for both the experience and for a book on HTML. I found a book that I liked but I've only read 1 chapter. Why? Because I have discovered WordPress.
WP intimidated me when I first started blogging - so I went with simple and easy (and I like Google a lot) but WordPress has enticed me. I was frustrated at first, not understanding the differences between WP.com and WP.org and WPmu (Wordpress multiple user) so I did what I always do, went looking for a book. I like to read Amazon.com reviews on books and I found that the book WordPress for Dummies (I have never liked the "for dummies" titles just on basic principle - I'm not a dummy) but this book had much better reviews than all others, so I bought it. It lives up to it's reviews.
I've practiced blogging in WP, and importing my blogs from blogger to WP and I am coming to like it more and more. And now, at the end of the book, is a section about using WP as a web platform - hallelujah!! I hate my web software with a passion (Front Page and Web Expressions) and I can't wait to try WordPress for my website. I'll keep you posted :)
My friends Kathy Harte and Judy Wedemeyer (quilt artists and soon-to-be bloggers :) came by Seams Like Home Quilt Shoppe to say hi to Sarah and I and Judy send us this photo. We had a great time there! The shoppe is h-u-g-e at 10,000 sf. and the classroom is the best I've ever seen. I wanted to move in.
Here are Sarah and I showing off quilts and answering questions and generally having a lot of fun chatting with quilters.
Sarah and I will be at Seams Like Home Quilt Shoppe in the new location at the University Center Mall from noon to 3pm on Saturday. Please stop in and say "hi" and I'll be bringing the bits of my Fuzzy Funky Crazy Shortcut Quilt too - I have a few squares "quilted" and you can check them out.
Maret, the owner of Seams Like Home Quilt Shoppe, is a great gal and she used to be Sarah's teacher in elementary school - how cool is that? She told us that she found a photo of Sarah curled up inside the bookcase in her classroom, reading a book. I can't wait to see it.
I've been busy working on Tom's property and I'll post about it Sunday - with photos. I keep forgetting to take my camera when I head out there to work. Happy Solstice All!
This baby is my favorite - by far! I wanted to couch down some yarn instead of quilting my squares, and I dug through my stash and found this chunky funky fuzzy yarn - -isn't it delicious?
I've been using a narrow zigzag stitch to couch it down and it's going slower than I thought it would but that's just because of the little fuzzy bubbles in the yarn and the fact that I get to sew for only a few hours a week. We are still doing maintenance and work on the boat and putting up fish for winter. If you are following along and want to make the quilt - - I'll post the whole story on our website when I get the quilt finished. I am using the sizing from the book for "Easy to Go Crazy" and the cutting design from "Think Pink". I am making a few adjustments as I go so be sure to check back for the final post about this quilt. :)
If you are a blogger (or are totally hooked on reading them - like I am!) check out Quilting Gallery and her list of Quilting Bloggers - it's awesome!
What an ambitious project - I wish Michele well - she's created quite a site :) If you are a quilting blogger, please consider submitting your blog to her list to help her reach her goal of 1,000 blogs.
I thought of a name for my new quilt..."Funky Shortcut". I've wanted to try this harlequin type of cutting arrangement for a while, and I really, really love it with these fabrics!
It's time to make a quilt. I need a fabric "fix" :) I found these in my stash, from a project I never even started (how perfect is that! Now they are ready for this project!) That's my philosophy and I'm sticking to it. Doesn't that black and white check make you dizzy? I love it!
This season has been a difficult one so far and every day I dread more bad news. Last night Tom called and said that they were coming in because the skiff (with it's brand new thousands of $$ outboard) had been swamped. In salt water. It was less than 36 hours old, and all the breakdowns that lead up to it's unexpected purchase...well I won't bore you with the depressing details.
In the middle of these miserable events, my heart was gladdened by the people who are our biggest competitors on the water - the Cabana family. Fishing is very competitive. I've been side by side with their boats, fighting for the fish, trying to out catch them and they try and beat us. That's the nature of this work. But the second that they saw Tom's skiff underwater they cut throttle, disconnected lines and came racing over to help. That is the Alaskan way and their family is one I admire.
I have my tv station on a channel that broadcasts live from the Chiswell Islands, just south of Resurrection Bay in Seward, Alaska. I am watching the sea lion population as they climb out of the water, up onto huge rock outcroppings, to give birth. The rocks are covered with sea lions, the massive males and their harems of females and their pups, some just hours old. You can watch too, on streaming video.
The color is bad on the video, almost black & white on my screen. The sea lions are earthy brown and the pups are black. This is a photo of my tv :) I wanted to see what it would look like.
The Crazy Shortcake Quilt Pattern instructions are now on our website! If you have the book or have made a quilt in a class with Sarah, you'll know exactly how to put it all together and the fabric requirements and cutting instructions (with a few reminders) are here for you!
