Meeting Carol Doak

One of the highlights of my trip in November was getting to meet Carol Doak, the Queen of Foundation Paper Piecing! She was teaching at a guild in New Jersey on the last weekend that I was there. It was about a 50 minute drive from my parent's home, so who could resist! I've been helping Carol to moderate her Yahoogroup over the past several years and we've been corresponding, so it was exciting to finally have the opportunity to meet in person. We spent some time at her hotel before going to the guild. I brought some of my mini foundation pieced quilts for show and tell and Carol show and telled images from her iPad! Carol is such a lovely and sweet person and I very much enjoyed getting to know her.

Carol's lecture at the guild was fantastic. She is lots of fun and funny, too! We all enjoyed her Powerpoint presentation about her quilting life and her trunk show of many quilts, especially all those wonderful minis.

 One of the nicest things was that Carol gifted me with a small quilt top. It's the actual top that was made for and shown on The Quilt Show episode that featured Carol teaching her brand of foundation paper piecing. How cool is that!

If you love quilting and are a foundation paper piecer or just want to learn FPP, you must join Carol's Yahoogroup. She gives us loads of free patterns and it's one of the best groups around with a wonderful group of members.


Enjoy!

Debbie

Marking pens

 
One of the things that I bought during my trip to the U.S. were several different marking pens. My intention is to use them to mark the YTRR mini quilt that's still waiting to be quilted. I have extra fabric and want to test different pens. The small package, by Clover, I bought at the City Quilter. The first two on the left, I bought at a sewing supply shop right across the street from F.I.T. in NYC. The first one on the right, I bought here at the Quilt Center shop in north of Akko.

If anyone has any advice for me on their experiences with any of these markers, that would be great. As I mentioned, I plan to test them on the same fabrics that are in the little quilt top before I do anything serious with them.


Thanks!

Debbie

Sew many sewing machines!

 
While in Florida, my daughter and I did some shopping on Miami Beach's Lincoln Road. We went into a most unusual clothing store. Hundreds of old sewing machines on display! There were other old pieces of textile related equipment, too. It seems that this company, All Saints, has a chain of stores in the United States and Europe and all of the stores are displaying hundreds of machines. So cool! You can see photos of the other stores by searching in the link that I gave you above.

Here are just a few of the photos that I took there.

Enjoy!

Debbie

[1-1-11] Coming up: The 2011 One World One Heart Event

 
The 2011 One World One Heart Event, hosted by Lisa Swifka of  A Whimsical Bohemian, will be taking place from January 30 thru February 17. The link is also in the OWOH button on my sidebar. This is the fifth year (and final, as Lisa claims) for the OWOH. This will be my third time participating. 

Go check out the details and the rules and decide if you'd like to join us. It really is a lot of fun!

Here are the links to my 2010 participating post and my 2009 participating post. I haven't decided yet what I'm going to be offering this year, but I can tell you it won't be postcards this time.


Enjoy!

Debbie

Some quilt show photos

 
I've been lazy about posting. I was away the whole of last week at my daughter up north taking care of my three month old grandson and spending time with his 2 1/2 yo sister. My daughter went back to work, so this was a good chance to spend some time with them. She goes to gan (nursery school) and he's going to a babysitter now.

When I went to visit my grandson (and daughter and son in law) in Miami Beach in November, I managed to choose a great week to be there. The World Quilt show was in West Palm Beach that weekend and I was thrilled to be able to get there on Friday.

I took photos of a lot of the quilts that appealed to me and here are some of them. Remember, click on any photo to enlarge.

This one was Best of Show. Just look at that quilting and the tiny stippling!

Best Use of Color:

Best Machine Workmanship:

 

Best of Country, Australia. You have to look at that detail in the closeup!

The next three did not get any awards, I just really like them.

Enjoy!

Debbie

Perfect timing! Jackie's giveaway

 
I just got through telling you about the Kona solids that I bought from Jackie at Canton Village Quilt Works and today she announced a giveaway of a gorgeous Fat quarter bundle of Kona solids! The giveaway is being hosted by Rachel of P.S. I Quilt. Check it out. You have until the end of the week to enter!

The next day - Part 2

 
On that day I took the train into Manhattan. I had big plans, a list of places to go. Didn't get to do it all. Got tired part way through and didn't have time to rest and then continue because I had to be back by a certain time in order to go to my sister in the evening. Knowing that might happen, I started with the most important place first! The American Folk Art Museum. 

They are having a two part special exhibit, of the quilts in their collection. Wow, this is some exhibit. Many skillfully executed quilts from long ago. Some more recent ones, too, including the one that Paula Nadelstern donated to the museum from her exhibit last year. I wasn't sure if photography was allowed, so I didn't take out my camera. Sorry. You can see some photos on their site. It looks like the special exhibit they're having at the Lincoln Square branch is very interesting, but I just didn't have time to get up there. If you're going to be anywhere near NYC during the time of these exhibits, I urge you to make time to go to the museum and/or it's branch. You won't be sorry.

Next stop was M&J Trimmings. There are two shops that I make sure to get to on each and every one of the trips I make to the U.S. M&J is one of them and City Quilter is the other. And, I never leave either one of them without making a purchase. So, here's what I bought at M&J. Such a fun place!

Next stop was Butterfly Fabrics. They have a lot of fancy fabrics, including all kinds of different silks. I went, on recommendation, specifically to see the dupioni silks. There were so many wonderful colors. But, they would only cut a minimum of a yard each. That's a lot for me and I wanted to get a bunch of different colors. I couldn't decide what to do, so I told myself I'll come back a different time. Maybe find out if I could find someone to share it with me. So, I did go back at the end of the next week and this is what I bought. Aren't they gorgeous? I'm going to try to sell some small pieces to help defray the cost.

Yes, I did manage to do lunch somewhere in between. I do all this by foot and I love, love, walking on the streets of Manhattan, but, here is where I got tired, and it's a good thing, because this post is getting too long!

One more thing. A few weeks before I went to the states, I placed an order with Jackie at Canton Village Quilt Works, for a bunch of Kona solids. She usually has them at a good price and they were on sale. Don't they all go great together? You can learn about the sales by subscribing to the newsletter or from Jackie's blog.

Are you noticing a color trend here? I have yet to decide what I'm doing with all this stuff.

To be continued...

Enjoy!

Debbie

Trip - Part 1

 
I just went to look at my photos of the trip I took to the U.S. last month and, would you believe, I have no photos of anything where I went the first few days! I do have a photo of something I took in my parents house, but that's for later.

For those who don't know, my parents live in New Jersey close to NYC. The first day I was there I took a ride into Brooklyn to do some shopping. It was raining, which is something we're, unfortunately, not used to here in Israel these days. Although it is supposed to be stormy this weekend here. Anyway, on my way into Brooklyn, there was sleet! Hadn't seen that in a while.

Of course, one of my stops was to a quilt shop. I think I may have been to this shop several years ago when it was in a different location. Sew Materialistic is a nice little shop with a nice selection. It's a very busy place! There were a lot of women at a big table in the back and walking around there. It looked like they were there for some one on one instruction and help with works in progress. I had met the owner, Malke, online a few months ago and it was fun to meet her in person. But, I forgot to get a photo! :(  The shop also has a blog, and Malke has a blog, Quilting with Malke.

Early last month Thearica of Pigtails and Quilts wrote a post about an item she found at a yard sale. When I saw it, I was excited because a similar item was on a little shelf in my mother's kitchen right near me! I know it as a holder for thread for tatting or crochet lace. It's also called a string holder. My mother's has a hole in the base. In the old days they used to secure it with a screw to the counter in a store and use the string for wrapping up people's purchases. I asked my mother if I could have it, but she said she's not ready just yet to give it up! Thearica asked to see photos of the one my mother has, so here they are.

Have a good weekend,

Debbie

I'm still here! Happy Chanukah!

 
Sorry to seemingly have ignored you all. Thanks for those who expressed concern. I sure do have a lot of catching up to do. I spent a few weeks in the states during the month of November. I'm slowly straightening life up since I came back. I have a whole bunch of experiences to share from when I was there, with photos, and will start posting them very soon. Meanwhile, check out G6's blog to see the lights at my home here in Jerusalem on the fourth night of Chanukah. Yes, it is a quilty post!

Enjoy!

Debbie

Win a Book!

 

The winner is: Emillie Rose! I have sent an email to Emillie, awaiting her address.

This is a quick post to offer a book that I won and am now passing on. Back in June, my friend Quiltgranny Sharon had a giveaway of the recent novel of Sandra Dallas. Sharon gave away the book she was sent for review and the copy that she finished reading. I was one of the lucky winners! 

While Sandra Dallas has written books with something sewing related in them, this one is not so much one of those, but it was an easy read and I couldn't put it down! Be sure to read what Sharon posted about Sandra Dallas and go to the Sandra Dallas site to read about her other books.

Now one of you will be a winner of the book Whiter Than Snow by Sandra Dallas!

Just leave a comment here, on this post only, by midnight U.S. EST, Tuesday, November 9th, and I will use the Random guy to draw a winner. As usual, anyone who is a no-reply commenter, with no other way to be reached, will be disqualified.


Enjoy!

Debbie

It's the 4th Blogger's Quilt Festival!

  

We've made it to the 4th Bi-annual Blogger's Quilt Festival. Thanks to Amy of Amy's Creative Side for gathering hundreds of quilters together to show some of their favorite quilts all in one place.

I don't know if any of my regular readers noticed, but I tend to work with mostly brights (the basic colors of the rainbow) in combination with usually black and sometimes white. This time I was going to show you my first crazy quilt piece that I made probably about 15 years ago. It actually looks like an antique because it's dark and dreary and faded. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Maybe some other time. 

So here is what I decided to share this time. The first four pieces pieces are minis, with the fifth being a little larger scale.The sizes are noted below each photo. I use a few of them as mats. I consider all of these together as a set or a series. They are all made of components of Carol Doak's foundation paper piecing blocks. Don't forget, you can click on any photo to enlarge.

8 inches square

7" x 8"

nine inches

 seven inches square

14 1/2"

Important Note: I like to reply to as many of everyone's nice comments that I can fit in, but some of you are no-reply commenters. This means that your email address is not enabled in the profile of your google account, so it does not show up in the header of your comment. If any of you are wondering why you never get any replies to your comments on blogspot blogs, then check your google profile and enable your email address. Or, you can put your email address in the body of your comment.

Here are links to my posts in the past Festivals:

Blogger's Quilt Festival #1  April, 2009

Blogger's Quilt Festival #2  October, 2009

Blogger's Quilt Festival #3  May, 2010

Enjoy!

Debbie

And the winners are...!

Paulette! 

 

Congratulations, Paulette, on winning the batik squares!

 

paulette said...

Wonderful give away!! Thanks for the chance to win!!
Paulette 

and

pippirose!

Congratulations, pippirose, on winning the lengths of yarn for embellishment. 

pippirose said...

Thanks for the chance to enter your wonderful giveaway.
:o)

I have sent emails to Paulette and pippirose. If either of them does not reply within 48 hours, I will go back to random.org and draw another winner.

Thanks for all the lovely comments. I'm sorry that I did not have a chance to reply to everyone. I still hope to get to reply to some of you. Hope you all had fun in the Fall into Fall Giveaway.

Enjoy!

Debbie