critters and quilts

Another one of Freddy's quilts....watch for her new book!

Friday Harbor....so beautiful and perfect weather.

Snow geese on the way to La Conner Museum.

HI Friends....I cannot believe it has been so long since I have written...does that mean my life is dull....or am I just too busy....maybe both! In the past weeks we have chased alpacas and goats...escapees from our attempts at fencing them in....got some new koi...and I have been teaching and quilting up a storm. Yesterday was a wind storm with winds nearly 50mph.....wow....the power went off and I couldn't work, so we went to the mall and walked around and added another koi to the pond....a pretty lemon yellow and white spotted one. I hated to put her into that cold water, but in she went.

I am all finished with Freddy Moran's last 18 quilts....for another book...lots of string quilts that are really neat. So be watching for the next book!!

As for Freddy, my friend Stephanie Davis has started a brown nose Freddy Fan club on facebook...if you love Freddy, see if you can find it on Facebook...I am not much help there I am afraid. It should be fun to see who signs up.

I am teaching this Saturday for my guild....the woven quilts....and in 2 weeks I will be teaching at Lady of the Lakes in Longview, WA....I am teaching quilting and doing a trunk show for them at their guild......maybe I will see some of you there!

It is a cold and wet spring and this morning I think it was hailing, too. I am looking forward to more teaching, and meeting more gals in guilds. Last Saturday I did a trunk show and demo for the Northwest Quilting Connection. What a great group of gals. I think I will join them. It will be fun to learn from more quilting friends.

I had a great time teaching in Friday Harbor....I took the ferry there, and taught a couple of Kaffe Fassett's quilts. The girls did some beautiful pieces....and they sure did feed me well!!

Well, today I am expecting a new quilter to come by the studio...new to me....his name is Luke Haynes and you can see his work on the web. It will be fun to work with a guy quilter...there are a few out there....Scott Hansen is another guy from my guild who does great quilts, too.

Well, gotta eat some lunch and get busy on the longarm...one to finish and mail today, and another one to mail to CA.....yet this week.....so, hope you are all quilting and enjoying your moments of creativity....judy

Too Many Catz!!

The daffodil field in La Conner...it is soooo pretty each spring.

My feathered star....this is what I taught the Goofballs last month....it is fun...red, white, and blue for me. My favorite.

OUr new kitty....I call her Cat.
The river in LaConner....a great place to go walking and shopping. After you check out the exhibit of quilts, of course!

Hi all....well, today started out nice and sunny, but it looks like the clouds have moved in. I still have to feed the critters their orchard grass....now that we are getting more spring, they can start eating the blackberries and grass. They have to earn their keep!!

We have a stray Siamese type kitty. I had decided to take her to the local Animal center...NOAH, and get her fixed. She is not a wild cat, but I couldn't quite figure out if she needed to be spayed or not. Soooo, got her appointment all set, grabbed her last Friday morning, and popped her (?) into a cardboard cat box....I wasn't in the car more than a few minutes...out popped her little face, she had poked through the box....I stopped and got her the rest of the way out so she wouldn't choke to death! She sat right beside me really nicely, but sang quite a song the whole way. The end of the story, no micro chip, and a shave job on her belly showed she had been spayed already. I think she must belong to someone, but she seems to have landed here permanently along with the neighbor cat who spends a lot of time here too, especially when the food is put out. So, I guess we have a new cat...outdoors strictly.

I am including a couple pix of my trip to the museum and the daffodils. The tulips will be early I think, but they are not out yet.

I finished my feathered star, and am getting ready for another lone star. Well, guess I better get busy in the studio.....in the mean-time, have fun with your quilts and other projects. Hopefully, you will not have any cats land on y0ur doorstep. JUdy

the Big Experiment

This is an experiment..... I will try to post Marsha's link for her feathered stars.....

http://www.marshamccloskey.com/ Hey, I think it worked. Now all I have to do is figure out how to add it to my favorites with the proper address. Have a great day, all...judy

For an extra treat, this closeup is from my friend Sheryl's quilt. She took a class from Reynola Pakusich and created this work of art. She did some pretty tricky piecing in the quilt, not shown here!

Feathered Stars

Made by Jennifer in our Lone star class. Jennifer is a young gal of about 24, and it thrills me to have girls start out in quilting at such a young age!

This one is also Jennifer's quilt...it was in my mystery class, which turned out to be a feathered star!
This feathered star is made by Kim, Jennifer's mom....she is a perfect piecers...you should see the back side of her work...I could take a lesson!!

Cindy's quilt...she changed out the original feather points for the dark strip, which looked fabulous and better than the feathers. African fabric made it really sing!

This landscape is mine, made for our guild challenge. All will be donated to the LaConner Quilt Museum for a fundraiser during the tulip festival. I hope we raise lots of money!

Hi all...today is a strange weather day here...sunny with a mist falling, and now it is very cloudy....typical for here in the spring, I guess. But it is much better than snow and cold.

Our trees are blooming, the forsythia is nearing the end already, and I have daffodils in full bloom. The koi are looking for lunch, and I think all are accounted for, but it is hard to take a nose count while they are swimming around so fast, and switching spots. I still have not seen the 2 catfish, but I imagine if food starts to appear, so will they!!

All the other critters are fine, even our new stray cat that is still hanging around. I will have to post his picture soon....he waits to be fed every day, breakfast, lunch and dinner...his little belly is getting pretty fat. I wonder where he came from.

Today I am working on a really neat applique quilt, and will post a picture when I am done. It belongs to my friend Lorraine Jones who owns Seawatchfabric.com...check it out some time. She has great fabrics...asian and batiks mostly. THis quilt will be available by kit I think.

NExt up will be Freddy's quilts. She is at Asilomar this week teaching with Gwen Marston. I bet everyone is having a ball. My friend SuSan is there as well taking classes from Lura Schwarz Smith...I posted one of her quilts last time.

I am going to post some of the feathered stars the girls made in my class last Saturday....they did a great job. Cindy used African fabric and did one without all the little feathers...it is great....Marsha McCloskey has a new book and ruler you might want to check out. Check out her website.....MarshaMcCloskey.com I wish I knew how to do those link things. I will have to experiment with that, or get my guru here again.

Well, gotta eat some breakfast before I forget, and get to work. I have a long commute!! I will feed the goats and alpacas on the way across the pasture. Have a great day. Judy

Still too busy.....!!

Hi all....well, I have not written for some time again. I had a couple classes I taught in the past couple weeks....one was the Kaffe Fassett Hat Boxes from his book Passionate Patchwork. It is lots of fun and gives people a great chance to use up some fun fabric. It looks good in many different styles. Be sure to check Kaffe's book. His newest one just came out as well...can't think of the title, but it is posted on Amazon for a good price. The photos were all taken near his home in London....fabulous as usual.

Freddy Moran's new string quilt book is still in process, but the quilts are all fun ones, and should be great in another book.

We have had some fabulous weather...except today is cloudy and colder. We had quite a few sunny days in the past week. The koi are looking for lunch, but I am not feeding till the warm weather is really here, and the water temp stays up. They all look healthy and one looks like she if full of eggs...maybe we will have babies this year.

Alpacas and goats seem to have made their peace, and get along pretty well. Now we have two stray cats...a grey tiger and little siamese type one.

Well, guess I will try to post a couple pix, and get ready to go out.....Liz is coming by for a trip to Pacific Fabric in Everett, and then lunch.

I am working on my tulip challenge which will be donated to the museum. I should finish it today, except the binding. Will post it on the blog when finished. I really like it and decided I really love to do collage on the longarm. It is almost like painting in thread. Well, have a great day all, and I hope none of you are still caught in the storms back east....judy

Toooooo Busy to Blog!

Barbara Shapel and her spiral and fabulous owls......what a wonder!

Front of the quilt.

My brightly colored koi pond...plan to quilt it really neat with koi, lillies, and lilly pads.

Back of the owl quilt. Great use of thread of both sides.
Haystack Rock on the beach in Cannon Beach, OR. A fabulous quilt shop there, too. It is Center Diamond Quilt Shop. Be sure to stop by if you can!

Hi all....well, guess life just gets too, too busy to get to the computer to blog. Since my last lone star posted, I have made 4 more....notice the operative word....made, not quilted!! I am really smitten with the lone star pattern in every shape and size. Then, last weekend I went to Oregon for a mystery quilt workshop with Barbara Shapel. If ever you get to see her work or take her classes.....run, don't walk, and treat yourself to some beautiful quilts and fun times. We made a type of spiral...I did mine different from all the rest...mine represents my koi pond and the fish swimming in a circle for food. I don't think I have ever experienced nicer Oregon beach weather, either. I remember a beach trip there with my hubby....I thought I would water color on the beach....I spent the whole time chasing paper up and down the beach, and trying to keep warm. I was young and spry in those days!

Today was my bone density test....I have come back to above normal with the test....for several years I took Fosamax....I only share this as an ecouragement to prod all you gals to watch for osteoporosis. My mom had a horrible case, and and could barely hold herself up in in last years...her bones were like corkscrews. So, please, even you young gals....be sure to be aware of this insidious disease...it creeps up and does you in before you know it. It could sure cut into your quilting energies and stamina.

Well, girls, a big paper-pieced quilt is calling, but I just wanted to check in and post a few pix from our big Oregon adventure.....have a great day. Judy

Long time, no Hear!

Hi all...seems like forever since I have written. I just can't seem to sit and get to the blog. Well, not all my fault. We had bought a new computer right after Thanksgiving, but it would not hook to the internet....we messed around about 3 weeks and it still wouldn't hook up. Then we finally took it back, got another one, and it wouldn't hook up either. The lap top would, but not the new one. Finally, we decided to call the trusty Geek Squad. That took another couple weeks...so now it is Jan. 6....anyway, the geek guy finally figured out the problem...he had to trick the crazy thing to read the modem or router or something. Way too complicated for me. No one had a clue what the problem was. Now, you see why I prefer quilting to computing.

Anyway, then dear hubby had hernia surgery, which turned out great, so we are back to normal and here I am at the blog.

Thank goodness the only little snow we had melted by the next day. We did have some zero weather, but no snow yet. It has even warmed up enough so the koi are swimming near the top of the pond.....not good, but they are not getting a crumb of food from me. I hope they don't get too active before spring. they do look great, tho.

As for the goats and alpacas...finally they are getting along pretty well. At first the alpacas had the goats on the run. Then, they started stealing each others' food, and yesterday, the goats were butting the alpacas. They are funny little critters. I had to clip the goats' toenails yesterday. It is quite a job. They actually stay pretty still. My neighbor helped me. She has 5 goats she has rescued. So we have quite a menagerie in our neck of the woods.

Tomorrow the Goof Balls are coming to sew. I am going to show them an easy version of the lone star. We have guild meeting tomorrow nite too. Reynola Pakushich is coming. She does beautiful ethnic type quilts and works a lot with circles.

Well, I hope you all are having a wonderful new year and quilting a lot. I am stuck on this lonestar binge...I am working on number 4. Well, kids....gotta go, but thought I would write a few lines, since I have not done so lately. Have a great week....judy