The Big Trees - Sequoia National Park

My trip to Orange Blossom Quilter gave me the opportunity to go for a back roads wandering into Sequoia National Park/ Kings Canyon. For those who don't know this is one of the few places on earth that is able to have the big... big... really big sequoias. I feel pretty lucky to be able to go wander through these special places, but at this time of the year it is even better. Springtime in the foothills and the lower regions of the parks were full of the softly swaying wildflowers. The color this year on the California Redbuds were incredible. The very showy red-violet was seen everywhere... splattering the wild color amongst all the green all the way up the mountains. The river was running high with the springtime runoff, and all was right with the world. There were definitely opportunities for a raven conversation or two, as well.

Pictures never really convey how great it is to be there... but if they can tempt you to do a bit of wandering on your own they are worth sharing. Enjoy!

Happily Wandering!
~Rose

Orange Blossom Guild Visit

The travel up the grapevine was beautiful...

the mountains still green and just around Gorman the wildflowers overtook the hills. In almost every direction there were fields of purple and of course the orange of the poppies. At certain points there was no green visible only the orange of the flowers.

The visit at the guild started with a presentation I gave on the Organized Quilter. There were lots of ideas share and of lots of quilts as well. It was a great group.

The Dream Landscape workshop followed over the next two days, and there are great quilts in the works. The folks at the guild were great as well and a special thank to Dyanne for making the visit happen, and to Elaine for being the perfect hostess. Can't wait to see some of these pieces when their done.

Morning Coffee

I've been sitting here enjoying my morning coffee and contemplating the day... which will ultimately have me visiting with Orange Blossom Quilt Guild in Visalia, CA. I am enjoying the quiet time, staring down the cat... for it is obvious that I have encroached on her space, and moving between my on-line travels and the wonderful new issue of Fabric Trends Magazine. While it is fun to chat and see everything on-line I do admit to loving the feel of the slick pages and the beautiful color that their springtime issue has. Not to mention the great review of my book that you'll find amongst the pages (92). The fabrics they are showing are luscious, and the quilt patterns are simple enough to show off these beautiful prints while interesting enough to keep you wanting to come back for another look. Even this dyed-in-the wool quilt artist loves a great pattern made up with great fabric... and my favorite from the magazine was the one called Rhapsody in Color, designed and quilted by Roxanne Hepker for Red Rooster Fabrics, though there were a few very close seconds.

I don't know how you spend that bit of quiet time you have. Whether yours comes at the beginning, the middle or the end of the day. It's important to have a bit of time where you can soak in some color, focus your energy and enjoy.

I'm looking forward to my trip later on today. It will take me through the Grapevine here in California, and this time of year that means wildflowers and poppies... some of my favorites. I've also got a little detour planned for that half-a-down day. If the weather holds there may be quite a few new photos to share from my adventures through Kings Canyon. Land of the GIANTS.

Check back later on this week to share the back road fun, and enjoy your bit of quiet time.

In Stitches ~Rose

Tuesday & Beyond

Hi All-
The Tuesday play day was fun again this past week. We had another day of playing with various paints to use on glass.. or rather inside the glass containers. As the play day group comes close to our celebrating one year of meeting together I realize that it hasn't been an easy time keeping this group of busy, busy people together and focused, but we all really enjoy our time of learning and sharing. The one thing the group kind of fell into early on was using 'in the room' exercises. These are simple artful exercises that let us focus, let go of all the other things going on in our lives, and bring us into the room. This simply little use of a few minutes has opened up lots of new avenues for thought and exploration over the past year. We have taken words or phrases and written them on paper scraps and thrown them into a basket. Then someone selects one and we may either use felt or pencil drawings to (within 5 minutes) express what the word(s) meant to us. My personal sketchbook really now contains at least a few kickstarts for a line of fabric...

It was a double treat week, for after the fun on Tuesday, on Thursday I headed off to the LA Int'l Textile Show.


And, what a treat it was.... how could that much fabric, beads, trims, buttons, under one roof not be a treat. We went off to the show with every intention of making it a morning excursion, but there was just too much to be seen, touched, enjoyed... and yes, purchased. Since all that is shown here is not to be photographed the only way I could give you an idea of the color was to pick up a bunch of the vendors photographs, and as you can see there was quite a diverse gathering. Some of my favorites were the Matsumo Glass Beads the trimmings at MPH, and the fabrics from Michael Miller Fabrics.

I would highly recommend you attend any such event. The color trending and seeing and feeling all the wonderful textiles is a feast for the eyes and the heart.

In Stitches ~Rose

Tuesday - Play Report

This Tuesday was a lot of fun, and we definitely got our hands dirty.

We are still waiting for our order for more Lutradur to come is so we moved on to another project. I have been working on some three dimensional pieces that I wanted to attach to glass bottles. But, before I could do this I had to figure out a way to make the bottles as much fun as the little 'fun guys' I wanted to attach. We had been chatting about this in the group and this week one of our members brought in a whole array of fun mediums and paint powders to try out. We tried out various combinations of glues and mediums along with acrylic paint, paint powders, mica powders, glitter and beads and had really good results. I now am ready to try this out on the special bottles... should be fun!

what do you do on Tuesdays?

This was the question of the day that came up in my art play group this past week. It is hard to believe that this little band of like minds decided to come together for a month of Tuesdays to try out some new ideas, stretch a bit and share... this was almost a year ago. We're still going strong. This past Tuesday we began to play around and test out Lutradur... a word being batted about. This fabric like fun material got our minds going with ways to use and 'see how it reacted'. We printed, washed, heat set, gel mediumed, etc our way to a really fun time. I know I have mentioned a play group before, but I do so here again. Such a great way to 'get away' from what is currently got you going and try something new.

We started keeping notes on the Lutradur, and the Tuesday book was started... so, again I'll ask you, What do you do on Tuesday's?
~Rose