Road to California

I spent last weekend at the quilt show, Road To California. As usual it was a wonderful weekend filled with great moments. I have been involved and attending this show since 1996, when in my role as president of the Southern California Quilt Council, we helped put together the first of the quilt shows that were to be connected with the quilters retreat Road to California. It's amazing to see how Carolyn has grown this show, and how everything works so well and continues to just get better.

At this time of year it's really fun to walk through the show and take in the festive feeling as friends meet, entrants have their photos taken in front of their quilts, and folks shop for all that is new and wonderful. And, shop they did!

This year I had a great time showing my new quilt patterns as the 'stunt quilter' in Natalie Barnes booth, Beyond the Reef. We worked really hard but had an absolute blast cutting fabric, helping with color selections and meeting so many people from all over the country. There's always a lot of laughter in Natalie's booth and this year was no exception. Thank you Natalie... and of course my cohorts Vickie, Barb & Lisa. There is a photo of the five of us, but by the time I got my camera out only Natalie and The Vixter were holding down the fort.


The quilts were great this year as well, and it was the opening venue for Noble Elements: Spring Forward. This is a group of quilters who have been exhibiting together for a number of years, and this is the first of our new series of quilts that will thematically cover Spring, Summer, Fall & Winter. My plan is have these pieces be a place for my ravens to appear, and my quilt this year is called, It's in the Air. It's always fun to see how the theme is interpeted and this year was no different.



On Sunday I was in Eileen Alber's booth, The Quilters Studio signing books. Sunday is the quiet day at Road. It starts out very low key... (probably due to the party fun happening on Saturday night) but by noon it is hopping. I had a great time. It was fun to talk with so many people and be able to sign copies of my new book. One woman stood in front of the table where I sat and said to her friends, "this is the magical book", and when I told her I was the author she was so excited. I just had to have my picture taken with her, and want to thank Debra for her wonderful description of my book.

A great time was had by all, and by Sunday I was contentedly tired. As I left I took a last quick tour to see everyone enjoying the festival atmosphere and soak up that feeling to recall and enjoy another day.

Now I'm off to northern California to present at council.
~Rose

The New Year is Here!

Someone blinked and the month of December was gone. I do hope that your holidays were filled with wonder and that '09 got ushered in well. I personally spent the week between holidays relocating my studio and making all kinds of changes to make this happen. I am hoping to have most everything tucked away in it's new home soon.

I also went in search of words to get the New Year started right. I found a lot of beautiful quotes from some amazing sources but I knew when I found the one I'm sharing here that it truly summed up my hopes for 2009.

'Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nuture your dream." ~ Lao Tzu

May 2009 bring you waters of optimism and creative ideas so your dreams may be watered turning any problem into opportunity.

Light & Happiness
~Rose

Shopping For Fabric

As the shopping season is upon us, I find myself in the middle of getting a couple of projects completed for early exhibits in 2009. Hard to believe we are soooo close to the start of new year. On Wed. I found myself in need of some 'color'. Colors in order to make my projects work, so I called a friend and made a plan to do a fast run up to the fabric district in Downtown LA.

For a number of years I have shared my shopping haunts in this area of Los Angeles through a map on my website, http://www.rosehughes.com/ ; but, this time I thought it would be fun to take some photos. The first photo is of the street signs on the corner of Maple & 9th, for most of my favorite stores are there between 8th & 9th.

It's a wonderful, wild street filled with lots and lots of stores full of fabric, so you can spend a lot of time wandering. As the picture shows your centrally located to several markets as well. I thought it fun that I capture the walk & green light. A good indicator. GO, GO, GO.

LA seems to have put in a new parking system. Most of the meters that let you come in for a quick hour rather inexpensively have been changed to a pay system that now costs $3 per hour. (guess they have to get their money somehow). There's plenty of lot choices as well, but if you are planning to go to Michael Levines they validate for an hour with a $20 purchase. They are also right there in the are of Maple & 9th.

My mission was several colors of dupioni silks and for that I headed straight for Fabrics & Fabrics at 403 E. 9th Street.

Even though the whole week had been wet and cold, the sun came out on this morning and everything was bright and fairly warm. A perfect day for wandering about. The guys at Fabrics & Fabrics are all very nice and are there to help you pull out all the rolls of color from the huge collections on the wall. They were even nice enough to let me take a couple of photos inside.

Hope you all get a chance to check it out sometime! ~Rose

More Open Studio Fun

My open studio this year was great fun, and many of the quilt artists with quilts in my recently published book showed up on Saturday for a fun afternoon with lots of signature swapping. The champagne flowed and conversation turned to the swapping of techniques recently tried out (afterall most of us are quilters), and tales of exhibition trials & tribulations. I wouldn't say we figured out anything of great significance but we had a nice time chatting about it all.

All the while I shared my new work and new series of patterns for everyone, and books and pens were passed around as people introduced themselves as Trish, page...., or Betsy, page.....

Trish & David delighted us all with the new pieces they were turning in for the upcoming travelling exhibit Seasons: Spring. Others shared and swapped a few shopping favorites that included http://www.beadwrangler.com/ that was touted to be THE place to buy jean thread, beads or 16wt pearl cotton.

Later in the day we snapped a couple of shots of the 'folks' in the book and others while they were cutting and pasting and having fun creating their own bookmarks at the worktable.

When everyone left the brownies were all gone but there was a drop of champagne left to help me get through the clean-up...

All in all a day filled with friends, fun and lots of sharing.
Happy Holidays to you all! ~Rose

Open Studio Fun

It was really great to visit the Joanell Connolly's studio last weekend. There was a number of fun people there to chat with, great art to see and purchase, and even a wonderful poetry reading by Gabrielle.

As Gabrielle read several of her poems I felt like was transported to wonderous places. She also had books of her poetry there and I fell for a poem called
Then There is Red.
At one point in my quilt artmaking career I purposely sought out using red. It had never been a favorite and I felt challenged to move outside my comfort colors. Some of the results of that experimenting (way back in 1997) was the piece.
Don't Think Yourself in a Jail.
The red challenge was just the beginning of my continuing study of color.

Gabrielle's poem says:

Red is everything
you ever wanted it to be.

Sure, its got
a bad rap:
red with embarrassment
or sunburn
and once
politically.

But I'll take red
any day--never
a stop for me
but full on go.

It's an enthusiastic color,
not at all shy.
Bulls love it and
they can't be wrong.

Where would Minnie
be without her
red and white
polka dots
or the day without
a red letter?

Foget about Hester.
I mean, at least she got to wear red.
After all,
it could have been
puce.

I loved the poem. It was perfect.

If you want to begin your own study of color you can download free color lessons from my website: www.rosehughes.com

But, if you want to see where red, purple, yellow, blue.............. are taking me now you can always check out my work at my open studio. This coming Fri-Sun. December 12-14.

I wish you all a 'red' letter day! ~Rose

December Fun!

December is certainly upon us and with it lots of holiday invitations and 'open studios'. I love to go check out other artists studios to see how they work, and chat about what they are doing. It's also fun to find wonderful little treasures that I can give for holiday presents. This weekend I'm heading off to the studio of Joanell Connolly. Her studio will be open on Sat & Sun and you can check out her work at http://www.joanell.com/ .

December has started off to be pretty exciting so far, for last night I had a wonderful time being interviewed by Kim Wulfert on http://www.womenonquilts.blogspot.com/ .

We had a great time conversing on my own art work and my journey so far. Kim did a great job of asking really interesting questions about my art, and the business of my art, and the interview will be available to hear or download from her blog very soon.

My recent trip to Olvera Street provided me with some little embellishments and some fun ideas on how to use them are whirling around in head.

Bells, calla lillies and other fun little trinkets....

Happy creating! ~Rose

Thanksgiving is Coming

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching. You can tell around my house since mom flew in yesterday. Talk has turned to recipes and shopping lists, but mom knew before she came that she would be helping me in the studio as well this week. Between commission pieces, my new pattern samples and exhibition deadlines I have several projects underway… not to mention my ‘for myself’ piece based on the desert sketches just made.

Mom dove right in yesterday and has me working to keep up this Saturday morning. I’ve been selecting fabric with the hope that I can pull everything together for 'eyes skyward' to keeping moving along.

If not I can always make a quick stop in Downtown LA to buy any ‘needed’ fabric on my way to meet up with the family by http://www.olvera-street.com/ . I am looking forward to winding my way through the shops on Olvera Street. I’ll be searching out interesting embellishments, and I'll be sure to share anything I find with you here later on.

My upcoming interview with Kimberly Wulfert on http://womenonquilts.blogspot.com is all set and ready to for December 3rd. I'm looking forward to chatting with Kim, whom I've known for a long, long quilterly time, but what I like best is that anyone can participate and ask their own questions 'live'.

Wish me luck with my shopping adventures. ~Rose