Stashmaster

I Brake for Quilt Shops!

I used some of my birthday loot to buy a personalized license plate for my new car.   Cute, isn't it?

Day 4 - Monterey Area

On Monday morning, Nicole and I took a drive down to beautiful Pacific Grove.  Our most immediate destination was Back Porch Fabrics, but we saw some other beautiful things while we were there as well.   Here are the beautiful batiks I bought at Back Porch.  Orange again, what a surprise!  but their orange and pink selection just knocked me over.  There's a great quilt in the Batik Beauties book with a striped, mitered border, and I found the perfect stripe for mine.

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After shopping, we blazed down Highway 1 to see as many things as we could in our last full day together and, indeed, we saw some very pretty sights.  This beautiful bed and breakfast is the Seven Gables Inn, with rooms starting at just $200 a night - not too bad for such a beautiful setting, wouldn't you agree?

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Look at this beautiful carpet of purply goodness - it's called ice plant, and I've never seen anything quite like it.

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We continued our drive down the coast, looking at all the beautiful homes and stopping once or twice to try and get a picture of the waves crashing to the shore.

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We had the most delicious lunch at Roy's at the Inn at Spanish Bay, Pebble Beach.  I had the Bento Box and tried sashimi for the first time.  It was melt-in-your mouth delicious.

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Nicole posed for a picture next to the beautiful tropical flowers in the hotel lobby.

But back in the car, we had more sightseeing to do.  We swung by the Mission Ranch for a view of the property.  Stopped briefly at the Carmel Mission, visited some friends of Nicole's at a cute little home decor shop, and then up to the Carmel Ranch where Nicole interviewed recently (beautiful place), then home to Ozzie.

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Ozzie ran into the guest bedroom and nabbed a bottle of Benedryl from my tote bag.  We both chased him all around the yard to retrieve the bottle.  Ozzie clearly thought it was a fun game.  The bottle had some puncture wounds, but fortunately, Ozzie didn't get to the contents.

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Then Ozzie hung out while we laid out the batiks from our earlier shopping trip.   I think he liked Nicole's pile the best.

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Here is the hostess gift I left for Nicole - I asked Nicole Ellison to make an Annie (actually a Nettie) doll using a fabric that Nicole and I have a running joke about.  The doll was adorable and I hope Nicole enjoys having her as a memory of my visit.  I know Ozzie wanted so badly to get Nettie as I was trying to take her picture.  Keep her on a high shelf, Nicole!

Day 3 - Danville to Salinas

Sunday morning, we woke up and started packing up our work and sleeping areas.   We weren't obligated to leave until 3 p.m., but I was at a good stopping place with my quilt (half finished!!) and Nicole still wasn't feeling up to snuff, so we planned to leave a little earlier. Plus - we had shopping to do!

We planned a trip to Concord to visit Thimblecreek, so Nicole and I led Connie to the quilt store.  It's in an industrial park - you'd never guess something so fabulous was inside that building, but there it was!   They had so many beautiful fabrics and amazing kits.  I was very, very tempted to buy one of everything, but showed great restraint, I think.   I bought some of this chocolate brown fabric to make this quilt using Dandelion Girl fabrics that I already have with the brown for the alternate blocks and border flying geese.

One thing I couldn't leave without is this beautiful wool appliqued quilt block.  I am going to frame it for my sewing room.  I know I will take a razzing from my quilt buddies at home because I adamently insist that I don't like basket blocks.  But orange sunflowers, who could resist?  Even Nicole commented that I didn't like baskets when I excitedly showed the block to her.  Maybe a leopard *can* change her spots?

After leaving Concord, we drove down to Palo Alto for the big Shyne family Sunday dinner.  I must admit - shy me was seriously fretting meeting this big group of people, but they couldn't have been more warm and welcoming.  I finally got to meet Andrea (white blouse), who I felt like I already knew, and the charming Sara (far left), her hubby Ryan and their dear sweet puffball Remy, as well as many of their other relatives including their beautiful cousin Claudia pictured with us here.  What a fun family - can y'all adopt me?   I always wanted sisters - my parents selfishly never came through for me.

After a scrumptious dinner of chicken with goat cheese and bow-tie pasta salad from the Barefoot Contessa's recipe book, prepared for us by sisters Trish and Andrea, we visited a little while after dinner, then made the drive down to Salinas where Ozzie was clearly missing his Mommy, and Dennis had two perfect Cosmos waiting for us.  Nicole was still feeling punky, so I had to be a proper houseguest and drink her Cosmo, too.  Couldn't let it go to waste, could I?   Dennis and Nicole will probably never have me back, I hope I didn't launch into any really raunchy jokes or say anything else too inappropriate!

Day 2 - Danville

I won't duplicate any of the photos that Nicole posted on her blog, so here are a few that she did not show.  First up, we have Diana's beautiful show and tell of a paper pieced New York Beauty made with these beautiful Kaffe Fasset fabrics.   These fabrics are so totally out of my comfort zone, but stay tuned and you'll see how I really warmed up to them!   Diana was also working on a beautiful batik quilt that was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.  I was really partial to the straight setting that she originally had up on the design wall.  I'm anxious to see how she decides to make the rows in the end - it seems the diagonal set was the crowd favorite.

This is Kate's project from last year's retreat (is that right, Kate?).   Look how beautiful and summery this quilt looks.  Just lovely!

Here we are playing a game called Left Center Right.   We had the rules all wrong, but it was still fun anyway.  We had a lot of laughs.

Saturday we went down into Danville for a field trip to the quilt store and for lunch.  Poor Nicole got so sick and had to be taken back to her bed.  I'm not sure how we managed to have fun without her, but there was fabric involved here - I am easily distracted.  Here is my new friend, Isabel, with the batiks we were picking out to play another round of Left Center Right on Saturday night.

Remember how I said earlier that Kaffe Fassett fabrics weren't for me?  Well the Quilter's Inn in Danville had this fabulous quilt on display in the shop and I fell head over heels for it.   They had a kit in a lighter color combination, but I really loved this one.  I asked if they had any more kits and even though they were swamped with customers, they offered to build me a kit, if I could just come back closer to closing time.  Could I ever!   Isn't this just beautiful?  The ragged edge machine applique seems like it will be very fun to do and who cares about precision???

THREE YEARS!

Holy moly - another year has passed and today, I am celebrating 3 years of blogging!!   I want to thank all my friends who read and comment regularly, and encourage any lurkers to comment as well by offering this brand new, ultra-slick Gingher rotary cutter as an anniversary prize.  Just comment on THIS POST between now and April 5 and I will put all names in the hat for this finely crafted rotary cutter!  And thanks to all who have visited my blog in these last 3 years.  Stop by again, won't you?

How I Spent My Sunday

I haven't had a new car of my own since 1994, and my poor Sparky was truly on his last legs. I had taken over new job duties in August 2006 when a coworker retired, but my employer had been slow about coming through with my official promotion. With my union behind me, we got them to agree to paying me retroactively back to August 2006, and I found out this week that I am finally getting the check. The time was right to buy a new car! My dh, being a master negotiator, had 2 dealerships fighting for our business and we finally got the car I wanted for $500 under invoice, a $1,000 rebate and 1.9% financing. It's a brand new 2007 Kia Sportage in Volcanic Red with black interior. 4 wheel drive, even....

I signed all the papers late Sunday night, but left the car at the dealership overnight because I didn't want to drive that far in the dark home from unfamiliar territory. We were back at the dealership the second they opened this morning and I the kids and I got to drive "Fireball" home. I am totally in love with my new car.

Breakfast of Champions!

No, this is not what I had for breakfast, but early Sunday morning found me packaging fudge and gingersnap cookies for the office cookie exchange and various other holiday activities. I can't believe I haven't blogged all week, but while I am usually such a homebody, this week I've been quite the social butterfly and have only been home one night during the week, which I spent baking, as you can see. Hopefully the social obligations will settle down and I can get back to sewing and blogging. I did finish nearly all my Christmas shopping, but now I must get busy at the wrapping station.

I must share my grandmother's gingersnap cookie recipe with you - they are my favorite cookie and even DS #1 who won't eat sweets begs me to make these cookies. They are more of what you would term a molasses cookie because they are soft, not "snappy" but that is what we've always called them. They are easy and delicious and freeze well, if you have any left to freeze! I made a triple batch on Friday night and I love that my daughter can now help me roll the balls - what a time saver, plus, some fun bonding time with my baby girl.

GINGERSNAPS

3/4 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup molasses (I prefer the Brer Rabbit full-flavor type)
One egg, room temperature
2-1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt

Melt shortening, cool. Add sugar, molasses and egg - beat. Sift and add to first mixture the flour, soda, cloves, ginger, cinnamon and salt.

Chill the dough 10 minutes.

Form into 1-inch balls, roll in sugar and place on cookie sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes - do not brown, but cookies should be nicely "cracked" on top.

I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Fun mail!

I'm somewhat of a fabric junkie (stop laughing, Nicole!).  And I've been manically checking the Internet since the end of Fall Market to get a glimpse at any of the new stuff that is coming soon, especially any Moda fabrics.  I found one website that had some stuff they brought back from Market, and I ordered the Posh FQ bundle (sorry, I got the last one!).  I received the fabrics yesterday and they are SO PRETTY in person! SWOOOOOON!!!!! They remind me very much of Chez Moi, but they are softer spring colors.  I don't know what I will make with these just yet, but I will have to find something fabulous to show them off.

I especially love these 2 mocha prints.  Lacy, paisley, polka dots... all my favorite type of prints!  Yum, yum!

My other fun mail was a box containing 2 more Annies from Raggedy Old Annies - a birthday princess and the Tiny Annie.  Aren't they adorable?   They will look super cute decorating our room at our retreat.  And - wahoo! - we leave tomorrow!!!!!!!!!

Fall All Around

Falling Leaves.  I finished the Moda U kit I was working on for the shop with the Allspice Tapestry fabrics.  I have mixed feelings about this one.  I loved the fabrics before I started, but I saw too many of the prints repeated and it was hard to randomize the blocks while laying it all out.  After I started sewing rows, I started to like it a little better.  And I had zero trouble getting the borders sewn on - that part was a breeze.  This is not a very good picture - maybe I can get a better one of it hanging in the shop.

Fall Decorating.  Just a little behind this year, I pulled out the Halloween decorations yesterday, or "Spookytown" as my kids call it.  They know just where everything was last year - Heaven forbid I want to switch things around!  Here are my 2 main 'scenes' and the last photo shows the great new addition this year - Witchy Poo Annie from Raggedy Old Annies - what a great doll - isn't she adorable?

Falling Behind.  Nicole challenged me to finish binding one quilt by Sunday.  I thought I could handle the challenge with ease, but I only got about half the binding on my orange quilt.  Well, at least I am making progress.  I did get a lot of piecing done for my 9-patch project, and some sewing room organizing was accomplished as well.  With too many projects, it's really hard for me to stay focused....

Blog milestone and giveaway

This, dear readers, is my 275th post and what's a blog milestone without a giveaway?  These "designer" rotary cutters are so incredibly popular at the shop where I work, the owner had to wait 6 months to get her order, and they just flew out of the shop. I snagged the very last one to offer up as a prize.  So please leave a comment and I will draw a random name on Monday, September 17 - you could win this little beauty for your very own!