California Girl in Oz

We're all moved in, and here's me doing my first post from the new house. Just to keep on topic, there are two quilts in the photo: my Wonky Star lap quilt, and my DH Ross' Cowboy Nap Quilt. The container arrived on schedule, there was no damage to any of our stuff, and we got things put away pretty quickly. Just in time to return to California...tomorrow! Then we'll be making the big move Down Under on Oct. 25. Here's my sweetie, Ross, with two of our donkeys. Blossom, on the right, is so jealous she will hardly let you pet either of the other two. Teddy, on the left, is very shy. Stella, the grey one, is nearby, grazing. This morning we awoke to some spectacular early morning fog in the distant view. Even as Ross took the photo, it began to recede. Just beautiful! Here's the new living room. Amazingly, all the furniture fit in just fine. It's a much smaller house than our California one, but sending some of our furniture to the condo in Oak

It's off to Sydney tonight, to receive our furniture and household stuff, get the house there set up and ready for us to live in (especially the Internet connection!), and then we'll be back here for about 3 weeks before the really big move with the cats. Poor little darlings have no idea what an ordeal they're in for...we visit them at the Kitty B&B every day for playtime and combing. Just as they're getting comfortable and used to the B&B it'll be another big change...poor babies. We took our oldest GS to the zoo yesterday to finish celebrating his 9th birthday. Here's a pic of Thomas and me in front of the giraffes. As you can see, it was a GORGEOUS day in Oakland. Not sure when I'll be able to post again...I think our Internet connection should be up at the house on Saturday, but you know how THAT might go...so, later, Folks...

Here's a quilt I made for a little Aussie friend who is liviing in London for awhile. I hoped it would help him get to know his Australian animal friends as he grows. Actually, he visits Sydney regularly, and now that he's two years old he probably doesn't need a cheat sheet any more. This quilt was designed using Margaret Rolfe's paper-pieced block designs. If you haven't used her book/disk combo (I have the Australian animals one, obviously), then I highly recommend it. Oh, and I promised to report on the big reunion yesterday afternoon. What fun that was! There were people there I hadn't seen since I left the ballet company in around 1978...amazingly, we pretty much look like ourselves, only mostly a few pounds heavier and a bit more wrinkly. What a treat to spend time with old friends.

Well, I'm going to try Tonya's suggestion and load my photos in the center instead of to the left, and see if that helps any with the spacing problems I'm having. So let's try putting up Dad's River Dreams Quilt that disappeared yesterday: Well, that seems to have worked...I think. So, let's add a couple of kids' quilts I've made over the years. Here's an I Spy for my grandkids. Can you see that I added their names, as a crossword puzzle, among the I Spy squares? Well, by gum! That seems to have worked, too...thanks, Tonya! Shall we go for a trifecta here? How about a little bluework quilt I did for my nephew. I found on-line coloring book images, printed them out and traced them on white fabric, then embroidered them in blue, setting them in stars afterward. I liked the result, and so did he: I'm on a roll now! What about one that was WAY outside my comfort zone. I'm not an orange person, but a friend in France had a baby girl. Mom loved ora

So, in addition to not being able to load photos once I've started editing my posts, here's another question: Why do I have such trouble controlling all the space before or after photos? Preview doesn't really get it...it looks ok in the preview, but when I post I have all this dead air I don't want. I must be a total dummy...sorry, folks! I know it's annoying to read posts that look like mine!

So, I started quilting in 1999, and the first few quilts I made were for my grandkids, and a couple were donations to my local humane society to be auctioned. Then I decided to made a quilt for each member of my family...quite an undertaking! So, here is one I made for my Dad...it's a nap quilt...Dad loved to fish, but by the time I made this quilt he was having problems with his legs and couldn't really manage standing in a cold river to fish any more. So this quilt is called River Dreams. Dad used it and loved it...but he died early last year at nearly 87 years. I'm so glad I got to this quilt in time. (Well, the image I put here got erased when I was correcting a typo in the text, and blogger won't upload it again...WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN? Makes me SO mad!) And here's one I made for my DS. He's a lawyer, a big reader, and an Oakland A's fan. So I used Christine Thresh's bookcase quilt pattern to make this quilt. Greg loved an earlier quilt I'd mad

Today is my grandson Thomas' 9th birthday...Happy Birthday, Thomas! He's shown here earlier this summer, wearing his Sorcerer Cats quilted jacket I made for him. I hope he's having a great day today...can't wait for his party in Tilden Park on Saturday afternoon.

Well, I've been working on the antique quilt remake (I really have to come up with a name for this quilt...maybe it should be AQR till then?) today, and the chain piecing is making me sleepy. It also makes me hungry to work on OTHER quilts. Before I packed the container for Australia, I made a good bit of progress on a quilt I'm calling As Time Goes By, because it was inspired by the old BBC series by that name. If you've never watched it, you should. Judy Dench and Geoffrey Palmer are sweet, funny and totally charming. Many episodes have them climbing into bed at the end of an evening, under a wonderful old-looking pinwheel quilt. After seeing it many times, I finally decided it was time to make one like it for our bed. So, I started collecting lovely fabrics in soft red-browns, blues, greens and old golds, to combine with Apple Cider naturals and similar neutrals. It was coming together beautifully, and then it was time to pack! I'm wishing I could be working on it as

I am having SO much trouble trying to make Bloglines work. I loaded the Sub from Blog link to my favorites, and clicking on it seems to take me to the "add this blog to my feeds" place, but then the blog never appears when I click on "My Feeds". Obviously I'm doing something wrong. Can't seem to find much detail about this in the FAQ...any ideas?

Well, let's give this a try. I've been wanting to show some of my quilts, but have had a little trouble getting photos to load. Here's my most recent completed quilt, The Devil's in the Details. I saw an antique Devil's Claw quilt a few years ago and it stuck with me. When my DH wanted a black and white quilt, I decided to design something using the Devil's Claw block. It's huge! California King size, with enough to tuck under pillows and fold over...is this a bedspread? I guess so... Well, that one came in. Should I quit while I'm ahead? No, let's go for it! Here's some blocks I made for a charity quilt, called It's a Dog's Life. Couldn't photograph the entire quilt very well because the detail just doesn't show up in small. So here are a couple of the individual blocks. This quilt would have been nothing without this GREAT fabric! And here's another from the same quilt: So far, so good. Shall we try one more? Well, awright!

Today was the first day I was able to do some serious quilting since we moved from our house in Novato to the condo in Oakland. It really feels good to be sewing again. I have this great antique quilt (it's on the container in the Pacific, steaming toward Sydney, at this very moment). Sadly, it's so fragile now I don't like to use it on a bed. So...what else to do but remake it! Here's the design, made in EQ5. Today I made some of the blocks and set 9 of them together. I think I'll continue that way, rather than have rows and rows to deal with at the end. Easier to work with smaller bits and put them together later, I think. Here's a pic of the 9-block piece I made today: In the original quilt, the pink middle squares are actually an old red and white calico-like print that has faded to a nice pink color. Trying to find a new pink that would mimic that look proved difficult. Anyway, it is what it is at this point! I ransacked eQuilter.com for a zillion plaids, s