Asheville Cotton Company -- Asheville NC

After a cool couple of days with Karen and Graham Pervier, I drove west (at least I think it's west; I don't have much of a sense of direction) to Asheville. It's a pretty drive, about 3-1/2 hours or so, through hills and woods and a lot of green. It was raining lightly off and on throughout the drive and when one lives in the southern California desert, any water at all falling from the sky is a welcome sight.

When I had reserved my rental car I had asked for a mid-size SUV and the picture on the website showed a Chevy Equinox -- nice, small, easy on gas, will hold all my stuff. What I got was a GMC Acadia -- nice, HUGE, not so good on gas, will hold all my stuff. I am affectionately calling it the Land Behemoth!

My first stop was at the Hampton Inn to check in and to toss a quilt over the bed -- I must be starting to get homesick....

Then I drove to the store to meet Robin Culbertson who, with her husband Chip, owns Asheville Cotton Co. We hopped into her Mustang and went to the restaurant where we were meeting Chip. The menu was fantastic -- there were several choices in each of four different categories and I had a major problem making up my mind between about seven equally tempting entrees. We also shared a couple of appetizers, but the real winner at the table was Chip's dinner -- had to take a picture!

Hopefully, I'll remember this for when I want to make a really awesome dinner presentation. On the very bottom was a layer of roasted potatoes; then a "raft" of asparagus spears was laid on the potatoes, a filet (cooked perfectly rare) placed on top of the asparagus with a wine sauce ladled all around and a crab meat garnish.

Doesn't that just make you hungry? My dinner was osso buco, not as photogenic as Chip's, but just as yummy!



The next morning, I waddled from the car to the store (oh! forgot to mention the creme brulee) with my suitcase in tow. It was raining when I got there in the morning, but I went out later and took a picture of that beautiful North Carolina blue sky.


This is the front window with a reflection of all the pretty trees -- it just doesn't give you an inkling of what you'll really find inside....

Chip's favorite holiday is Halloween and there are decorations and spooky fabrics everywhere! Robin said there are a LOT more at home...

In case you like your ghosts brighter? Also, I didn't get a picture but when you first walk in the door, there is an enormous -- probably about 5 feet across -- red and black spider hanging from the ceiling!

Class today was Introduction to Machine Quilting. The morning was spent practicing fluffing & stuffing their quilts through the machine and the afternoon was free motion stitching.

A little socialization at the stencil table...

Take a break -- look up and smile!

This was some machine quilting in the border of a quilt that had been done "in the hoop" using the embroidery module. The stitching looked very nice, with each stitch crisp and distinct.

A stenciled motif on the right with some unmarked, "freehand", free motion on the left.

These are some of the patterns that I demonstrated on my muslin. Sometimes I draw something on the fabric just for illustration and then stitch it somewhere else on the fabric, so everything sort of overlaps and runs together...

And then after class, gotta hurry! There's a lecture at 6:00 in Greenville SC -- hope I can figure out what those State Trooper cars look like.....

Randy's Quilt Shop -- Greensboro NC (Part 2)

When I first walked into the store on Thursday, I just stopped right in my tracks because of this beautiful pink floral quilt:

I thought it was one of the most striking machine embroidered quilts that I had seen -- probably because I LOVE PINK and florals so, of course, the combo is KILLER!

And right next to it was a green/purple floral. These are both displayed in the Bernina machine area of the store. The directions for this quilt are in an issue of "Creative Expressions" magazine.

At my first opportunity, I got up close and personal to take a closeup shot of the detailed embroidery of the pink one. Look at the shading in the petals...

I liked the way that these two quilts were displayed: the smaller white/cream wall hanging pinned on the side of the larger floral quilt.

This is a closeup of one of the blocks from the floral quilt...

I really liked the detail in the cream floral wall hanging; at left is the photo of the whole quilt and below is a closeup of the embroidered flowers.

Then right outside the classroom I saw a very cute fish quilt -- a very girl-y fish who even has red lipstick!

Now I'm going to hop in my rental (a GMC Acadia -- I think that qualifies as a land behemoth! -- and drive to my next stop, Asheville Cotton Company in Asheville NC. I can't wait to see what Robin, Chip and Michelle have been up to since the last time I was there!

Randy's Quilt Shop -- Greensboro NC

I have had the pleasure of teaching at Randy's several times over the last few years and I am always happy when I get that call inviting me to come again. I'll give you an overall tour of the shop with some of the beautiful quilts that are displayed.

This is the sign over the register and some of the many, many quilts that are hung on the walls of the shop. If you look closely, you can see that almost every one has a little white slip of paper on it. That indicates that it is a class that you can sign up for here at the shop.

Here I am standing at the front of the shop -- you can see lots of quilts hung high on the walls (why my photos are foreshortened) plus notions, threads and -- of course! -- fabric....

From my vantage point in the Bernina machine sales area of the store, right in front of this very old Bernina, I can see through to the classroom. If you peek through the arm of the machine, the black and white quilt in the front of the classroom is mine and was used to advertise my class, Machine Quilting in Depth.

Little embroidered leaves were scattered all over the Bernina area of the store -- that fun fall ambience....


This is the first of the four quilts that were made by Louie Hughes as samples for his "Slash & Shuffle" class. Once the pieces for the blocks are cut, shuffled and sewn into blocks, Louie arranges the blocks in different ways to give totally different looks to quilts made using the same technique.

The one above is a Trip Around the World set....


This is the blocks arranged side by side -- had to take the picture because it is PINK!



This was especially interesting to me because Louie pieced narrow red strips into the blocks to give a totally different look to the quilt.

An addition of the batik panel at the bottom gave another look to Slash & Shuffle...

And, lastly -- what I bought! Love those purples!!!

I'm off to Asheville this afternoon, but will do another post on Randy's Quilt Shop -- seems like I'm always running a day or two behind......

Great Trapunto Book -- Available Again!!!

I've been offline for a couple of days. I was supposed to stay at the Battleground Inn for two additional nights past my time at Randy's Quilt Shop, but Karen Pervier invited me out to her home and I just couldn't say NO!

Karen and her husband Graham live out in the country near Reidsville and the views all around, of trees and meadows, are just breathtaking -- especially to someone from the southern California desert. Karen is a long time quilter who used to own a quilt shop, so we had plenty to talk about -- and, of course, we managed to fit in eating, drinking wine and shopping!

I had lots of free time to relax and was browsing through a few of Karen's quilt magazines, probably the same ones I have at home that are sitting in a stack waiting to be read. Looking through the October 2009 issue of McCall's Quilting, I found an interesting article on trapunto by machine.

Hari Walner's first book, "Trapunto by Machine", has been out of print for some time, yet I think it is probably the definitive book on the topic and should be in every quilter's library. So I was very happy to see this:

Hari Walner's first book "Trapunto by Machine" is available as an e-book from C&T Publishing. To purchase a downloadable version visit www.ctpubblog.com/downloads.

Machine Quilting in Depth -- Greensboro NC (Day 2)

This all could not have worked out better -- my friend, Chris Bowen, lives in Charlotte so was spending last night at the Battleground Inn, the same hotel where I am. We met in the lobby, made a quick stop at Panera Bread for coffee and bagels, and then got to Randy's with a half hour to spare before class started.

One of the things that I have always liked about Randy's Quilt Shop, both in the old location and now the new one, is that there are always beautiful quilts and other machine sewn goodies on every single flat surface. Lots of eye candy! This is the view if you are standing in the very front of the classroom facing into the class -- in other words, where I stand when I teach -- so I got to look at these beauties all day!

On the other side of that partition is the Bernina sewing machine department where all the machines are displayed and demonstrated. Lots of inspiration in there as well -- I'll do my next couple of posts on the shop and the quilting displayed in it.

Today is BSR (Bernina Stitch Regulator) day: For the first half of class, everybody worked on practicing their free motion quilting skills using designs drawn on their fabric with "quilt safe" markers. I brought about 50 stencils that they could choose from to practice their line following skills.

Look at all the quilts on the walls!

The second half of the day was practicing unmarked, or what I call "freehand" free motion quilting -- in other words, quilting without stenciling a design first. I sat at a Bernina 830 and showed them several freehand patterns including leaves, hearts, flowers and some abstract designs and then they went back to their seats, tried the ones that I had done and then invented some of their own.

My last demonstration was stippling and I showed them how I get the teensy tiny stippling by using the magnifying attachment to the machine. If you didn't see my post on this, you can click here.

The lady who was sitting at this machine has a Bernina 430. Those machines were not made "quilting specific", so while they have the internal hardware to be BSR capable, they didn't come with the special BSR foot that makes the whole thing work. That way, sewers who didn't quilt weren't paying for that extra feature, but if the person buying the machine wanted to quilt, they could also buy the foot. In other words, an a la carte approach.

My first thought when I saw her empty seat was that she had gotten bored and wandered off, but when I looked around the room....

There she is -- in the very front of the room at the Bernina 830 that I was using to do all of my demonstrations! I think she really likes that BSR.......

Since Bernina can describe their stitch regulator a whole lot better than I can, for more information you can get to the BSR page on the Bernina website by clicking here.

Tomorrow and Monday, I get to relax and let my body catch up to this time zone before I move on to the next city, so I will plan to do a couple of posts about Randy's (and also maybe shop a little?) so you can see the store!

Machine Quilting in Depth -- Greensboro NC (Day 1)

Yesterday I taught the first day of my two day machine quilting class at Randy's. Randy's calls this class "Machine Quilting in Depth", some shops call it "Handling the Bulk", once it was named "Machine Quilting 101". Doesn't matter what we call it -- this workshop is designed to teach people to move their quilts, regardless of size, through a domestic machine.

We have 10 people in this class working on their own quilts on their own domestic machines. As the day progressed and the smiles grew as people realized that -- YES, they could actually DO this -- I snapped a few photos.....

This is the third time that Chris Bowen has taken my class and she has also taken workshops with Sue Nickels and other machine quilters, so she wanted to spend the time polishing up her free motion skills and listening in to see what else she might pick up. This is her whole cloth project above. The fabric she is using is a beautiful pale turquoise tone-on-tone.

I wanted to get a picture of these two ladies together because these Rail Fence quilts were their very first quilts and they were taking this workshop so that they could quilt them themselves rather than sending them out. I particularly love to get beginners in my classes to let them know that it is possible to complete their quilts at home and not have to relinguish what I call the "creative control" to another person.

Today is Day 2 and we'll be working on free motion all day. To see where I might be teaching a multi-day class near you, you can click here. To read a description of my DVD, "Fluff & Stuff: Machine Quilting with Paula Reid", which is a home study format of my two day workshop, click here.

Gate City Guild -- Greensboro NC

I love Greensboro! This is either my fourth or fifth teaching visit here over the last few years -- it's great reconnecting with quilters who have taken my classes at Randy's Quilt Shop and/or the Quilting in the Piedmont event that Randy put on for several years at the downtown Marriott here.

My plane was a half hour late, so I didn't get to go to dinner with Karen Pervier (the guild program chair) at Lucky 32, one of my favorite restaurants here. They are a Wine Spectator award winning restaurant, so you can be sure I wasn't happy about missing that meal! But my thoughts were that it just wouldn't be acceptable for me to show up at the meeting in jeans, scraggly hair and no makeup, so that hour had better be put to better use than eating.

But Karen saved the day -- she brought me shrimp cakes with hot cajun sauce; sort of like crab cakes, only different? Totally yummy! Thank you, Karen!! So I got the quilts all sorted out and stacked up and then snuck into the back office and ate dinner before the meeting got started.



On the agenda this evening was my lecture at the regular meeting of the Gate City Guild which was held in Randy's classroom; they just moved all the tables out, a whole bunch of chairs in and everybody was happy to be there! They must have quite a few lectures here -- they sure have a lot of chairs!


At the beginning of the meeting, this quilt was presented to Joann Peck to be raffled off to raise funds for a local charity, Murphy's Kids. Joann and the gentleman at the left of the picture talked about the charity and some of the things that they are able to do for the people who need their help. There were more than a few teary eyes, including those of the presenters.

THEN -- drum roll please -- my favorite part of every guild meeting -- SHOW & SHARE!!



The lady who made this quilt is standing on the right -- she said she's too short to hold the quilt up! She says there is one more border left to put on, so this is going to be a really big quilt!

Lot of autumn colors in the quilts shown tonight.....



Didn't think I was going to get this shot -- Barbara almost had the quilt folded up by the time I got the camera up in front of my face to take this....Overall this part of the meeting went very quickly -- each person who shared held their quilt up, said a couple of sentences and then took it down -- no lollygagging around here! I'm hoping to get faster with the camera so that I can get more/better shots.

This lady and I were talking afterwards and she used to live in the same part of Buffalo NY that I did -- her much more recently, though...

She actually had three quilts, but one came out blurry, darn it! It was very bright -- orange, green, yellow --

A quilt made of embroidered blocks by her mah-jongg group; she said it only took a few hours to put together but it looked more complex to me -- aren't there flying geese in there??

Love those primaries! This picture just shows a small part of the quilt, but you can get an idea of the colors and the way the pattern flows.

Tomorrow and Saturday, I'm teaching a two day machine quilting class at Randy's Quilt Shop. While I'm there, I'll wander around with my camera and give you a tour of the store!