Quilt In a Day, San Marcos CA

As many times as I drive to San Diego every year, probably at least three or four, I don't know why I have never stopped at Quilt in a Day. People kept telling me about all the fabric and the great classes and it was definitely on my "things to do while travelling" list, so I was very happy when Linda suggested that we go there.

Of course, I had known of Quilt in a Day since a was a very beginning quilter in 1990. I had seen the books in my friend Mary Ponce's sewing room and have made several quilts from the excellent directions in the books that I started collecting -- the Tulip Quilt was one of the first quilts that I made with my friendship group, Radiant Star was one of the first piecing classes that I taught and, when I started my machine quilting business, one of my first customers, Twyla Lyon, brought me her Christmas Traditions quilt.

So -- here we are! The first thing you notice when you walk in the door is that there are quilts everywhere and that classes are offered for a lot of them.

I didn't see the name of this pattern, but thought it would be a very fun class. There were two sizes of quilt as well as a table runner depending on whether you just wanted to nibble at the technique or take a big, big bite!

And, of course, my favorite class -- Halloween! Look at the very cute bat fabrics used in the little witch dresses!

The classroom is huge! When Linda called to find out how late the shop would be open, she was told that it closed at 6:00, but not to worry because there would be a class there until at least 8. There are classes at Quilt in a Day almost every evening.

There are quilts displayed everywhere you look and thousand of bolts of fabric to make that quilt on the wall into the quilt in your home.

A couple of shots of the studio where Eleanor films her TV shows and DVDs. The wallpaper, stairs and other decor touches on the left make it look like she is sewing at a house, where the fabric bolts in the photo on the right look like she could be in a corner of the store...

I am a major coffee drinker and Starbucks fan, so this definitely was a big hit! I mean, really -- haven't you had days like that?The decor is whimsical, colorful and a lot of fun!

The upcoming fall and winter holidays must be on my mind -- I bought Christmas at Fat Quarters and Halloween here. I also left with a complimentary copy of the Quilt in a Day catalog for browsing later. It runs 32 pages and has all the books, patterns, DVDs and tools that Eleanor has written, filmed and designed over the 30 years (and counting!) span of Quilt in a Day.

One of the things that I liked best about the catalog is that each book and pattern is rated Easy, Intermediate or Advanced so that a quilter can choose the amount of effort she wants to put into a particular project.

Eleanor was off on her travels, so I had to be content with a picture of her lifesize cardboard cutout. I have met her at quilt shows; I personally think Eleanor is one of the hardest working people in our quilt industry and definitely has earned her success.

I went to Quilt in a Day's website to see if they were going to be a vendor at the El Camino Quilters show next month in San Marcos, but didn't see the show listed as an event. To see the catalog online, you can go to www.quiltinaday.com; if you click on "Happenings", you can see the entire class roster for the next few months.

One thing that impressed me about the website was that free shipping is offered with a $100 purchase -- fabric is heavy and it is not cheap to ship, so that is a super deal!

Continuing with my holiday purchasing trend, my next post will be about Starry Night Hollow, a very spooky, very cool quilt shop!

Fat Quarters Quilt Shop -- Vista CA

After the workshop on Wednesday, my hostess Linda Pupols took me on a personal guided tour of some of the local shops. The first one was Fat Quarters where Linda works a day a week and teaches some quilting classes. Fat Quarters is located at 728 Escondido Avenue in Vista and their phone is 760-758-8308.

The shop was just as I remembered it from my last visit a few years ago, except that there is a new owner, Michelle Joyner. Michelle has so much enthusiasm for quilting and for her shop -- she just bubbles! She also has a really good eye for displaying her wares and decorating the store so that you want to linger.

This is the side of the shop that faces the main street. You don't see this sign from the parking lot; I took a bit of a hike onto the lawn to get the shot! Wanted you to clearly see what you are looking for when you are driving through Vista.

Hmmm....that makes you think -- do I need some fat quarters to fill holes in my stash?

Just to the left of the shop door, this chair and sign let you know you are in for a country-style treat. If it had been a cooler day, I might have been tempted to move the plant and sit down to leaf through the magazines I was contemplating buying.

The shop has a cozy, comfy, country feel. Here's a pretty display of little works of art that would look at home on a mantel, a dresser, or maybe on a buffet in the dining room. Fun (and portable) things to work on when you have little bits of time to do handwork.

The seasonal quilts displayed together were a really nice touch and, of course, there were kits close at hand in case one just had to take one (or both) home to get ready for the holidays!

This was a pretty display, with Father Christmas perched on a drawered chest next to quilts and stacks of fat quarter coordinates. There are a lot of small quilts at Fat Quarters, quick projects for when you want to make a gift or a holiday table accessory or just want to sew on something you can complete in a shorter amount of time.

Couldn't resist these -- I always collect striped fabrics because they make such great bindings and "crumb catchers". The three on the right are from a new Christmas line, but I think they will blend easily with other fabrics.

I picked up the Quilt Sampler magazine because it is always fun and inspirational to see the chosen shops and how each one reflects the personality of the owners as well as the area of the country where they are located. And I knew that my friends at Quiltique in Henderson NV were featured this year -- definitely wanted to read that article!

After buying my goodies, it was time to say goodbye to Michelle until next time....

El Camino Quilters -- Vista CA

Guild meetings are always so much fun -- all the quilters, the energy in the room and, of course, the quilts! There were 305 members at the start of the meeting, 16 visitors and 310 members by the end of the meeting -- big guild!

Next month the guild will hold their every-other-year quilt show at California State University, San Marcos campus, on Friday and Saturday, October 16th-17th. My goddaughter, Destiny, is a freshman at San Marcos this year (We miss you already, sweetie! And we are WAY happy that you are loving school there!), so I may just have to see if she's free for lunch and a quilt show -- great excuse for a road trip!

I was listening to the quilt show wrap-up part of the meeting and it sounds like there will be at least 200 quilts on display. There's a Challenge Quilt section that I previewed and is definitely worth seeing and as far as shopping opportunities -- always good!! -- there are vendors and both live and silent auctions. I saw baskets filled with wine, food goodies and other gifty type things that will be auctioned off at the show as well as boutique items made by members.

This is the guild's opportunity quilt and the hard-working ticket sellers. The drawing will be held at the guild's December meeting and the winner need not be present. Tickets sell for $1 each or 6 tickets for a $5 donation. The quilt will be on display and tickets may be purchased at the quilt show next month or you can contact Bobbie Wright at bobbiewright@cox.net.

A big table in the back was hard to miss: The philanthropic activities of this guild are legendary. Last year alone over 1000 quilts were made by guild members and donated to various charity groups, both local and distant.

The stack was growing and growing as the meeting progressed and members came in with armloads of quilts they had made for others less fortunate. As of this meeting, 728 had come in this year -- 75 just at this meeting!

El Camino Quilters does something that I haven't seen at a guild meeting before: Every few months, they draw a member's name, she chooses a block and everyone in the guild can make a friendship block for her. The log cabin houses for Gail Yakos were the only ones on display, but there was another name going up with another block pattern. Lucky, lucky!

And what meeting would be complete without a display of the Block of the Month? I think there were enough that they were divided among three winners. One of the winners was really excited -- she had made four blocks, hoping to win, and let out a yell that made us all laugh.

My lecture was the last part of the meeting -- lots of questions about machine quilting from quilters who want to learn to do their own quilting on their home machines -- then I talked to members while Linda Pupols and friends packed up all of my quilts for the drive home.

I did make a detour to Quilter's Coop in the Old Town of Temecula, which is owned by my friend Joanne Maxson. Overall, I visited four great quilt shops on this San Diego area trip and will be sharing those with you over the next few posts.....

El Camino Quilters Guild -- Vista CA

Yesterday's Machine Applique Techniques class was held at the Senior Center in Oceanside CA. The El Camino Quilters Guild meetings will be held this morning in Vista CA; the two communities are just a few miles apart.

I have been fortunate in that I am staying with Linda Pupols, the program chairperson for the guild, in her stitchery and quilt decorated home. So much eye candy, one just doesn't know where to look first! Linda and I both have backgrounds in stitchery of various types, but she has completed a lot more pieces and has them framed and displayed. She has quilts everywhere, many made and hand-quilted in record time by her 92-year-old mother, who is still an active quilter. Linda would show me a twin or full sized quilt and tell me that her mother hand quilted it in six days!! Incredible!

Linda has only been quilting in the four years since she retired, but judging from the quantity and quality of the quilts I saw, she is well on her way to sharing her mother's quilting passion.

Here are the applique quilts that I brought to share with the class. You can barely see Gail in the picture; she is the workshop chairperson for the guild, so she had the room totally set up and ready for us (complete with working power -- hooray! No crawling around on the floor!), pinned the smaller quilts up on the wall and generally kept things running smoothly.

The floral applique project in two colorways. I originally found the pattern for this online as copyright free clip art, then adapted it for applique. No drawing required!

A colorful stash of fabrics for leaves and flower petals.....


Tracing the pattern on the background fabric with water soluble marker.

Out came all the rolls of freezer paper -- remember the big rumor a few years ago that Reynolds was going to stop making it? And the run on the grocery stores as a result of that rumor?

I really had to stop myself from stealing that colorful bag of scraps from her workspace! But I successfully fought the urge and, since it was only about 3:30 in the afternoon, Linda and I left to visit three of the area quilt shops.

Pictures and purchases to follow!

Packing Again -- the San Diego area!

Going to the San Diego area of southern California, whether for business or pleasure, is always a joy to pack for. Don't have to think about the temperatures being in the 100s or the nights in the 60's, I can actually pack what I like to wear, not what the weather dictates.



Tomorrow I will teach "Machine Applique Techniques" in Oceanside for the El Camino Quilters Guild. On Thursday morning, I'll give my "Ten Commandments of Successful Machine Quilting" lecture. It will be held in Vista, where I seem to remember that there was a really nice quilt shop; hope I have time to visit!



It's always fun to give lectures and show the only thing I have ever made that is not a quilt!











Of course, there is a fun story behind this corset purse -- you'll have to come to one of my lectures and hear it!

Working on a New Trapunto Class

Today, I hope, is a sewing day! Yesterday, I curled up with a good book and a notebook, so it was a "read a little, write a little" day. I have been mulling over ideas for a new workshop that I could offer to guilds and shops; I wanted to incorporate color into my trapunto by machine techniques and was playing with ideas and projects to make this happen and to make it fun for the quilters who take these classes.

The first thing I had to decide was -- what color? And then to choose the fabric that would "shadow" the color best. The fabric on the left is a white broadcloth; the fabric on the right is a bleached quilters' muslin. After smoothing them over the bright grass green fabric, I decided that the broadcloth allowed more of the green to show through. It is important to choose a bright or dark fabric underneath as the white or cream fabric used for the top layer will mute the color intensity quite a bit.

Some of the materials I will use in the project: Vanish Extra water soluble thread, some Sulky rayons in three values of grass green, the fabrics and, of course, my directions that I wrote up yesterday.

Now -- to get to the machine!

Tea & Jewelry on a Saturday Morning

A few weeks ago, I got an invitation in the mail to join my friend Annette Robinson for a tea and jewelry party at her house. Since the invitation said "Let's have tea and girl fun together" and because Annette used to own a tea room with wonderful scones, finger sandwiches and tea, how could I say no? Fourteen of her friends came to enjoy the morning at Annette's.


Annette sells Premier Designs High Fashion Jewelry. I hadn't seen her line before, so of course I had to come and shop, too!


Annette and her daughter, Nina. Nina's dress not only had all the small silver sparkley sequins on the bodice, but there were three tiered ruffles at the just-above-the-knee hem -- very glam and sophisticated! Fell in love with the necklace Annette is wearing -- had to buy it!

Annette and Nina are standing in front of the table where all of the wonderful things to eat were set out and because I am SO all about the food, I spent a fair amount of time there. There were scones, brownies, tiny frosted red velvet cupcakes (why do I always list dessert first?) as well as cucumber/dill/cream cheese finger sandwiches and chicken salad sandwiches.













One of the tables that were set for tea; Annette had several tables arranged so that we could re-connect with old friends and make new while we enjoyed the yummies she had prepared.

There was jewelry displayed in several places that we could browse through, try on and order...

....but this was my very favorite display! Just the visual combination of the jewelry, mirror and pretty furniture worked for me....

This is Annette's mannikin, Mandy. Mandy is all dressed for tea and after we demolished the luncheon table, Annette gave us all a fashion show with Mandy as the model wearing the various jewelry combinations. Way fun and gave us a lot of ideas on how to wear various pieces; there was one necklace you could wear seven different ways. I felt like whipping a notepad out of my purse to write down these ideas because I'll never remember them later. I know -- I'll get Annette to travel everywhere with me so that I will always be well accessorized -- yeah, right!

So would anyone like to come to my house for Coffee & Quilts some Saturday morning?

Bolts in the Bathtub - My Local Quilt Store!

Bolts in the Bathtub is the quilt shop in Lancaster CA where I do a lot of my quilt supply shopping. It's owned by Dawna Harrison and Fay Harrison-Bergier, who are sisters, best friends of mine and excellent cooks! Although I know it wasn't on purpose, Bolts happens to be located a mere 3-1/2 miles from my house. Dawna is even closer, living a few houses away -- in fact, if we both open the windows of our sewing rooms and lean out a little, we can wave to each other!


Yes, there is a story behind the store name -- be sure and ask Dawna about it when you visit because it really is a funny story!

It's hard to see with all the fabric stacked all around it, but that really is a white claw footed bathtub in the front of the store. The newest fabric is stacked in and around it so that you see it first thing when you walk in. The bathtub theme is carried throughout the store -- the cutest restroom you will ever see -- and when you are shopping, if you put a rubber ducky on top of your stack of fabrics, the employees will know not to put them away yet.

This display of books and fabric is in the classroom so that you see it just as you walk in the door. Pink and orange fabric -- LOVE IT! Look at the quilt hanging above the batik display that was made with all those luscious fabrics. And all around this area are books and baskets of patterns to browse through.

Looks like there's an embroidery class going on. -- a lot of people doing other things while the machines are sewing by themselves. Embroidery is a huge part of Bolts' business; they are probably one of the leading stores selling digitizing software so that machine embroiderers can customize their own designs.

In fact, it seems like every time I come in the store there is some sort of workshop going on. Day classes, night classes, weekend classes -- they really use that classroom space!

There's a round table with chairs tucked into one corner of the classroom where Dawna and Fay are looking at all the fabric lines that one of their reps has brought. One of the things that I love most about them is that they buy just about EVERYTHING!

Well, I thought I was ready to pay for the fabric for my latest experiments, but look at all the goodies and samples around the register area. Yes, that's my purse on the counter! I abandoned it in the middle of my transaction and, inspired by all the quilts and things on the wall behind Susan, decided to look at a few more things! Had to leaf through the current magazines and new books on the counter and look closer at the charm packets in front, of course!

To find out more about Bolts and to see a class schedule, you can go to www.boltsinthebathtub.com. The current newsletter is online, so you can find out everything that is going on at "Your sewing room away from home"!

Embroidery Explorations (aka Playtime)

I took this picture on the first day of the 830 training. My friend, Josephine Keasler, was also there for the training and brought this quilt that she had made to share with us. Basically, she was using a tiger fabric -- maybe a panel? -- and what looked to me to be the Harmonic Convergence technique that Ricky Timms has been teaching for quite a while now. Josephine is a very prolific quilter; she retired a few years ago and I think that her passion for fabric shopping and making quilts fills the hours that work used to!

When we got together on Sunday, Chad and Eric digitized the bat and moon block that is part of the Halloween wall hanging that I will be teaching at one of the Nuttall's stores on Halloween day. To check the accuracy of their work, they stitched the block out. Gee, how did they know that pink was my favorite color?

Eric stitched out another sample, using the fabrics that Rhonda and I had chosen for the bat and moon. The bat is a textured black velvet with sparkles in it and the moon is double layered: a sheer gold fabric with sparkles and a gold cotton lame under it for lining. Using the lame adds opaqueness so that the background fabric doesn't show through.

To learn more about the classes that Nuttall's offers, you can go to http://www.nuttallbernina.com/ and see what's coming up! I'll be there October 31-November 4 and then back again in May 2010. To see my calendar, go to www.battsintheattic.com/PrimaryPages/work_cal.html

Sorting through my stack of Halloween fabrics -- my rule is that in order to buy Halloween fabric, it must have at least a 25% bat content -- I think these will work for my project.

I was at one of the Nuttall's stores, in Riverton UT, in June of this year and taught a Trapunto by Machine class. Eric watched my demonstration and thought about how he could do the same technique in the hoop. He also added color to the padded areas using a double layer of polar fleece. The top and backing fabrics are bridal satin. I saw pictures of this project where he had used hot pink polar fleece and it showed through really nicely.

Eric stitched this project out on Monday morning so that I could take it with me. The machine finished stitching, I threw everything into the suitcase, including the seven pairs of scissors I had brought with me -- you never know when you will need curved, or duckbill, or large shears or pinking shears, which I needed and were the one item I didn't bring! Then we all jumped in the car and took off to the airport.

The flights home were uneventful, which I consider a good thing. One thing that was pretty cool is that Southwest Airlines offers free wi-fi on some of their flights; gives you a fair shot at getting some of the e-mail done so that there aren't hundreds and hundreds when you get home.....I'm a big Southwest fan -- my bags flying free is a big, big plus! Just wish they flew to more airports in the southern US!

I'll be back at Nuttall's at the end of October -- see you then!

Day Two of Bernina 830 Training -- Attempting to Master the Hoop

Machine embroidery was a technique that I knew I would never want to do. When it first started catching on with sewers, I saw cutesy motifs done on towels, T-shirts, baby bibs and kid's clothes. Since I knew I would: 1) most likely never wear a T-shirt with a teddy bear on my chest and 2) beautiful embroidered towels were readily available at the department stores, it sort of slipped under my radar when machine embroidery "spilled over" into quilting. Like so many things do! Just like water soluble thread made a big change in trapunto techniques, machine embroidery has forever changed quilting.

Above is a beautiful table runner that was on display in the "upcoming embroidery classes" section of the store in Salt Lake City where I took my two day machine mastery class. To the right is a close-up -- WOW!

I have seen some incredible machine embroidered quilts and I have seen some not so great ones. My personal belief is that once the embroidery is done, a lot of people making these quilts pay less attention to how the actual quilting is done, so these quilts do not always hang as nicely as I would like to see them when they are displayed. But I will save that rant and rave for another post. Today I'll describe my "embroidery instruction day" at Nuttall's in Salt Lake City.

Eric at the front of the room giving us embroidery instruction. He has done some incredible things with embroidery and explains the concepts very thoroughly, yet simply enough for a total novice like me to understand. Next post, I've got some pictures of some of the things that he has digitized and stitched out to share with you.

Just finishing up with the square-in-a-square piecing project done "in the hoop". "In the hoop" seems to be the universal shorthand term for "Hey - I did this with the embroidery capabilities on my sewing machine!"

Mary Evans, who told me she will be teaching machine mastery classes for Nuttall's, shows off the square-in-a-square block that she pieced in the hoop.

I've met people who say that they just can't sew a straight 1/4" seam -- here's one solution to that dilemma! Could I have sewed this faster just using basic piecing methods? Probably. But could I have sewn it as accurately? Probably not! Loved how no points were cut off in my sample....without any ripping!!

This is one of my finished embroideries before I took it out of the hoop.

Chad is looking very serious here, but he had just finished showing us how to transport a 38 pound machine from place to place -- and it's not by the handle! As you can see, he slipped his arm through from the back to the front to get a secure hold on the machine and then his second hand is supporting it from the back. When I carry mine around, I put my second hand and forearm underneath the machine, palm up, to distribute the machine's weight more equally; you want to protect the machine and your body at the same time!