Quilters Haven Blog

After nearly four weeks on the west coast it is good to be home. Everything seems to have shrunk since I left and the air is more humid than I remember!

The first customer I met when I got back to QH (Quilters Haven) this morning was Ann, one of the Sisters quilting tour group, who I had waved goodbye to at Portland airport two weeks ago.  She was full of praise for this tour and we reminised for ages about the trip.

I checked my emails tonight and thought this photo that had been sent by Kathi Prince was rather appropriate.  Kathi attended my Logs class in Sisters and I was pleased to see this original design. I do love receiving photos, after classes, of the finished quilts!

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The past few days have been really busy! Alexander and I have been working at the Quilt Show in the Long Beach Convention Centre. I have been teaching nine hour days with book signing at lunchtimes. It has all gone well except that the class enrollments have been on the low side for all the teachers. The economy here in southern California is bad and quilters have been spending their money on fabric etc. The response to my books has been great and I am thank ful to Cotton and Chocolate and Moon Textiles for stocking my books and letting Alexander demonstrate in their booths, whilst I was teaching.

This show is a little smaller than the Festival of Quilts held at the NEC next month, but the position and size of the convention centre is a lot more attractive. It is so easy to teach here as we only have to speak to make an impression! Alexander has been surounded by American quilters who think he is so cute and love his British accent. Mother Superior from Superior threads ( I take it back, she is a woman) chatted with us and has a great sense of humour telling Alexander to call if he wanted to be a house guest in Utah, so that she could make sure she was out! Eleanor Burns gave me a new bag with her image on the front for our Pam, who is a devoted fan! Judith Baker Montano, of silk ribbon fame was a delight to get to know better (we taught together in Sisters) as she had lived in England for a number of years. Guess where? Newmarket!

The quilts are not juried into this show but the standard is great and the organisation behind the show is phenomenal as this is run by the same company who run the Houston quit show. The quilters are really enthusiastic and a delight to teach. Some of them did have a problem if they had bought cheap fabric to class. It was so obvious that this fabric, usually from Joanns, behaves badly and lets the student down. These students thought it was their poor technique which was causing the poor results and were a lot happier when I explained that it is the poor quality fabric that is at fault.

We did not see or hear another English person, but then we are on the west coast of America and I am the first international teacher to attend. After nearly four weeks in the USA I am finding that I make the occasional slip into American, but no doubt the staff will correct me when I return tomorrow.

We are about to catch the ‘red eye’ into London. The M25 is going to look really tame after hurtling down the 12 lane freeways around LA.

A few photos for you but there are more on our facebook page

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We know it can be frustrating when you come to pick up a wadding and find that we are out of stock…. but as you can see,  to be cost effective we have to order the waddings in a large order… and waddings are bulky, so take up a huge amount of space. Here is Annie just before we prepare to tackle the unpacking and pricing of our latest shipment of Dream Cotton wadding…..

So if you have a project you are working on, remember that you will need wadding at some point so buy it before you really need it or you could be disappointed if we are waiting for a shipment to arrive.

p.s… Do you think Annie is looking a bit dazed?  - well she’s been like that ever since she got back from her Arena trip to the Bernina factory…..  we don’t think a lottery win would have given her any more pleasure… or maybe it could as she would have bought an 830 dream machine.

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Well its starting to gear up for our Autumn newsletter and your all in for a treat!! We’ve just had a load of new Batiks arrive and lets just say I for one am absolutely drooling ( well more like Homer Simpson dribbling actually) !!  I am cutting new kits and its horrendous I can tell you I keep telling myself  that I mustn’t buy anymore for myself but they are just soooo luscious. Ha ha and you lot can’t see them just yet!!  Some of us have been making up samples with the new fabrics and trying out the kits that will be in the newsletter so its all good fun.  We’ve also got a lovely new class that will be coming your way in the Autumn – it isn’t up on the website yet but watch this space.

Anyway I’m going back to the new fabrics where I can dribble away on my own without hurting anyone or causing embarassment. Oh and don’t worry I have a bib so it doesn’t get on the lovely fabric.

speak again soon

Love Debs x

Debs News

I had a lovely email today from Liz who was on the Bernina quilting holiday attaching a photo of a Smart car she saw in the Bernina car park. I just had to share it with you all.

Alexander and I have spent two days in Yosemite National Park, on our way to Long Beach. We saw the huge Sequoia trees and I drove up to Glacier Point, where you could look straight down to the valley below all of 3000+ feet. Despite a problem with vertigo I did appreciate the tremendous views. We have been staying in an old Western gold rush town, Mariposa, complete with cowboys on horses and old waggons. Today, we travelled over the Tioga Pass, which only opened a month ago after the winter snows. The views were again stunning but I did not enjoy driving down from 9945 ft when my lane was on the outside of the mountain with sheer drops in places. We are staying on the shores of Mono Lake, a place I find just as interesting as Yosemite. The ‘tufa owers’ limestone formations on the lake shore are so unusual and the scenery is lovely. I have some great quilt designs in my head inspired by the past few days………when will I find time to execute them!

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Just finished two days of classes and a book signing/ demo evening for Bearpaws and Hollyhocks in Sacramento.

I have groupies……two students from mySister’s classes drove two hours to attend my class today. It was such a surprise to see them. To give you some idea of distance, Sisters is an 8 hour drive from Sacramento.

Don’t ever complain about the QH teaching area getting hot. Today it got up to 87 degrees in the classroom I was teaching in. The air con had broken down as the outside temperature rose to 103 degrees and we used fans. After a cold shower and an even colder glass of white wine I feel human again. Not a single student left early, I was impressed!

I have had a lovely time here and Lindy, the shopowner has made me feel so welcome. This evening we went into the city centre for dinner and then walked around old Sacramento which I really enjoyed. Alexander, my son, has been tubing behind a boat on the local Sacramento river whilst I have been working.We have both enjoyed staying in American homes, so much more interesting than a hotel.

Tomorrow we are hiring a car and begin our journey to Long Beach.

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This really is the most scenic coastline! We drove to Tilamook, farming country where the barns were painted with different large quilt blocks above the doors. Our first stop was at the Latimer Quilt Centre. Here old quilts were stored in a temperature controlled building and several had been placed on a bed for us to view. One had 24,000 half inch hexagons and had been sewn over an 18 month period. We also saw tatting, spinning and knitting in this centre. Arlene Sachitano who writes mystery quilt novels was on hand to sign her books. Outside the steps were erfect for our group photo.

At Cannon we saw the famous Haystack rock and shopped in our final quilt shop of this tour, Centre Diamond.

Tonight, we had our Farewell Dinner followed by our own entertainment. Each member of the group took turns presenting something thst they had enjoyed during their time in the US. Class work was explained, poems were read, shopping was shown and even fossiled rocks were described. The most unusual find was an arrowhead picked up on the Garden tour in Sisters and thought to have been fired by the Snake River Indians.

Tomorrow we part company in Portland as Alexander and I travel to Sacramento and the tour group return to the UK.

Karin News Arena travel

On another wonderful summers day we had a fun class dyeing!! Well it was hot but not that hot…!.

This is an easy class to get past the mysteries surrounding dyeing fabric at home. You can tell that it is easy and clean by the fact that we had 10 students and not one spillage!

Our class is based on the book Dyeing in Plastic Bags by Helen Deighan and has been very popular, although it is easier to run it in the summer as the rinsing involved is a lot easier in warmer weather.

We dye fabrics with the 3 basic colours,then create mixes and have some fun with ’space dyeing’. The picture on the right is overdyeing some of the white on white fabric we sell in the shop…. it should look wonderful with a turquoise mottled background… the white printed design should still be clear.

After lunch we had a relaxing time pleating, pinching, ruffling and folding fabric, to create tye-dye effects…

the downside to this class is that I don’t get to see the final results and the fabrics have to ‘cook’ in the dye for 24 hours. But the girls have promised me photos this time……. that is if they are still speaking to me after they finish all that rinsing!!!!

Some quick update photos..….. Someone is still talking to me….Thanks Ann.

The silk velvet dyes beautifully and gives an amazing shimmer of colour, this was a mix of red and blue dye. The over-dyed print would work wonderfully in a project mixed with some plains in the same colours..

Silk Velvet - beautiful.

The over-dyed fabric from a white on white print.

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I have had a few days feeling drained with a bug and so Lynn has stepped in to blog. She has now become a blog addict and is seriously thinking about becoming a blogger!

We were all sad to leave Sisters after such a wonderful week but onto pastures new……… Today’s journey took us over two mountains ranges to the Pacific coast. We saw the majestic Mount Washington, left the High Desert climate, drove through a Meditteranean climate and then dropped 20 degees once we arrived at Newport on the coast. Our lunch stop was at Jan and Lou’s Creations in Philomath, a quilt shop housed in a 1940’s Movie House.

We are overnighting in a hotel overlooking the ocean and all of us have fabulous rooms overlooking the beach. In the distance we can see one of the attractive lighthouses dotted along this coast. We have enjoyed walks along the beach and paddled (the water was so cold, our feet were numb in seconds!).

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These are some of the comments from the quilting tour group……………..

An absolutely fantastic day! Although out early in the morning till late in th eafternoon I am sure I did not see everything.

Being a volunteer hostess was very entertaining especially when the quilt rescue team came running.

It has been a great holiday; well organised, lots to see and I enjoyed the time in Sisters before the Quilt Show on Saturday. This allowed us to enjoy and feel part of the whole event.

Quilt show!- you can even play at quilt police.

A unique quilt show experience.

Sisters is wonderfully scenic; three snow clad peaks in the background, plus blue skies and pine trees. The trip has been fantastic; loads to see, eg the High Desert museum, as well as quilts galore. The quilt show was amazing- so many quilts and it was good to be a hostess, and talk to other visitors. Now we are at the Pacific- I have walked to my first lighthouse, and I have bought a lighthouse pattern, and hope to make an Oregon lighthouse quilt. (Pippa)

A truly amazing experience- everyone we met was so friendly and the quilts were such a wonderful mixture of every technique. Sisters will live on in my memory for a long time. (Jill)

So many quilts. I enjoyed seeing the teachers’ quilts and aspire to emulating their skills. Fabulous holiday- 100 things to do before you die- well I’ve

done another one. Visiting Sisters quilt show. It was all and more than I expected, inspiring in all areas- you must go (Lesley)

What organisation! Such a brilliant experience. Such talent – a really great holiday. (Alison Thomas)

Every morning I woke up to discover the snow capped mountains were still there- it was stunning- Sylvia.

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