A-M-A-A-Z-I-N-G AUSTRALIA!!!

G-day!  And what a good day it was!  The penguins were the most amazing part of our trip... until we went to the skydeck, then I'm not sure.  We were sent to Australia by my work.  I taught for a few days and worked a quilt show for a few days and played the rest of the time. This is us at the edge of the ocean way "Down Under."  These penguins are about a foot tall and they come out of the ocean every night at dark.  They waddle up the beach and burrow into the sand for the night and are D-A-A-R-L-I-N-G!

The ocean is breathtaking.  We loved sitting and watching the waves roll in.  Then every once in a while the waves on the beach would start to bubble and 15 or 20 penguins would flutter around and stand up and wander across the sand.   What an incredible sight.

Part of the excursion took us through the green farmland.  We stopped one place and saw lots wallabees, which are small kangaroos. But when we got close to the penguin parade it was dusk.  There were so many wallabees it was like when we went to Bryce and there were Prairie Dogs EVERYWHERE. They were all out eating.We also stopped at a reserve where there were koalas. Usually they sleep -- 20 hours of the days.  But it was cloudy so they were quite active.

The trees were filled with parrots.  NOISY BIRDS! We were totally hypnotized by them  and just kept watching them.  One of the locals told me to "Take th' bloody things 'ome wi' you!"   

Then another day we saw hundreds of big white birds.  Jerry got close enough that he thought they were big parrots.  They turned out to be BIG Cockatus.

I'm glad we got to see the countryside and all of the green everywhere. I wanted to take a picture of everything.

Northwest Quilt

It's DONE!

After 100 hours of Quilting!

I started this quilt on a trip to Portland for work.  I wanted something to applique while I was waiting in airports and also in my hotel room at nights.  I picked up a stack of half quarters from work that are a lodge print.  I liked the colors and just started appliqueing the squares with the orange in the center and leaves coming out. I wasn't sure how I was going to use them to make a quilt.

Then I started on the center, to have a break from squares.  The center turned out good.

Putting the quilt together wasn't easy.  I only had a stack of fat quarters.  Not much of any one fabric.  But I also know I wanted it to have a lot of white to do a lot of quilting in.

LOTS of quilting!

I think  a lot of things work because I tried to

Repeat, Exaggerate and Simply...

I am going to enter it in HMQS next month. I had to come up with a name for it because I have always referred to it as "The Bear Quilt" because of the fabric.  I have  loved the Northwest since visiting Jami and her family up there and ging to see all of the incredible sights. I wanted my quilt to be organic, lots of nature in it... pebbles, ferns, feathers, leaves and BEAR.  So, I figured Northwest was a good name for it.

And it just so happened on this WORK trip, Jami and the girls drove down for the weekend and we had a great time together.

The Guitar Man

So I came home to Jerry and his guitars. While I was gone he picked up a few guitars and made them into clocks.  He also took my mom's first guitar, which she had given him and put a working clock into it.  He gave it to mom when she came up.

An

He is always doing nice things for me... thoughtful, incredibly considerate, lots of work kind of things. This time he made a cupboard for my thread and rulers. I can't believe it. 

 I love my cupboards.  I love him.

Seattle

This is Maddie making bracelets, just like her mother used to do. Amelia was making bracelets too. They were also working on Amelia's birthday party, the incredible cake party.  Party aprons for everyone and each one will decorate their own cake.

This is me working.  What? I don't look like I am working?  Well, I was sent to Puyallup to a sewing expo for my job, and it was close enough to Seattle that Jami came and picked me up on Friday afternoon. I got home cooking, family and game night.  I didn't get to win, but we had treats and laughs. I love being at Jami and Kolby's, it a happy place, full of lots of love and laughs and good cooking.

This is the fairgrounds.  It was a very cool looking building and full of all kinds of sewing related things.  No quilt show, but plenty to see.

And as you can see, it was a Diet Coke event.

And this is work! The crew.  We had two different booths. One for long arm sewing machines in one building and this one that I have worked for weeks sewing out these yellow back drops with samples of the pantographs that we sell.

 

 Seattle was rainy and cool and I loved being there. I love that my job pays for me to visit family.

Break from Winter - Ontario California

 Don't we look like we belong in blue skies and palm trees?  It was crazy to leave home and come to the green grass and blooming flowers.  Crazy Good!  What a welcome break.

It was a business trip for me,  a Quilt show.  But we still enjoyed the break from winter and being together.  We had great weather, got up every morning and walked in the sunshine, fresh air, and DAIRY smell.  Go figure.  The manure smell was strong every morning. We were in farm country. We were close to LA, but it was such a clean area and not too much traffic, and very friendly people.

I even got a chance to soak up a bit of sun by the pool.  Jerry spent a lot of time with his guitar and reading by the pool.  He would meet me for lunches, and we had dinner in the hotel or a nearby restaurant.

We left in the rain. A drizzly day to get us back to reality. The airport was so funny. It was pretty much closed when we got there. They only had morning flights and evening flights. All of the shops but one or two were closed until just before our flight left.

Finished Room

The guitar room and quilting room is perfect!

 Jerry loves it and I love it and we are in there ALL the time!

 AND there is lots of quilt stuff happening... still working on my ship quilt.  It's not quilted to death...YET!

This is the center of the quilt.  I love all that blank quilting space that is calling to me.

It's pretty much still divided in half, quilting on my end and guitars and cars on his end...

But that's just until I get my new sewing machine!  Then I'll be in his half a bit, which was partly the reason for taking out the wall.

My Story Celebration at Work

We got to work about 6 am and started filling helium balloons for the big bash.

 Then all of the employees filled our entry way armed with silly string.  Fourteen Quilters had been chosen for our ad campaign this coming year.  They each wrote their quilting story and submitted it.  They were chosen from all over the country and got an expense paid trip to a retreat at our studio.

 It was pretty fun when they came in and each one got introduced.  That was just the start of the fun.

 Every hour or two they got a new gift from a vendor or Handi Quilter.  They got fabric, rulers, magazines, batting, scissors, calendars and day planners.

 All the Rulers was the one thing that really brought them to tears, but then they got "Go Baby's", which cut fabric in shapes. Anyway, they were all overwhelmed and really a great bunch of people. Now they will each be in quilting magazines all through the coming year.

This is just part of the "loot " they got one day!

The last day we had a class on how to quilt your quilt and each of them brought a quilt top.  This was my favorite.