New Year Wishes

... for a Peaceful New Year

A tribute to Goldie

We lost a dear friend, quilter and teacher here in Northern California. Goldie Olson passed away peacefully with family on Tuesday. Goldie touched many of us with her heart that was filled with the joy of quilting. She loved to share that knowledge with everyone around her with her classes, groups, gatherings and pot lucks. Good Times Weekend, Friday Night Live, Stash Burner and Scrap Happy have been hosted by Goldie at Honey Run Quilters in Cathy's classroom for many years. Just this past weekend Good Times was held without Goldie's presence and smile for the first time. 

I meet so many quilters that have taken a class or classes from Goldie. Most recent her Bargello class this year. We have all benefited from her knowledge and love of quilting. It was a pleasure and honor to quilt many of Goldie's beautiful quilts.

Following are pix of a few plus pix taken during show and tell at two of her Good Times Weekends and ending with her quilts displayed at Annie's Star Quilt Guild's 2011 quilt show when Goldie was our Featured Quilter. 

 Goldie's Christmas Tree Bargello sample quilted for the class she taught 

at Honey Run Quilters in the Fall of 2014

Let's Begin sampler by Goldie Olson

Goldie told me when I quilted this for her, Let's Begin was a sampler that she taught many moons ago. The fabrics reflect the era :0)  

Goldie's Bargello class sample 

Pix taken during show and tell at two of 

Goldie's Good Times Weekends...

All of the following pix were taken at the 2011 

Annie's Star Quilt Guild quilt show 

when Goldie was our Featured Quilter... 

Goldie, you and that beautiful smile will be sorely missed  

Goldie and her daughter Marta

Marta posted this pic on FB yesterday 

Margo and Marta, your mother is loved by sew many! 

She is one very special lady 

Split Decision

Split Decision 

... my version of Don Linn's Split Decision 

Almost finished to a flimsy over the weekend :0) 

I have one last piece to add... a circle will be pieced into the lower right corner

Started Friday in a curved piecing workshop with Don Linn 

and finished to a flimsy over the weekend.  Saturday at Leslie's and Sunday at HRQ. 

Love my sew group weekends! My top evolved with changes from Don's original pattern

and quilt shown here...

that's part of the fun! Very abstract especially for me and so out of my box, again! 

Last week Don was Annie's Star Quilt guild's guest speaker and workshop for November. As our speaker Don spoke mostly about his machine quilting and gave lots of tips and tricks he has developed over the years doing Free Motion Quilting. He does both, at a sit down domestic and has a longarm. Don has three books published, one on curved piecing and Art Deco quilt tops...

and two on FMQing plus a DVD. I learned allot and hope the guild will ask him back to do a FMQing workshop. No longer afraid of curved piecing, he has a simple but effective approach that works! 

Curves ahead!!! 

Enjoy your week

Tot ziens, Jo

Fall Back

November Goals

Goals for November:
Back to Gypsy Wife... I've actually missed working on this quilt :0) Will be fun to get back to it this month with the hopes of a flimsy finish.

Split Decision. Guild meeting last night with guest speaker Don Linn. Turned in my finished... yes finished Challenge quilt! BIG YEA! Today I attended Don's workshop on curved piecing. Quilt top almost completed to a flimsy in class! Just a few more seams to finish tomorrow at a sew day with friends up in Paradise. Looking forward to that.

Painted Forest workshop this week was filled. There will be a bonus sew day this coming Sunday... Everyone signed up for the first workshop is invited for a fun day growing trees!

Gravity. Continued workshops thru the end of the year with Kelly at HRQ for Jaybird's block of the month ~ Gravity. Only two blocks into it, pix soon of progress with two meetings this month. My fabric choices are batiks ranging from gold to purple for the star, not doing the complete color wheel and shades of gray in Grunge for the background.

 Enjoy your weekend... 

and don't forget to set your clocks back an hour

 (where applicable ;0)

Tot ziens, Jo

Happy Halloween

It's going to be a wet one this year here in the North Valley! 

Not complaining, we need the rain in California, 

just hope it doesn't stop raining once winter actually arrives. 

My October goal... not going to make it... was to finish piecing Gypsy Wife but... as always, life gets in the way. October birthdays, house guests, working full time and new workshops! We recently gave it a term... FOMO... fear of missing out :0) Not complaining about that either as I am having fun sewing with friends and meeting new ones. 

November promises to be the same. This weekend I have final preparations for a workshop I am hosting at Honey Run Quilter's with Scott Hansen's Painted Forest from Blue Nickel Studios. There was enough interest in this workshop for 2 classes! The first will meet for three evenings in November and the second will be set up after the holidays. 

Started a new workshop with Kelly at Honey Run Quilters for Jaybird's BOM Gravity. With two meetings in October I have 3 blocks made. Karen and Barb are in on it too... FOMO!!!   

Our guild's November meeting and workshop will feature Don Linn. Known for his machine quilting and Art Deco style quilts with curved piecing. Something I need some tips on so... yep, I am signed up for his workshop! On my to do list before the meeting next week is to cut out all of the pieces. 

And as if that's not enough, our guild's Quilt Challenge quilt is due to be turned in at our November meeting and yep, signed up for that too. Pieced and quilted mine this month with only binding to finish. Suzanne came up with a great idea... It's going to be a quilted forest. Finished quilts are 20 x 72 inches and will be suspended in a way that allows the viewers to walk among the trees. I can't post pix yet as our quilts are to remain anonymous until after the December meeting where they will be voted on. The forest will be displayed at our quilt show in November of 2017. 

Sew it's a busy last weekend in October not finishing Gypsy Wife and it's OK because I am enjoying all of the things I do. There has been progress... both of my Toes in the Sand are pieced, one of which is actually quilted as well as Pacific Crest! Both are waiting for binding along with the challenge quilt. Something to do for some rainy evenings!  

Enjoy your Sunday and Halloween 

Tot ziens, Jo

Goal for October ~ Gypsy Wife

Barb, Karen and I started Gypsy Wife this summer, making progress off and on in between other projects and finishes. Toes in the Sand workshop with Kelly at Honey Run Quilters ended in September. All three of us have finished tops! Kelly, Karen, Linda and I all got overly ambitious and made two! Some are even quilted! Yea for September! 

My goal for October is to concentrate on Gypsy Wife...

making progress the last two weekends

This weekend I finished cutting all of my strips and organizing them by number

That helped allot! In case you are making this quilt... only cut one width of each strip. 

As I worked on sections, so far only found one strip needed a little bit more...
btw, there are 63 strips not 60 as the pattern indicates
 

All of my fabrics are Nineteenth Century repros 

Section One:

 Thankfully was easy and fun!

I decided to work from the bottom up rather than do the sections in numerical order

and started Section 6:  not so much fun

Not quite finished, had to substitute one block that didn't fit 

and three more blocks to finish this section. 

I knew this one was going to be a challenge after watching Karen work on it

last weekend at Good Times Weekend and gave Barb and I pointers on section 7 as well.

Start of Section 7

Blocks made last weekend at Good Times Weekend

This project and the pattern have been a challenge. Thank you Karen for 

foraging ahead and giving us hints and help along the way :0)

Barb, Karen and I discovered and follow along with a group of bloggers also working on
Gypsy Wife this year. They are a few months ahead of us and have been
a wonderful source and help along the way. Here is a link to Megan's blog Jaffa Quilts.
Thank you!

Enjoy your week. Love the rain we got yesterday, what a nice surprise! 

Tot ziens, Jo

Boot Camp at Quilts on the Corner

Jo, Joy, Renae, Ruth Anne, Paul, Pam and Shelly

Boot Camp attendees August/Sept 2016 

at Quilts on the Corner in Sandy Utah

Just spent an incredible week with these amazing people! In addition to those of us pictured here are Renae's staff at the shop, equally as amazing! Janene, Roberta, Vicki, Cindy... all so nice and helpful from setting up our class to lunches for everyone everyday! 

Renae customized the classes for each of us, letting us decide each day what we wanted to learn be it computerized or hand guided. That is incredible in itself because it makes more work for Renae to teach. 

Day 1: Pantos: Shelly was all hand guided and was set up with a paper panto. Pam has Pantovision so Renae set her up on an Innova set up for that. Joy, Paul and I spent the first day on Mach3! Each of us on our own Innova machine set up with the new computerized system! We were in heaven...

Here I am Day One on Shrek, the big guy, a 32" Innova set up with Mach3 doing a panto!

Behind me is Fiona, a 26" Innova, also set up with Mach3 and where Joy worked all week. 

Jo, Roberta and Joy

Janene, Vicki and Roberta all help Renae run her shop. Roberta and that wonderful smile greeted us each day. She helps Renae with the classes anticipating each of our needs and is she good at it! Each time she and Renae spied someone with that 'deer in the headlights' look, they were at our side! Renae does a wonderful job of teaching. We spent each morning with Renae sitting at a table taking notes and discussing our goals for the day. Then, we each spent the day at our designated longarms. 

Day 2: I chose to do hand guided and spent the day on a different machine, a 26" Innova like I have here in my studio. Wow, I learned so much about design, tools and markers. Used lots of different methods from using a stencil, laser from the back, laser from the front, free hand and ruler work. We started out the day cleaning our machines, learned how to change out the feet, set the needle bar, center and adjust the height of the foot and time the machine! Some of this I already do on my machine and it was good to do it again with Renae, learned some new things including using the new Timing Tool. LOVE it! So much easier. Prior to this I had trouble with timing. Needless to say, I purchased the tool! It will pay for itself the first time I need to use it because the price is about the same as a service call. Then we got to play on our machines the rest of the day using all of the tools provided to each of us in a box... rulers, circles, markers. Another day of heaven!

Day 3: We played with thread and winding bobbins... ALL kinds and brands... Metallics, silk, cotton, polys. I went back on to Shrek and used Mach3 to stitch out designs, while learning how to adjust the tension for each thread. Another fun day! 

That was the end of Boot Camp. Shelly and Pam are hand guided only so left us at the end of day 3. The top photo was taken just before they left. Ruth Anne is Paul's wife and partner, working together as a team. Ruth Anne did hand guided, she is the piecer and applique artist and is she ever good at applique!

Day 4: It was just three of us... Paul, Joy and I learning how to do a custom layout with Mach3. I was on Shrek again all day. Prior to this I was sitting on the fence about purchasing and using the new software.  I jumped that fence and came home with the new software! 

Renae and I at Shrek on Day 4 doing a custom layout with Mach3

What a difference learning hands on with Renae, a person that not only knows the Innova longarm, but knows how to do custom computerized quilting. She not only answered all of my questions, I got to do and see what the new system offers hands on. That's how I learn best. Thank you Renae... you are the best! 

btw... the quilts on the walls are quilted by Renae, just seeing her work is amazing! Altho she knows digital, her award winning quilts are hand guided. Did you notice all of her ribbons lining the wall in the first picture? The best of her quilts are not there because they win Best of Show and now live in the AQS museum. I did get to see the newest one she is working on at the shop in her office on her Innova. Wow! Renae works with Karen Kay Buckley who does the piecing and all of the applique work, it's gorgeous!!! For all of her accomplishments, Renae is very humble and down to earth human being. I would recommend attending her Boot Camp or taking a class from her when she is out on the road. She has a couple of shows coming up this month... Las Vegas next weekend and Utah Quilt Festival Sept.21 thru 24th. Wish I was going!!!

What an experience I will never forget. 

Tot ziens, Jo 

Progress on Gypsy Wife

Karen, Barb and I met today to work on our Gypsy Wife quilts. Briefly for me as I spent the weekend getting ready for a business trip with a fellow Innovian, Joy. We are signed up for a week of longarm boot camp and training on the new Mach 3 software. Yea! 

Karen is making allot of progress on her Gypsy Wife, Barb and I are the caboose on this one. I am still working on my filler blocks and after this week away, will fall further behind! That's the life of a quilter :0) at least for me, the insane one that loves to start new projects!

As you can see my Civil War colors are all over the map!

Scrappy with a little fussy cutting thrown in

even had to do some mitered corners! 

My longarm studio will be closed until September 6th 

Michael will be holding down the fort until I get back.

Enjoy your week and Labor Day weekend!

Happy Trails until we meet again... 

Jo

Painted Forest is Bee Haven!!!

Painted Forest, a pattern by Scott Hansen of Blue Nickel Studios

quilted with Bee Haven 

*I even LOVE the name of the quilting design!* 

with bees and cone flowers...

a delightful digital quilting design by Anne Bright Designs 

Quilted with SoFine 40, a variegated thread from Superior 

and the batting is Quilter's Dream Machine designed for longarms 

A nice bright yellow backing which also worked well for the binding...

Yep! Even the binding is done! 

Fast you say... that's right because it's machine stitched down with my trusty Juki! 

I am quite proud (can you tell :0) of my machine stitched binding!!! 

(There is a secret and if you come to my class in November I will share it with you) 

or you can take Terri's binding class at Cathy's/Honey Run Quilters 

and get the very same tip! 

Chico is the place to Bee Haven!!!