Happy Birthday Jake!

Today is Jake's 18th birthday so I'm posting a collage of pictures of him (in no particular order) over the years. He has certainly changed a great deal! He has grown from a sweet kid to a caring young man and we are very proud of him. We may not always agree with his decisions, but we're glad that he makes up his own mind and chooses his own path. Happy Birthday Jake and many more! Jake in leather (17 years old)

Jake warming up for a concert (15 years old)

Jake in uniform preparing for his first field show (14 years old)

Jake at band camp last summer (17 years old)

Jake on his way to middle school (about 12 years old)

Jake at "Hawaiian night" (15 years old)

Jake dressed up for colonial days (5th grade)

Notebook Cover

Here's my version of the notebook cover that Wendy and I will be teaching next week. Three days of solid teaching are over now. On these long weekends between classes I try to finish my demo samples or get rid of them to a group that will use them. I'm trying to avoid getting too many UFOs! Then I need to make demo samples for next week's classes. Unfortunately this doesn't leave me with a lot of time to sew other things that interest me now. But that's what is so nice about team teaching. Some weeks it's Wendy's turn to make the demo samples :-)

What is it about teenagers that makes them never happy? I just finished dyeing my daughter's blonde hair to a darkish shade of brown. I hope she likes it, but if not it will wash out in a month or so (we hope).

Class last night was a blast. The Wednesday night crowd is a wild bunch of women :-) so there was a lot of good-natured bantering as well as lots of laughter. We also had a lot of sharing, especially since we have included sharing of blocks to discuss sashing options, or assembled blocks to discuss border options, or tops to discuss binding and quilting options. Even if Wendy or I don't have the definitive answer, everyone seems to enjoy giving their opinion and that often results in some terrific ideas!

I am getting absolutely no sewing done this week since both kids are home for February break, but I keep reminding myself that Jake will be gone next year and Elisia the following year, so I want to enjoy them as much as possible while they're still here. I'm sure empty nest will hit me hard, especially when Pierre is out to sea, but teaching and designing are occupying more and more of my time so I hope that will get me through the worst of it.

Lisa

Stained Glass

These are 2 of the stained glass quilts I made for this week's lesson. A third quilt is "in process" so I can show them how things are done. The first is my own design. The second is my interpretation of a design in a Dover book on Art Nouveau.

Let me know if you like them!

This and That

All is quiet here. My husband, Pierre, returned yesterday from a short trip to sea so the little things that pile up when he's not home are getting done again. It's so nice to have a man around the house :-) And despite the fact that it's my son's 18th birthday next week... he isn't a man yet! Some day I hope he learns to take responsibility without being reminded, nagged and hounded!

Wendy and I had a great time teaching yesterday. The stained glass design day is doing moderately well. If only people wouldn't listen to that negative little voice inside their head that tells them they can't draw, can't design, aren't creative! It okay to erase, okay to redesign and okay to fail! Just pick yourself up and try again!

Wendy wore her birthday present and got lots of raves. She seems more taken with this jacket than the last one I gave her. It was fun presenting it to her at the trunk show on Monday night and I think the guild enjoyed seeing her surprise and pleasure, also. Sorry that I didn't get a picture of it to show you.

Lisa

Trunk Show Recap

I'm afraid I didn't get much sewing done yesterday, just the prep work for the stained glass class today. I was too nervous to do any real creating with the trunk show looming. It wasn't my first trunk show, LOL, but you'd think it was from the way I felt. Canyon is the largest guild I know of in the San Diego area and there are quite a few Big Names in the guild. Yikes!

Wendy, Elisia and I went to dinner at Applebee's. As soon as we arrived in the parking lot I realized I'd forgotten my notes! I had the jackets and the racks, but no notes! Argh! I called Jake and he ran them down to us and then joined us for dinner which turned out to be really nice.

Wendy inadvertantly helped relax me, by fiddling with her old umbrella. The end of the handle shot off across the room, barely missing Elisia's nose! We were roaring with laughter (the other patrons probably thought we had been celebrating too much) and it really helped me calm down.

We arrived at the guild meeting way too early. It's a family trait to always be early and I didn't want to stress about being late, LOL. The rain had stopped, thank goodness, so we loaded the jackets onto the racks and headed in. The new rack Pierre bought me for Christmas works great! Now I just need another one to replace the other old rack.

My talk went extremely well! Everyone laughed in all the right places and they laughed a lot! There were questions throughout my talk, which I really like, and then more questions at the end. I encourage questions because it shows they're interested in what I do. I know that wearable art isn't for everyone, but I feel that my jackets are very wearable AND have a lot to teach that can be applied to quilts: color choices, design, embellishment techniques, etc. They applauded for Soleil Ole', my Bernina Fashion Show enesmble from 2004 and one woman said the finale piece (no Soleil Ole' is NOT the finale!) was the best she'd ever seen! And she's a Fairfield/Bernina Fashion Show designer :-)

Many people came up afterwards and complimented me on the show and the jackets. One woman really wanted to buy my Jacobean Flowers coat, but I simply don't sell my work.

I'm still walking on air this morning :-) I hope this brings many more guild trunk shows because I have a blast doing them. Who would have guessed that this would be so much fun!

Lisa

Wendy Hill quilt

Wendy Mathson and I will be teaching this quilt at Amidon's on March 17. We're using the newest Wendy Hill book, "Easy Bias Covered Curves". Isn't it yummy? And quick and easy, too!

Sorry it's been so long

Wow! Has it really been that long since I last posted?! I'll have to make this more of a regular thing again.

I've been very busy team teaching 6 quilting classes a week at Palomar Community College. When I wasn't teaching (during the winter break) I was busy with Wendy plotting what we'd teach for the Spring Semester. Many changes later we finally have a cohesive syllabus, yipee! I don't think anyone who hasn't taught a 16 week semester has any idea just how much work is involved in it.

Wendy was going to "retire" this semester, but agreed to continue when I joined her. And it's been great! We have a blast teaching together and I can't imagine doing it any other way. When one of us is busy or stressed or just plain tired the other is there to take up the slack. I'm so lucky to have someone I greatly admire to teach with :-) Not to mention the fact that she is kind enough to put up with me!

Just a quick update on my kids.

• Jake will be 18 a the end of the month! An adult in name at least ;-)
• Jake has dropped band, much to my sorrow. I cried throughout his last concert in January. He had several solos and was awesome. But he really doesn't want to play any more and I don't want to be one of those parents that expects their kids to be something they're not.
• On a similar vein, he's not going to college (despite awesome SAT scores and a perfect score on the math SAT2). He's decided he wants to be an auto mechanic so will be attending UTI in the fall with his best friend. It's something worthwhile and I know he'll be great at whatever he chooses.
• Elisia will be 17 this summer and continues to do well in school and in band.
• Elisia just returned from the All-State California Honor Band where she had a fabulous time! She's so bubbly and happy it's great to have her around :-)
• Elisia has a very busy summer planned with a week at the UCLA summer music camp, 2 weeks at Idyllwild for symphony orchestra and a week or 2 in New England visiting family.

This week I'm teaching stained glass. Of course I'm sure I should have made a stained glass quilt or at least read how to before I started this, but I made up my own method and it looks pretty :-) We're doing a design day instead of a how-to day and we're hoping people will design their own versions of my stained glass quilts. We're providing them with a couple of flowers and teaching them to draw a third. I'll try to get some pictures later so I can show you what they look like.

I'm giving a trunk show tonight for Canyon Quilters. There will be 40 or so of my favorite jackets with Wendy running the back room and Elisia helping with the modeling of the smaller jackets plus she gets to wear my Bernina Fashion show ensemble, Soleil Ole, from 2004. This will be its first showing in my trunk show. Yipee!

That should be plenty for now. I'll try to post more regularly in the future.

ta,

Lisa

P.S. Have you checked out The Quilt Show website? I can't wait to see the first show!