The Textile Museum

This past weekend I spent a couple of days in Toronto. One of the highlights was a visit to the Textile Museum to see the Mola exhibition. It was a wonderful and large collection. Here are a few of my favourites.

February Quilt Retreat 2011

I just sent out the retreat information for the February Quilt Retreat at McIntosh Inn in Morrisburg. It will be so nice to catch up with old friends, share stories, meals, a nice glass of wine, and see all the different quilts and projects that everyone is working on. On Saturday night we always have show and tell and I love seeing the beautiful quilts, rugs, sweaters, scrapbooks etc that this amazing group of women have created. These are wonderfully talented women. How lucky we are to be able to spend an entire weekend with 24 women that all get along and enjoy each others company so much. We are truly blessed.

Our Exhibit at the Brockville Arts Centre

For the month of December Christine and I had an exhibit of our quilts hanging in the Brockville Arts Centre lobby. Here are some of the quilts. Most were original designs and two were designs from Bird on a Wire, Saskatoon, SK.

We received many positive comments and were pleased with the feedback from both the viewers and the staff at the BAC.

Happy Holidays

Christmas came and went in a flash and in a few short days the New Year will be here and it will soon be time to buckle down and get to work in the studio. The pressure to get class samples is on - I have been avoiding the studio and maybe a break is what I needed. It has been a busy life in my studio. I started my quilt pattern business in 1999 and have worked pretty steady since then. A little time to regroup and refocus is sometimes necessary to get the creative juices flowing again. I was thinking about New Year's Resolutions and I usually don't set many for my personal life but always get a bit excited about what the New Year might bring in my studio life.

My goals for 2011 are:

1. Learn to use my quilting machine.

2. Learn EQ

3. Venture out of the box and create small art quilts with lots of thread play and embellishments.

4. Use up some of the vast amount of fabric, wool, thread etc that I seem to have acquired over the past number of years.

5. Keep up my blog.

6. Write a new book with Christine.

7. Use my camera everyday.

I think that seems like a reasonable list.

Organizing the Studio

Christmas is just around the corner and I decided to get a jump on my New Year's resolution by organizing my studio. I started by ruthlessly getting rid of fabric that I will never use. I even gave away some that I still liked but realized that I don't want to make anything with it and don't have time so it's time to move it out. It absolutely astounds me at how many places you can stash fabric. Every time I opened a cupboard or a rubbermaid bin there was more fabric. I've decided that 2011 will be a year of using up some of my stash. I realize that in my lifetime I will never use everything I have but my plan is to put a good dent in my stash.

Once I eliminated the stuff I didn't want I tidied up my fabric shelves and my fat quarter cubbies. I love the space saver "shoe bins" that you can buy at Canadian Tire. Fat quarters fit perfectly and the bins are stackable. I also put individual projects waiting to be made in those clear plastic zippered bags that linens come in, along with the pattern or book I want to use to make the project. I put all my jelly rolls in one basket and 5" charm packs and layer cakes in another. I took my books and categorized them by subject. I put all my patterns in baskets and also sorted them by subject matter for easy reference. I bought clear divided containers at Michaels to put all my beads, buttons, embellishments etc so now I can easily see where everything is.

Over the past year I have gone through all my magazines, cut out articles and patterns that I thought were interesting and but them plastic sleeves in a binder and then recycled the magazines. I got rid of tons of magazines and condensed them into three binders.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with my threads. Once that is done my studio is relatively tidy and ready for the new year! I can't wait to start a new project! Just think of the mess I can make........

It amazes me how quickly time passes by. It seems like just yesterday that we were enjoying the February retreat and now the November retreat has come and gone. We spent a wonderful three days at McIntosh Inn in Morrisburg sewing, talking, eating, sleeping, and sharing with good friends. The talent in this group always humbles me. Show and Tell was magnificent as always and I am astounded at the amount of work that gets done in three days. What a treat to have a chunk of time to just create and not worry about the day to day responsibilities of home and family. We are truly blessed.

We welcomed three new retreaters - Kathy, Brenda and Jenny and judging by their comments I think they had a great time. I think it is wonderful how everyone made them feel welcome and within a short time it seemed like we had all known each other for years.

Now for the planning of the February 2011 retreat!!!

Quilt Retreat Feb 2010

What a fun time we had at the February quilt retreat. We had a record number of attendees - 25 in total and the quilt room was a hum of activity all weekend. The weather was absolutely perfect, although we had a blizzard on Thursday and I was a bit worried about what Friday morning would be like. Luckily we woke up to sunshine and mild weather.

The weekend was especially exciting because it was the last weekend of the Winter Olympics so many of the ladies were running back and forth to the foyer to watch the various events.

Thanks to Monique we had 2 massage therapists come on Saturday to give massages and everyone seemed to enjoy that. We didn't have quite enough time to give everyone a massage but hopefully next time we can accommodate everyone.What a treat!