Spring has sprung, and is launching us into summer.

I LOVE QUILTS

Can I just tell you how much I love quilting?? And teaching quilting. And shopping for quilting stuff. . . and reading about quilts . . . and watching an episode of Hoarding on TLC that featured a quilter who had shloads of fabric strewn about. Oh, my sewing room looks so tidy in comparison.

It was so nice teaching a class at Thimble Creek yesterday. I so enjoyed helping everyone with their fabrics, figuring out how to make their quilts work for them. I love it. I am teaching the "spiked melon" class again, based on Karen Stone's book and pattern. Here is my quilt:I can't wait to show you all the different versions in class, from Kim's miniature "fruit punch" batiks, to Christina's melange of happy and colorful florals and geometrics, to Pam's baby quilt in soft blues, greens and tans, to Cindy's wonderful mix of greens, rusty reds, golds in all types of fabric from batiks to 1800 reproductions. Marvelous.

Oh, and mine that I am making in class too, which is based on my lovely "ugly" fabric in gold, cheddar, brown, purple and black, paisley weirdness.

I am looking forward to session two on May 15 and our final session on May 22.

I also visited a few quilt stores this week as my work had me travelling from Sacramento to Newark and San Jose all last week, so might as well make the most of it, right? oh, I got the cutest pattern at this little store in Fremont. For a minature dracula. TDF. I love Halloween, too. And, let's see, some cute bird in a tree fabric from the fabulous folks at Quilter's Inn.

QUESO

I have this habit of sayin, "K, so . . " when I change topics, which when I say it, sounds like the mexican word for cheese, "Queso" which is pretty funny because I do love cheese. K so, I am going to use "Queso" whenever I introduce a new topic, as such:

Queso, my boyfriend and I are working on finding some great breakfast places. Easter we took the boys to Sandy's Home of 101 omelettes in Fairfield and the men all had "kitchen sink" omelettes. 6 eggs, all manner of crazy fillings. I went for the less major 3 egger with stuff, lotsa cheese and linguisa. The biscuits were awesome. I highly recommend.

Next up is a place called, "Lois the Pie Queen" in Oakland. We are going with the boys for Mother's Day. I can't wait. They are famous for chicken and waffles, and of course, pie. Lemon icebox pie. My younger son and I are crazy for lemon desserts. crazy, I tell ya. I will report on the grub after we check it out. I will present our greater bay area findings on breakfast joints here when I have something to report.

Queso, went to the movies with same younger son last night. Saw "The Losers" and I know it is based on a comic book and all, but it was pretty cheesy. (queso fits, right?) although the bad guy is kinda darkly hilarious and the character Jensen is quite buff and funny. I think this is a definite wait for dvd/netflix/on demand kind of flick.

Queso, I love baseball. BF does too. He is a Phillies fan, I am a Giants fan. So we really enjoyed going to the game last week! Especially since the Giants won! YAY!

Back to Quilting. . .

I am anxious to start a new/waiting project, so I am going to continue the paper piecing progress and work on a dotty one from Linda Jenkins and Becky Goldsmith's book, Quilts with a Spin. This one is called Everyday Best, and I have been collecting the fabrics for it for a couple of years, so I think it is ready to come out of its box and be sewn now. I have even precut about a squillion rectangles so I am ready to paper piece. I am only using dotted fabrics, so it should be quite cheery to go with the sunny weather. I think I may even make it big enough for the bed. we shall see.

And look at this version made by the wonderful quilter at redpepperquilts

I really shouldn't start on this one, though because my friend Kim and I are trying to finish 12 quilts this year. My first quilting year I made 34, so 12 should be doable, especially since we are talking about finishing, not start to finish, and we both have a lot of works in progress. I have a tough time getting my quilt tops to finished. I even have a hard time getting quilted quilts finished. that binding always taunts me so.

So, Kim has finished 3 and I have finished 1, but have 3 that just need binding, one needs to be quilted, one needs borders and then quilted, two that all the blocks are done and just needs to be pieced into rows, and about 5 more in various stages of over half way done.

Until next post, have some pie, and think about joining in on the 12 finished quilt bandwagon.

I am going to read some quilting blogs. Did I mention, I love reading about quilts??