Kauai's 2009 North Shore Quilt & Fiber Show

Would you like to go to a quilt show with me? I hope you don't mind if my brain doesn't come along; it's still missing. (No, it hasn't even sent me a postcard. I'm getting worried...)

We're going to have to do some backward time travel....I hope you don't mind. This quilt show, the brainchild of quilter Jeni Hardy and the result of hard work of the No Nene Quilt Group, is just a couple years old, but growing every year. It was held this year on March 27th and 28th, 2009, at the Church of the Pacific in Princeville, Kauai.

I'm estimating there were approximately 90 quilts, which is a pretty great showing for our tiny island. This first quilt is by M. Lea Ingram, who never fails to blow me away with her talent:

"Hanalei Moon," M. Lea Ingram, 2008

This is the show as you walk in; the quilts filled a number of rooms in the small church:

Of course, I wish I could show you all the quilts. I'm so proud of our quilters here on Kauai.

These Hawaiian quilts were a special display. These are the work of Pua Miriam Kaona.


Her family graciously lent these quilts to the show. Amazing. All hand-appliqued and quilted. Gee...and I whine when I have to sew block rows together....

I wish I had a long shot of this next quilt by Eileen Sanders. This is the farthest away I could get from the quilt because frankly, I am so in awe of her hand quilting skills that couldn't back away. I was hypnotized by her tiny, perfect, regular stitches:

"Baskets" by Elieen Sanders, 2009, voted Best in Show 2009

Eileen is a stab-stitcher. She makes those stitches ONE AT A TIME. One year at Quilt Hawaii, Eileen's work was almost dismissed by the judges in the hand-quilting category because the judges initially thought her quilt was machine quilted--it's that perfect.

Can you imagine? Stab stitching all these stitches one stitch at a time??? Mind boggling. And Eileen is a prolific quilter! She turns out one of these huge hand appliqued, hand pieced, hand quilted quilts about one every two months or so.

I am humbled by her awesomeness.

This quilt is pretty humbling, too:

"Iz" by Paula Jimenez, 2002

This quilt is a picture of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, a beloved singer here in Hawaii, now deceased. He's sitting under a mango tree, strumming his ukulele. This quilt took Paula five years to complete. The quilt includes many native Kauaian birds. It's spectacular. The quilt is large...possibly queen size?...not that you'd ever put in on a bed. That's just to give you a size idea.

I love this colorful strippy quilt:

"Rainbow Quilt," Jeni Hardy, 2009

I loved this next quilt, but I cannot find the maker's name in the program! No Nene's...anyone...help? I'll edit the maker's name in later. But I just had to show it to you because...wow...isn't it great? Look at those colors!!

"Unknown," by Unknown, Unknown Year. Anyone??

There were demos, too:

And this cute Hawaiian shirt quilt by Happy Parks, who comes up with the greatest ideas! I wish I could take a tour of her brain:

"Reyn Spooner Family Quilt," by Happy Parks

This quilt was made from a collection of Reyn Spooner Hawaiian shirts that belonged to her son, husband, father, and brother-in-law.

She used the collar, plaquet, and pocket of 12 shirts, then used the rest for the sashing. Isn't this clever?

Happy made one of my "Keiki Hula" patterns once and set it in such an imaginative way that I had to ask her if I could copy it. I love her work.

Back at the home front, I am busy being a mom again. All's right with the world.

I guess having a brain is overrated.

I am content.

Oh! and P.S. Be sure to look for me in the latest Quilter's Newsletter Magazine. I haven't seen the "Meeting Place" article yet, but thanks for your nice comments about it! I always worry about how I'm going to come off in an interview...I can be a little irreverent, you know. I hope it's okay...

More Spring Fever Randomness

No, I haven't got all my mental marbles back yet. My mind is still off wandering somewhere and shows no signs of returning. I wish it had left a note. Am I going to be like this until Summer?

Meanwhile, some more Spring Fever randomness:

I made a skirt. It's fitted and has a zipper.

Of course, since I don't have a brain right now, I made mistake on the waistline. I made the waistline a little too big, but that's better than too small...right? More room for strawberries.

I made the skirt from this book:

Sew What! Skirts. Fantastic book. You can make custom fitted skirts easily, even if you don't have a brain!

Uh oh....mind wandering alert. Do you have this problem:

Piglets overrunning your yard? We do. These are wild piglets and they're soooo cute...but they're accompanied by their very agressive mama, who storms out of the bushes to charge anyone who walks into the yard. It's a problem.

This is what the adult pigs look like:

These are the neighbor's pigs, but they're quite tame. I can't get a good picture of the wild mama that's charging me because I'm usually too busy screaming and running back toward my house. It's a problem.

This is a horse that visits us occasionally. He keeps the pigs away.

Speaking of visitors, we have a pigeon that started visiting us recently. I don't think we had pigeons before Wal Mart came to our island. Now they're at Wal Mart, Kukui Grove Mall, and Lihue McDonald's. They're spreading to all the people-y places. I don't think we should be feeding him, but look at that cute birdie face! We're keeping him in captivity so he doesn't breed. Don't want to displace any endangered Hawaii birds! He seems happy enough in his cage.

This one's name is Mr. Pidgy. He growls when you get close to him--it's really funny. Have you heard a pigeon do that hiss-growl thing....or is that just our Kauai WalMart variety? Maybe he learned it from the pig.

Here's another project I've finished lately, which has nothing much to do with anything else I've written here...

Mr. Wise Owl. Made from an old Aunt Martha transfer pack.

More animal pictures:

Mr. Bigglesworth is wondering why all the animals that come live with us have the prefix "Mr." or "Mrs." I guess it's because I respect animals. And also...they have their secrets, don't they? I don't really think you can ever really name an animal. They have their own name for themselves that you can never know. So I leave their secret first name up to them.

Of course, when they're not big enough to be a Mr. or Mrs.:

Awwwwwwww. Mr. Bigglesworth, just a few days after we got him from the Humane Society. His name was just "kitty" here. What a lovely little creature he is.

For the life of me, I can't think of a segue into this next picture:

My chocolate chip cookies. My favorite recipe is the Tollhouse recipe which is printed on the back of the chocolate chips. But why do my cookies always come out looking like this:

Flat and wrinkly. They taste good, of course, but why flat and wrinkly? My cookies used to come out puffy...do any of you know what the problem could be? Thanks in advance for any insight, and also thanks in advance for not telling me that my cookies are just going through menopause. They're very sensitive these days...

Yay! The last topic change....I think. Maybe.

My husband and I will be celebrating our 24th anniversary this Sunday. I'm the luckiest woman on earth. I love being married to him and love him with all my heart. Happy Anniversary, Honey.

And more good news...my son Grayson will be home from college for the summer on May 9th! This will be one wonderful weekend. With any luck, my brain will check in briefly in order to enjoy it.

Spring Fever?

I think I have Spring Fever. Does anyone know what the symptoms are? I'm busy, but I just feel so...hmmm....unfocused. I'm not doing anything I SHOULD be doing...I just feel like wandering around, doing a little bit of everything.

For instance, I have this incredibly lovely stack of fabric that I got for Christmas last year:

And this perfectly wonderful pattern to make it into:

But I don't feel like tackling a big project right now! My attention span is too short. So I do silly things like this:

I made a thrifted pillowcase into an apron. I think it came out pretty...but still...

I have an entire stack of perfectly wonderful new crisp fabric waiting for me...and I'm sewing together old sheets again. What is wrong with me??

I did finish a useful pair of socks:

These are my "Jury Duty" socks. I started them as a mindless, chartless project when I was called for jury duty...but my case got cancelled (yay!) and I was stuck with finishing the world's most boring sock pattern. I like the yarn--it's Misti Alpaca. Very warm and soft, which are my two favorite qualities in a sock.

But then I went back to sewing old dishtowels:

Can you guess what this is? Here it is, unrolled:

And unflapped:

My dpn's now have a cozy little bed to sleep in. I used two Martha Stewart dishtowels, some batting, and a bit of fabric to make the flap. Don't they look cute all tucked in?

Spring fever, I tell you.

As long as my mind is wandering, I'll tell you about my new favorite cereal:

I'm on a gluten-free diet now, just to see what happens. It's been two weeks and so far, I don't feel much different. Maybe gluten was responsible for my former longer attention span...you think? Nah. Anyway, this stuff is yummy! I think the box is happy, too. Can't you just see a quilt in all those colors?

Speaking of yummy, it's lychee time of year again:

These are so sweet and tasty. Have you ever had lychee? You peel back the red skin and eat the flesh, which tastes a bit like a grape, but more floral-tasting. These are not quite ready; they'll get redder and sweeter.

My orchids are showing off right now:

Hello, my pretties. Do you have Spring Fever, too?

While I'm wandering around the yard, this new little family crosses my path:

The yard is so lovely, I just may stay out here and wander a bit.

Is there any cure for this?

No More Haunted Mansion

Remember my morgue-like sewing room?

NO MORE FUNERAL PARLOR DRAPES!! WHOO HOOOOO!

Gee, it's about time, isn't it? I've only been staring at those horrible depressing drapes--courtesy of our home's previous owner--for ten years now. Yay! We now have nice white faux wood blinds, courtesy of our local Home Depot.

And did you notice the color? We painted, too! (Thanks for all your color suggestions on this post.) This was my inspiration palette:

Obviously, a color scheme selected by a perimenopausal woman living in Hawaii. Summer is so dang hot! I'd rather fantasize that I'm living atop that iceberg there.

Here were the iceberg-inspired swatches that I agonized over:

As you can see, icy, cool, ice cube colors. I had actually decided on "Tide Pools," which is on the card furthest to your left--middle swatch. But the day we purchased the paint, I forgot my paint swatches at home, and had to remember what color I had decided upon. The remembering part didn't go so well--I picked out a new group of aqua swatches and "Delicate Mist" looked and sounded more familiar, so I bought a gallon of that one. ("Delicate Mist" is the middle card, middle color.)

I remembered wrong. Oh well, it's kind of close. It looked closer under the lighting at Home Depot, anyway.

It's difficult to capture the color in this room! There is too much light to be able to see it very well.

We actually finished painting a couple weeks ago, but I didn't post pictures because I couldn't get good pictures of the paint color (I still can't). The window light burns out the camera, so the color is hard to photograph.

It's a very delicate color. I like it a lot. I think if it were any darker, I'd tire of it easily.



It feels very serene and peaceful in here atop my imaginary iceberg.



I picked up this sconce at my favorite thrift store. It's perfect for my knitting needles.



The light aqua is a little easier to see on this wall--but still, you don't see the whole large cumulative blue/green/gray space. It's a large room, so there is plenty of blue.

My sewing room will never be a "pretty" room. It's my work room. My quilt factory. I love my sewing table (ugly) and my machine-on-a-stick (12 feet of bare wood and sprinkler pipe), and all the yarn storage beneath. I suppose I could drape everything in fabric...but ugh...I'd rather be quilting. Besides, with all the bright natural light, decorator fabric fades in six months. Not worth it.

I like my room to be practical and rearrangeable. I also like to store my bulky, unattractive items so they are easy to get to. I think if I made it a really "pretty" room, I'd never want to get it messy!

I love my space. It feels very restful, without feeling very "Rest in Peace"-full, if you know what I mean.

I Survived the Shawl

I survived the shawl.

I am soooo glad this project is done. Here is "Ishbel:"

The Shawl of Pure Evil.

Grrrrrr. Oh sure...in this picture, it's laying here all innocent and soft, but don't be deceived. It's a vicious little thing. Fuzz, billions of yarnovers, dropped stitches, more fuzz, multiple charts, boring stockinette with teeny tiny FUZZY yarn--it's just plain mean. See the points? Think of them as fangs with my blood dripping from them.

I only finished this shawl because it taunted me. It lay in wait for me on my recliner every night, quietly plotting how it was going to break me. And it almost succeeded! I almost gave up at least once a night.

But I survived.

And...I kind of like it! I may make another one. (Slow learner.)

Next time, I would definitely use a different yarn. This is Malabrigo Lace in "Carrot." I love the color, but oh oh oh the fuzz! The Malabrigo would be good for someone making this shawl for the second time--when one already knows what one is doing--because mistakes are impossible to fix. The more you linger over a mistake, the more fuzz is produced--kind of like trying to pet a rabid dog.

But it sure is soft on my neck! And practically weightless. Just a little whisper of a thing, really. It's lovely to wear.

Perhaps on my next attempted shawl pattern, I'll consult a shawl expert regarding suitable yarn types before I nearly commit shawlicide.

Here is the lace edge. The edges did not turn out like I thought. I think I may have bound off too tightly (I think I was trying to strangle the thing....). In addition, I don't think this yarn blocks very well. I pinned out the points, but they're just not as pointy as they should be.

See? No points at all. Smooth edges. Not enough drama for an evil shawl, I think.

This is what the edges are supposed to look like:

This is sammysmith's Ishbel. I hope she doesn't mind me using this picture; I cut and pasted it from Ravelry. Her points are lovely and stayed pointy after blocking. I can see that her bind-off was looser than mine, too.

Here is the front of my shawl:

I need a shawl pin or something. I don't think I'd ever wear it this way, though. It feels too good up against my neck. I think I'll probably wear it more like this:

Perhaps I'll try to reblock it the next time I wash it to see if I can coax some points out of the infernal thing. I just worry about more fuzz when I wash it. I do love the color though! It's exactly the color of fresh carrot juice.

In other news, my new lavender quilt won a prestigious award! It's been designated by Mr. Bigglesworth as the most desirable sleeping spot of the week.

Quite an honor.