Mary Kay McCall's Design Star Contest

Mary Kay Davis is a very talented quilter from Sunnyvale California. She works at The Granary & has been making quilts for a McCall's contest. She needs our votes & they are only a click away! CLICK HERE! You can vote every day!

Happy Monday!
Sharon

A Hero Quilt Kind of Day

Today was the monthly get together for the Stanwood-Camano Hero Quilters. 24 people came to work on quilts! And 28 quilts were dropped off finished by some of our fabulous long arm quilters. This month marks the 4 year anniversary of our first get togeher. We started with just 7 that day! Hooray to all of you! I'll add some pictures to this post later.

The Moda Bake Shop Progressive Dinner is in full swing. Check out the Polka Dot Chair blog & you'll see what I mean!

I think I'll go tie a string around my finger so I don't forget about the pictures!
Sharon

Chase the January Blues Away

Check out what the nice folks over at Moda Bake Shop have cooked up this time. A progressive dinner featuring 15 favorite Bake Shop Chefs. It starts tomorrow & goes through the 26th. The Grand Prize is one each of all of Moda's pre-cuts.

You don't want to miss out. Creativity & winning are just a click away!

See you there!

Sharon

Camano Sunset

Another slideshow by Smilebox

January Quilts & Twister

Where does the time go? This first quilt was made by Diane. A group of us played "strip poker" using 2 1/2" strips of fabric as our "chips". Fun time & lots of happy memories in all of the fabrics we swapped!

                                     

Pat made this little beauty as a baby shower gift & loved it so much  I think a future grandchild will be getting it!

 California Janice whipped up this Bear Paw for their cabin. Love all the colors in the batiks. Especially the border. I 'm getting to know a new camera, so bear with me while I am on the learning side of this.

 Who doesn't love Minky for the back of a quilt? I tried a new "flower collage" on the Twister quilt & had a lot of fun! I have to really concentrate to keep the scale consistent. I kept telling myself "go big".

                                     
 Here's a couple pictures of the top.

 And finally the whole quilt. I'll be teaching the class at Aunt Mary's Quilt shop on February. You can get the scoop here. I always make something chocolate for a treat! Next week is Aunt Mary's 10 year anniversary. Lots of great daily sales & cake on Saturday!

I am going to attempt to make a little slide show to post later. Wish me luck. It has to do with the beach on Friday!

See you soon! Sharon

Side Trip

Mr S & I went on a side trip to the Lick Observatory east of San Jose. It's an hour drive on a very road windy that gets narrower as you get near the top of Mt Hamilton. Lots of bicyclists too. It was founded in 1888, so the architecture is beautiful. The views are fabulous!

Quilt inspiration, don't you think? Marble & grand woodwork.This light fixture was enormous. So beautiful. Hinges from the original doors. There's a tour every half hour. The entire floor moves can move up to the railings to better position the telescope. My heart skipped a beat seeing the beautiful wood & the patterns on the walls. The dome & the end of the telescope. More quilt design inspiration. Travel back in time looking at the control panel & chair! At 4200" it was cold outside!Bet this big, gnarly pine tree has seen all kinds if weather. The dome in the center is where I took the telescope pictures.San Jose in the distance. Bambi peacefully eating some grass. He had several of his friends too. There is a beautiful county park, Joseph D. Grant County Park, on the way up. I found this article about hiking there. And the houses on the way up, well what else can I say. Here's a

link , check it out!

If you continue on the same road it's 49 miles to Livermore where my 2nd favorite California quilt shop can be found, In Between Stitches.

More quilt pictures soon. At least this weather is good "quilting" weather.

See you again soon!

Sharon

Quilting Square One: Happy Town Times Two 2010

This is a quilt Pam made. Isn't it the best? I think it's all raw edge applique on the long arm. Sweet! head over to her blog & check it out.

Quilting Square One: Happy Town Times Two 2010: "Last finished project of the year....well almost finished ...I still have to hand stitch the binding on one of them... Happy Town Times Two..."

My last days in Nanaland

Joanna & I got to "escape" for a day of retail therapy. Can you see the rainbow? An indication that it was going to be a wild weather day! Here we are at our favorite quilt shop, The Granary. They have their class schedule online if you are going to be in the area. The shop was filled with samples from the past year's classes for sale. Here's Sara, one of their helpful employees. Jodi ringing Joanna's purchases. You can see that they have tons of samples. Little Mister or General Patraw(he orders all of us around) with his favorite Elmo hat & "my puppets"(that's what he call mittens or socks that he puts on his hands.)We went for a walk around the neighborhood. Here we are again on the train.We saw the most beautiful sunset on our way back to Niles from Sunol.The grand finale.

I have more pictures of the Lick Observatory near San Jose to post later. Taking Dad to get his cast off today. Hallelujah! He whittled away,like a squirrel, at it while I was gone.

Hope your New Year is off to a good start! Back to the quilts for me!

Sharon