Come See Me in Glendale!

That’s Glendale, California ---- not Glendale, Arizona ----

This coming weekend is the Glendale Quilt Show! ((I'm saving my specially planned GREEN SHIRT for St Paddy's Day on Saturday!))

I got notice today that there are some last-minute openings in a couple of classes ---

If you’ve always wanted to take a class at a show ---but were afraid that classes required a certain skill level, or found the fact that a lot of classes ALSO require an expensive kit to participate --- never fear! These two classes do NOT require kits, can be made from scraps you have on hand, teach basic fun skills, and you get a LOT done during the class time with much to show for it.

I’d love to spend the day with you!

Click HERE to visit the guild show website! You can also download a show brochure HERE.

Thurs, March 15: Shirttails!

Three traditional blocks combine in this top to challenge any quilter! We will be making 1/2 square triangles in 3 different sizes, and combining blocks of different sizes to make a scrap quilt with a primitive feel. *Note* Though the pattern in the book is written with regular rotary cutting instructions, I love to use my easy angle ruler for half square triangles, and the companion angle combined with the easy angle ruler for flying geese units. I will be demonstrating these rulers during class, so if you have always wanted to know how these work, bring them with you!

Don't worry about pre-cutting for this class-- I know Thursday doesn't give much prep time -- just bring a good selection of fabrics you want to work with and we can cut during class.

• Shirttails Class Supply List

Sunday, March 18: Scrappy Mountain Majesties!

A great quilt for using larger pieces of leftover fabrics! All of those “WHAT WAS I THINKING!” fabrics can find a place to shine in this super easy, super visual quilt. Students will bring pre-cut 8.5" squares in pairs of light/dark. Many layouts provide lots of options for this fun quilt!

• Scrappy Mountain Majesties Class Supply List

I’d love to see this classes fill to full. What are you waiting for? If I can drag my carcass cross-country to come play --- you can come play too! You’ll be glad you did!

I’ve got to get a good night’s sleep tonight --- tomorrow is the crazy day I get to fly backwards from Little Rock Arkansas, to Charlotte, North Carolina – so I can catch a plane that flies me “Non-Stop” from Charlotte to Los Angeles ---Stupid way to route me, but hey, it’s hexie time again!

iPhone-o-gram! Live from Class!!

Shirley has just been awarded the de-stasher of the week award!!

With an honorable mention for artistic use of millennium fabric in the construction of her My Blue Heaven quilt!

Star Struck in Little Rock!

Yesterday’s workshop was a load of fun! The day started with the guild business meeting and my lecture ----and then we got BUSY. Tables were moved and chairs arranged and machines unloaded and everything plugged in --- and in between that and the start of class we managed to eat a bite of lunch for the energy we’d need to get us through the afternoon!

We met at a library, with a great conference room for our use. I love libraries! I need to remember today to get a picture of the beautiful fountain that is right outside our room...too much time, not enough for all the pictures I want to take!

I love organized preparedness! Doesn’t this just make you want to flip through and look at each individual strip?

This too! Cut and stored and all ready to go!

More strip and square readiness!

Take a look at all we got to – we had a great half day class, and don’t let the half day part fool ya – it was a 4 hours of pedal to the metal chain-piece-a-thon!

		Star Struck, Little Rock AR 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

And today we do it all over again with a My Blue Heaven Workshop!

If You Don’t Like The Weather ---

This is a rather disjointed post of random glimpses of my first 24 hours in Little Rock! I tried to find a common theme between these photos to make them flow one into the other, but the only thing they have in common is --- well – it’s Arkansas!

And I have never laughed so hard with such a fun group of ladies EVER! And honestly – I was trying to be on my best behavior.

I have a new mantra that I am finding very hard to live up to:

“Be Above Reproach.” ((Or at least TRY.)

Can you imagine ANY goal harder to obtain than that? I can’t. I’m just a QUILTER. I am not a politician. But is so hard when people are so quick to form opinions, or lose opinions of you when people watch you so closely on EVERYTHING, not just your QUILTING. Try it some day. See what I mean.

This new mantra need came about after airing a "funny situation" that I personally found hilarious, to be called out on it and lambasted every which way with no mercy by a reader for my “uncaring callousness” which was never my intention in the first place. And then one begs to wonder who really deserved the lambasting –Me for thinking a situation was funny, not naming names, keeping things light hearted, or that emailer who said such things as she did to me PERSONALLY to my face, tearing me to shreds in email. Who was the one really doing the judging? There is such a fine line there.

The internet is such an amazing ((!?!?)) place, isn’t it?

((This is when Bonnie gets real because this is LIFE folks. I’m not perfect, I never set out to be --- but I do try to be BETTER. To make apologies when I need to, to always try to learn from a situation. My life is just not hunky-dorey all the time.))

So --- wearing my shiny-new-yet-very-cautious mantra ---I arrive in LIttle Rock to meet Shirley, the sweetest lady ever ---who asks me to dinner ---and I accept ---- and we pull up to:

OH BOY!!!

I am laughing inside by this point! I could have said – oh NO!! Especially after the BAD SUSHI episode last week in Virginia Beach – but you know what? Put a smile on! I didn’t even know for SURE it was the sushi last week, and there is no time to get back on the horse that bucked me like the present! And it was great – and we had a wonderful conversation getting to know one another, and we have so much in common.

And we continued to drive back to my hotel in the pouring rain…..soon coming up behind what looked like a piano in a trailer behind a pick up ----

Wait a minute! It IS a piano in the back of a trailer being pulled by a pick up truck in the driving rain! And it really was waving and bouncing around and looking like it wasn’t tied down at al! Did I mention it was POURING?! So what is that blue tarp doing bundled at the back of the trailer and why is it not covering this gorgeous piano? We were both laughing and shaking our heads.

Shirley said: “Whatddya know?! It’s ARKANSAS after all!”

I laughed and said “Pass this guy..this bouncing piano is making me nervous….” I had visions of it leaving the back end of that trailer, and landing on our hood --so she went fast enough to get around him, but slow enough to grab this picture and howl some more:

The ropes were not even tight! They were flying EVERYWHERE!

**NOTE** Before someone emails me about being cruel and careless and judgemental about the piano in the rain on the back of a trailer – and that I shouldn’t make fun of people who decide to move heavy parlor items in the driving rain ----What I find as funny doesn’t mean you necessarily have to, but I don’t need you to call me out on it in email or any other form, that isn’t your job okay? :cD

It seriously was.....scary funny.

And what a difference 24 hours makes! This evening after returning to my room I had just about an hour before dark so I threw on my running shoes and headed out for a walk. I’m close to the airport..but this didn’t stop me from finding some beauty to share.

What is this white blooming bush? It was so pretty, I could imagine it tucked into a bride’s hair – or in her bouquet. Spring has definitely arrived in Little Rock!

The redbuds are popping…their delicate flowers unfurling each petal to the 80 degree sunshine today. Not a cloud in the sky! What a difference 24 hours makes!

Doesn’t this picture make you smile with thoughts of warm days ahead? This is just before sunset – the branches reaching for the sky – in a mostly industrial area! So that is my reminder for the day that beauty – true beauty – can be found everywhere, you just have to LOOK for it!

I turned around when I reached a stop sign at a T in the road ---shadows loomed as the sky darkened….soon this stand of trees will be shrouded in the green of full leaf cover as we move deeper into spring.

Good night, Little Rock! You are proving to be quite the gem of a town! I’m looking forward to more adventures tomorrow!

PS -- It's really hard to be above reproach --- can't I just be me?