Road to California 2022 • Part I

I Hear America Singing, Quilt #252

My friend Laurel and I headed up to Road to California 2022 Tuesday afternoon, one hour earlier than the “VIP” admissions. We know this show often has slow check-ins and we wanted to get our badges and show bag and figure out where our class was tomorrow. We had time to sit and reflect before it opened on how our own numbers of local quilters has shrunk, through moves or losing interest. One year we gathered almost 20 people for a dinner at a local restaurant; now it was down to just us two, eating our brought-from-home sandwiches, waiting for the abbreviated quilt show to open.

Wealth of Days, Quilt #247

Road to California is a well-established quilt show, running for more than two decades. I have had mostly perfect attendance, ever since moving to Southern California — except for last year, when it was cancelled. Laurel called this year “a year to take a breath” and get your bearings again. When they opened up, we hightailed it to the quilt show area so I could see my quilts. They were still setting up, so the overhead lights were on, a departure from 2020 when I was last here. Everything was so well lighted; we loved it.

Picties and Verities, Quilt #243
I snuck my mask off for this one.

We explored the quilts (more at the bottom of this post), shopped the vendors and headed home to get some sleep before our class the next day.

We live about 35 minutes from the show, so I picked up Laurel and off we went. Our class was being taught in a different hotel, so we loaded the wagon, went in and found our places. I had said to Laurel that I was very “covid-nervous” and might have to leave if people weren’t wearing their masks, or taking precautions. We are still under mask mandates here in California, but I got a seat near the door and we left the doors open for ventilation, and class started.

The class was Posh Penelope, taught by Helen and Jenny from Sew Kind of Wonderful — really lovely teachers. At the beginning of class they passed out little goodie kits for us–so welcome! I’d precut and prepped so after the demos, I started right in.

I hadn’t heard from my daughter that morning, and I checked on her IG Story and saw this. Just when I am thinking we’re going to get out of this in good shape! In texting my other children, I found out my son and his family had it last week, another son offered up that his 16 yo daughter had it. Laurel had been tracking news of her BIL who has been in the hospital for over a week, with covid. I felt surrounded by covid, but took a deep breath and kept quilting. It’s still here, but we were at Road — and I consider that a deep breath and a leap back into life.

We took our lunches outside to this gazebo–in the old days we would have cranked away at the sewing machines inside; now we escape to the beauties of the world a little more often.

And then class was over. No, I don’t know what that fabric is I used for the blue, but I plan to make this quilt a few scrappy blocks at a time. It’s such a great pattern, and using their rulers makes it easy. We went back over to the convention center, to grab the last couple of hours of the day. It’s about half the size in terms of vendors, with no large tent this time. I thanked a lot of the vendors for coming, knowing that it’s a hard time for this sort of thing. The quilt show is also smaller, so I was happy to get my quilts in.

Here are some of the quilts we saw: so much beautiful work. Click on any image to make it larger, then hit the small X in the upper right to return to this page.

If you have $75,000, this could be yours.

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That border!

I don’t have the maker info; I will get it and update this later.

This is a miniature, made out of old sari, and each of the those pieces are about an 1/8″ wide. Here’s the larger view:

I love this title…and the quilt.

I will admit to really loving this one.

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I think I am through with the animal section.

Having gone to Guatemala in 2019 to see my sister Cynthia, I could relate to this one a lot, as Cynthia took us to a specialty textiles shop that had handwoven textiles, with a woman out front doing a demonstration of weaving with a hip loom.

The back of the quilt

About the colors: from standing there, I would say the color was a slightly blue/red, with red being predominant, but when I got in closer, the camera would convert it to magenta. This was a highly detailed quilt, full of wonderful appliqué.

Okay, I know you were waiting for a Janet Stone Quilt. She works with the alphabet, for those who don’t know her work, and always includes a sheep/lamb/ewe somewhere in the quilt. This has them all in abundance.

Back of the quilt. I learned about her thread color, about when she switches threads, and that I continue to stand in awe of her work.

Zina Clark: Love in the Time of Coronavirus and Murder Hornets. If you’d like to purchase it, the price is $3700.

About Going to to a Quilt Show During Covid

I’m writing this long explanation not only for the record of this time, but also because of the questions on Instagram I’ve been asked about how I felt about being there at a quilt show during a covid surge. You have to know, first, that I spent most of 2020 in my house. We timed grocery store runs to every other week and scurried home. When I got the first vaccine in January of 2021 it was like an answer to a prayer, and I received the second one on Valentine’s Day. More mostly staying at home after our “easy summer” ended, and we still watch covid numbers. So yes, you could say I’m a bit anxious about covid.

But I’d been boosted, I’d upgraded to KN94 masks (no more cute homemade cloth ones anymore) and it was time to put my toe back in the quilt world. I felt keenly like I wanted to support Road to California and those vendors and teachers who were brave enough to come here. During an Omicron surge.

I agonized, and talked to my husband (question: do you want me to sleep in the guest room? answer: no), and decided if I limited my time, going in spurts, it would be manageable. The convention center has tall ceilings, they had a mask mandate (about 99% were heeding that), and I saw the beginning of the dip in the charts. But still, here was the info from the week before in San Bernardino, where Road was being held:

Coming to Road was easier for me, because I drove. (I plan to drive next month to QuiltCon, too.) Because this was a “take a breath” time, there was less of everything: some holes in the convention center floor where a vendor had maybe pulled out, quilt exhibits that felt like they were stretching to fill the space, rather than oodles of individual quilts. But I felt okay, after an initial nervousness. I also wanted to do a trial run before heading to Phoenix and QuiltCon in February; my roommate has decided to cancel, so my husband is now going with me. I’m not upset by this; I thought it might be me canceling. It’s a tough time.

I will be going again on Saturday afternoon, to study the quilts one last time, then wait around for my quilts at the end of the show. I’ll post more photos of the show later (I still have quite few to share).

So, Happy January.
Happy Road to California time!

I can hardly waits • This and That August 2021

I open the page in my calendar for the new month and write in family birthdays and decorate the squares with a looping border, even though all the people I celebrate live far away from me and I won’t be getting together with them, singing songs and having slices of cake. Next, I write in the mundane: car service, dr. appointments, reminders for a hair cut (which lately has been a fraught experience). And then I notice: Where are my I can hardly waits?

This idea came from Annie Mumolo, in an interview in the LATimes: 

“My dad calls them the “I can hardly waits.” He says there came a point when he turned 40 and he felt like all of his “I can hardly waits” were over, and then what do you do? I can hardly wait to get married, I can hardly wait to have kids, whatever your hardly wait is.” 

The interview is worth the read, if only for Wiig’s and Mumulo’s description of middle-aged women who are kind of “invisible,” but I was most struck with this idea of the I can hardly waits, and by naming them, I realized mine had all but evaporated over the last two years. Yearly, my husband and I had penciled in travel dates on the calendar. We’d circled squares for visits to family, notable achievement celebrations and so on. We sorta-kinda had one coming this fall for a conference in Ann Arbor, but that’s turned into a virtual conference with the rise of the Delta variant.

Which leads me to registering for QuiltCon. (You knew I’d get here eventually.) It’s an annual ritual of controlled mayhem. The management at QuiltCon is always looking for a way to reduce the bloodshed, wailing and gnashing of teeth that happens at the moment the registration site opens. They’d changed this year to the people who manage ComicCon registration, but apparently the new people (Configio) didn’t read the specs, didn’t allot sufficient bandwith/server space/whatever and so the whole thing was The Worse One Yet. I imagine Configio treated “all those nice little quilters” much like the women in the movie Barb & Star, who are “kind of invisible,” “aren’t on TikTok” and are an “unrepresented portion of the population” (from here).

I got on at 7:00 a.m., which was our time here on the West Coast. It’s always good to have a registation buddy to rant text with, so Simone was in Northern California doing the same thing. She got through to the registration portion before me, at about 7:15ish. I tried every which way, but saw these too often:

Finally, by 7:44, I had two of my classes. I went back in three more times over Wednesday, and by the afternoon, I had all my lectures and classes. Here is my schedule, if you are interested:

Yes, I know I clipped short the foundation piecing class on Saturday to go and hear Tighe, but I figure (since I’m in the age group of Barb & Star) I’ll be sort of <all done> by the time 3 p.m. rolls around. If not, I’ll be late to the lecture, or miss it. Here is a class that made me laugh:

I actually have one of these going, stashed away in my sewing room, along with a vintage family apron for inspiration.

Many athletes had a lot of I can hardly waits with the Olympics this past two weeks. The Washington Post put up an array of photos that were fascinating. Here are a few:

This month’s blocks for our Gridster Bee are a combination of three flying geese (cut the colorful part 2.5″ x 4.5″ then snowball on two low-volume corner blocks 2.5″ square). Strips on the side were added (cut 1.5″ x 6.5″). Although Linda only asked for four blocks, once I got started in my scrap drawer I couldn’t stop.

And in ankle news, at almost 6 weeks I’m getting there, walking on it a little bit, going to get a pedicure, although I was really careful to let my pedicurist know not to touch the sore spot. We had moderate success in that goal, and I cut it short to go home. I also got a hair cut yesterday, trying to salvage the over-processed mess from the last stylist. This new person is my third to try after my regular guy moved to Florida. And yes, I know. it’s pretty pathetic if your I can hardly waits consists of a visit to a hair salon.

not mine! It’s Posh Penelope from Sew Kind of Wonderful

I looked at Road to California classes (coming in January) and thought Sew Kind of Wonderful’s Posh Penelope was lovely, but do I really want to add another project to the pile waiting to become quilts? Not really.

I have a lot of the not reallys going on lately, and not too many of the I can hardly waits. However: I have a pattern I just finished writing last night for a workshop I’m teaching in September to the Santa Clarita Quilt Guild, my very last Guild presentation and workshop. I’ll be teaching Blossom and if you are interested in seeing if they have any openings, let me know. I’ve taught for them before and they are a super guild with lots of lovely quilters. That and QuiltCon are the I can hardly waits right now for me.

Happy Quilting!

Scrappy Quilts from Road to California 2020 • Road to California, Part II

Road to California had several special exhibits and the array of quilts in Sisterhood of Scraps reminded me of what the great architect Mies van der Rohe so exquisitely said: More is More.  Oh wait, did he say Less is More?  But I do know he did say “God is in the details,” and boy, do these scrappy quilts have some details.  Enjoy.

And my favorite:

Right after this I walked up the aisle and purchased a big stack of 5″ charm squares of shirting fabrics, inspired by this quilt.  If Primitive Gatherings had stocked orange 5″ squares, I would have bought them, too.  Now if I could only find them, but our house is a bit of a disaster, as we had five painters here for two weeks, scraping icky popcorn texture off our ceilings, and repainting nearly everything that didn’t move.

First they spray the ceiling with water, let it soak in, then start scraping.  Let it dry overnight, then “mud” or spackle all the divots, then spray on a light texture (I would have liked flat ceilings but that cost more).  I tried to sew in the kitchen the first week, but by Day 3, when I could draw a heart on the top of my Featherweight Sewing Machine case, I knew it was time to give up that idea.  So I gathered up some hand-sewing and  retreated to the garden, even though it was 65 degrees outside.  The lower left photo shows the progression of the mess in the front/living room by the end, and the the last photo on Day 11 shows them spraying my sewing desk in my bedroom, which by now looks a lot like the living room: a disaster.  My painter brought in a house cleaner for that last day, when they finished everything and took away all the plastic; I helped her get the initial cleaning finished, but I can tell I’ll be doing a lot more of it, as scraping the ceilings brings a LOT of dust.

This is currently the sewing room.  Right.

I have to the let the paint cure for two weeks before I can put things on shelves, and of course, it’s appalling to see your fabric collection All At Once and in Boxes, so it become apparent that there will be some culling of the collection going on as I put things away.  I plan to be fully finished before we start on our kitchen remodel.

Oh, just kidding.

Here’s your Valentine’s Day gift for today, found*here.*

Road to California 2020

It’s here!  It’s here!  Road to California is finally here!  Or was there…because I’m writing about this event and it’s in the past, as is typical with reporting on news.  The bag this year was cute, using the Best of Show winner Janet Stone’s quilt from 2019–and it was sturdy as well as colorful (hooray for none of those cheesy faux fabric bags from years of yore), and has the ever-popular aqua-blue trim.  But enough on Road Fashion, and on to my experience at Road.

First up was a class with Laura Heine, then two days of class with Jen Kingwell: Halo and Steam Punk.

Simultaneously, my friend Leisa was headed to the hospital as her cancer had progressed rapidly and she was in for a wild ride.  I wrote about it on IG, and was grateful for Jen Kingwell’s kindness to me during a very stressful two days.  So if I look a bit wiped out in the photo above, it’s because I’d been crying on and off for two days.  All I have to say is if you are going through crisis, be sure you’re with Jen and her comforting brand of patchwork.  And the class–so wonderful, and so fun to be surrounded with like-minded soon-to-be friends, all doing patchwork.  It was mostly a hand-sewing class, but because my distraction level was sort of high, I did sneak out my little sewing machine and piece mine.  I need to make up a few more and make a small wall-hanging; such fun designs!

But happy news was that Afton of QuiltingMod had decided that if half of the Gridster Bee quilters (photos below) were coming to Road, she wanted to come too.  So she roomed at my house, and rode back and forth with me for three days — a great companion and fun to be with.  She took the photo, above.  Because she’s a youngster (under 45), she was able to take part in a research project about younger quilters, and luckily her interview room had a great view of the retail booths in the large exhibit hall.

Map of Road. Our quilts were all in the Ballroom to the right. The Pavilion (on the left) had a combination of grab-n-go food and vendors.

I found Ladybird first.  I’d received a congratulatory note the night before from a friend about winning, but as we like to say in our house, I may have gotten the sign, but the neighoring quilt got the ribbon and the money.  By the end of the week, she had the sign, too, but it was fun while it lasted.  I was in there Thursday at lunch to try and find my three quilts in the Road Showcase.

They had a new set-up this year at Road, and while there were a few lighting problems, overall I’m a big fan.  The quilting really pops, and we could lean in a bit closer to the quilts to see detail.  They had music going on (from a vendor selling harp and keyboard music) and while by the end I was wishing for some light jazz, that tunes weren’t too bad either.  The only complaint from everyone was how cold it was, but that’s not anything the Road people had control over (they were renovating parts of the Convention Center, so I chalk it up to that). Boy, you are getting ALL the details.  Sorry.
Cute signs showing the “streets” of this neighborhood, and that first time a contestant (that’s what we’re called) head into the room, they are sort of frantic about “Where’s my quilts?”  So I’m photographing this sign above, asking the White Glove Lady how to make sense of it, and I turn around to see this:

Both of my other quilts, on the same row!  (Big grin)  On the left is All Are Friends in Heaven, and two down from that is Plitvice.

Photo taken in front of Plitvice on Day One by a lovely white glove lady.

Photo taken on Day Two in front of All Are Friends in Heaven by Catherine Butterworth, who I’d known, but met in person at Road this year (small world!).

I went looking for Simone‘s quilt that Kelley quilted–it was just down the “street” from Ladybird, so easy to find.

When class was out, I went to see some of the vendor mall, as the crush dies down mid-afternoon.  There were lots of fun things to see and to buy.

And I had one more quilt to find: Azulejos, my newest quilt, all the way at the end of the Atrium.  Close-up, below left.  (More on that in an upcoming post.)

One of the fun things was the meet-ups of the Gridsters.  Clockwise, from above left:

• Jennifer (local) and Carol (Boston)
• Afton (New Mexico) at In-N-Out Burger (I made sure she tried our Southern California burger)
• Lower row: Lisa (Utah), Kelley (Palm Springs), Afton (NM), Simone (local);
  Back row: Me (local), Carol (Boston)–all of us at our traditionl Mexican place we dine at every year.
• I also saw Janice (in class with me), and we had a group picture of others, also at El Torito on Friday night:

Others at our dinner were Kim, Lori, Betty (Utah), then Carol’s daughter Hayley and her granddaughter, Maddy, who was very shy.  Laurel (next to Carol on the left) is also one of our regular “Roadies.”

Many of us then headed over to Jenny on the Road, an evening presentation with Jenny Doan.  We went two years ago, but this year we were handed some swag: a tote bag, a T-shirt, and some fun notions.  It was a nice evening, but after being on the go for a few days, I was ready to head home and crash. Afton kept me entertained, and kept me awake, and I was glad she’d come to Road.

I’ve posted numerous quilts that were in the Showcase on Instagram @occasionalpiecequilt and used the hashtags #road2ca2020 and #roadtocalifornia2020.

Next post: Road to California, Part II
Last post: Road to California, Part III

 

Fabric Collage at Road

Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593) was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of such objects as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books.  He painted representations of these objects on the canvas, arranging them in such a way that collection of objects formed a recognizable likeness of the portrait subject. (found online)

Above, the main hallway, with quilts from our Inland Empire Modern Quilt guild.

I had my own turn at playing Arcimboldo this past Monday at Road to California, in a collage class taught by Laura Heine.

We arrived at the hotel ballroom, purchased our kits, and started fusing fabric to Steam a Seam 2. But of course, only one iron worked.  Soon, Laura had rustled up irons from ballrooms that were vacant, so we were in business.

Then we started cutting and cutting and cutting.  After lunch she showed us how to start laying out our cut pieces using the pattern shape to help keep us organized.  It was a challenge.  It made me think of Arcimboldo, but I also remembered when I was a teenager in Lima, Peru and the only way we could decorate our walls (big posters hadn’t really been invented yet, for teenagers’ rooms) was to lay out cut out pieces from fashion magazines onto a piece of newspaper, and carefully cover the newsprint to create some sort of art, one piece at a time.  My sister, Christine, excelled at this, but soon all four of us were creating collages, guided by her teaching.

Here are two more collages that my husband and I glimpsed in a store window in the Ginza area of Tokyo a couple of years ago.

Here it is, from the side.

Slowly, the bears around the classroom started to take shape.

This is Arcimboldo’s portrait titled “Flora,” a lovely lady made all of flowers…just like I was trying to do with my bear in a classroom at Road to California.

His Four Seasons are some of his more well-known works; above is Winter.  I kept thinking of the version I’d seen in more recent memory: a giant sculpture in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.  Arcimboldo in 3D, rendered by Philip Hass in pigmented and painted fiberglass.

This is probably 20 feet tall.

And here is my bear.  Arcimboldo would be proud of me.  However, I still have the backgrounds to do.

Here’s the class sample.  It is evident I have a lot of work to do yet, but Heine’s artful versions of fabric collage are much more inticing that stacks of vegetables, or retail items.  It was a good but busy day; Heine was a lovely teacher who encourages her students onward.  

Monday marked the official opening of Road to California 2020.  I have two Jen Kingwell classes (Wednesday and Thursday) and Thursday is the day that the show opens, and I’ll be able to finally glimpse my three quilts hanging in the show this year!  Then Friday is the night I get to hear Jenny Doan in an evening lecture.  Lisa and three friends are coming in from Utah, Afton is arriving tomorrow from New Mexico, and I’ll get to meet up with lots of new and returning friends from around the area.

I love Road week!

Pacific International Quilt Festival • 2019

But first!

I’ll be speaking and giving a workshop locally, at the Citrus Belt Quilters Guild.  The lecture, titled Abecedary of Quilts, will be on Friday morning, October 25th.  The Workshop, which is a Two-for-One class (Home, Sweet Home and Merrion Square) will be Thursday, October 24th.  This is my last local presentation, and the last for this year; I’m excited to meet all the quilters at the Citrus Belt Guild!

Now on to PIQF: Pacific International Quilt Festival.  I’d been reading Gillian Travis’ blog for some time, enjoying her small quilts, generated from her photographs from her travels abroad.  When Susan took her class at Road, and recommended it, I wrote to Gillian, asking if she ever taught in the States (she’s British).  Why yes, she replied.  I’m teaching at PIQF.  I hopped on the computer and registered for her class.

One of the first quilts she showed us in class, was the one above, based on a visit to Burano, Italy.  I had similar photos, and was really excited to make this (the above is a composite of several photos).

Gillian provided patterns for us to work on smaller versions of Burano, or smaller version of a Yorkshire Village.  I chose Burano, and above you see my progression from tracing to placing to fusing down.  I got so far as to fuse it to my background (the blue in the upper left corner), and right now, it’s still folded up in my bag, still unpacked.  I’m looking forward to unfurling it and getting back to work on it.  We pinned our class’ versions up on the wall:

Some even got to making the white frames around the windows.

I really enjoyed this class, and was happy to move from there, to her lecture that night, where we enjoyed more visions of her work and her stories.  My friend Leisa and I also attended two more evening events: David Taylor’s lecture on Wednesday night, and the Fashion Show of Creative Garments on Friday night (photos are up on IG), which we both really enjoyed (especially the narration by Rachel Clark).

Leisa (L) and Tracy (R): we went around on Thursday and looked at the show together.  And how about that PINK ribbon, behind their heads.  Now there’s one I could covet.

Here’s the one that everyone wants: a blue ribbon.

And Tracy won this for her quilt Sew She Did, which she designed, pieced and quilted. Congratulations, Tracy!

A closeup of one of the blocks.

On Saturday morning, I went and said good-bye to my two quilts that were in the show.  Annularity (above) was in a nice placing, all by itself in good lighting.

Ladybird (above) also was placed well, with okay lighting.  I talked to one woman who gave me a full (and lovely) critique of what was going on in my quilt.  It was nice to talk shop with a complete stranger.  I also saw (and got a photo with) Roberta Horton, who really launched me from beginning quilter to serious quilter.  I’d taken classes with her at Houston, and I was a complete fangirl when meeting her.

As someone who has traveled to Houston, QuiltCon, Road to California, Palm Springs, and Virginia shows, the last two Mancuso Brothers shows, as well as to Long Beach, I have to say that some venues have real difficulty with lighting (all the Mancuso shows and the Long Beach).  The entire show felt like it was in a greenish cast, and not nearly bright enough.  My husband told me he could see it in the photos I posted on Instagram.  That first night, halfway through, everything all of a sudden went brighter, and I realized they hadn’t “warmed up” the lights.  So none of the photos I took at the beginning are any good.

One of my quilt heroines, Tanya Brown, whose work I have followed for many years, had Cranky Claus hanging in the show, along with Life Nouveau, but they were horribly placed.  She gets into Houston every time, so I was suprised where they’d hung her quilts.  It made me belive that maybe the organizers/hangers didn’t know who she was?  My friend Lisa has helped hang Road to California for several years, and I know the effort that show goes to in displaying each quilt to its best. Their lighting is very good, as well.

The other issue I had was that some quilts got hung that shouldn’t have been: poorly designed, poorly made, odd choice of materials or subject.  When speaking with one of the Mancusos, I asked how many quilts were submitted: “Roughly 450.”  How many quilts are accepted? “Those that meet our standards.” (evasive) I pressed on, asking, How many quilts are rejected? “2-5%.”  So then you hang nearly everything. He mumbled something about that standards business again, but I had my answer.  I did smile when I saw that their webpage listing their award winners didn’t use the photographs from their contest venue. (I saw most all of these.)

I decided I would focus on the fact that my quilts hung in the same show as Tanya Brown and Tracy Cox, rather than my quilts hung in the same show as the fleece-lamé-fur-shells beginner’s quilt, above.  I was there once, at the place where this quilter was, and for many years, every entry of mine into quilt shows was rejected. I appreciate it when the judges a) limit the number of entries, and b) jury the quilts into the show.  It appears that this year at PIQF there was very little jurying going on, which makes for an uneven show quality.

Last Whine: when are these older shows going to come into the modern age and put Instagram names on the placards?  QuiltCon has done this for years, and it makes it easy to tag people when posting. Okay, on to the fun.

One highlight was going to the show Friday late afternoon when everyone had cleared out.  We had the vendors to ourselves, and got to spend some time talking with booth vendors. We may have purchased the pre-cut kit to make Tannenbaum, but also vowed not to pressure ourselves to get it done for 2019.

We also participated in the Bernina giveaways, the vendor mall (where I saw some old favorite booths — hi Cecile!), and met and chatted with new quilters.  We enjoyed the evening lectures/fashion show and came away with new projects to sew, as well as good memories.  I need to go and unpack and sort and pre-wash my bright tangerines and indigo blues (I was on the hunt for these fabrics) and decide what to do with my length of kantha fabric, but I wanted to get a post up quickly, while it’s still fresh in my mind.

Happy Quilting!