Category Archives: Travel

Point Lobos, CA…

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Today was Steve’s last day in CA with me. We hiked Point Lobos and if you follow me on facebook, instagram, or tumblr you saw some videos that I posted. I also took stills!

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There were trees, and ocean, and otters, whales, and sea lions but it was hard to get blog-worthy photos of them. Instead, what you see above, is my shadow on what looks like large pebbles in sand. Instead, they are in conglomerate rock!

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That large rock that Steve is taking a picture of shows the layers in the rock… smooth igneous with the chunky conglomerate rock. Here’s a closer look:

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It’s like a layer cake!

We shopped in Carmel by the sea… I found clothes. Too expensive but like nothing I would find at home. If I am coming to teach for you any time in the next couple of years you will see what I bought :-).

I stopped to take a photo (I asked first) of this fun collage. That’s Tina Turner, is it not?

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And, farther down the street, I took a photo of a door that turned into a subtle selfie!

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At this point, vacation is just about over. I take Steve to the airport in the morning and my class begins in the afternoon. I’m looking forward to greeting the women I will be spending the next week with!

From the Monterrey Bay Aquarium…

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We visited the MBA this morning and it was lovely. Such a great place, especially for kids. Steve, in particular, enjoyed it. My favs were the jellyfish…

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We also went to Big Sur and had lunch at Nepenthe. Kaffe Fassett grew up there and he wrote about it in his memoir. If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s a good story!

On the drive we stopped and took photos but they aren’t spectacular. I did get a photo of another nice wire fence… Good lines for quilting.

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I shopped at Back Porch Quilts, we walked around a lot, and now we are in for the night. We are going to watch the last 2 episodes of True Detective! Can’t wait to see who did it…

 

 

Año Nuevo…

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Steve has seen elephant seals before, but I had not. We drove to Año Nuevo State Park today to visit these massive beasties! It was warm-ish and sunny, a lovely day for a walk.

This is the end of the mating season and most of the adults have already left town, but the weaners (elephant seals under 1 year old) are laying around on the beach.

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Stave had reserved a spot on a docent-led tour. We were with a group of 4th graders and some other adults.I really liked the blue shirts that the kids were wearing, especially when I could see them near the blue sky…

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There are dunes—and they move! Nicole, our leader, told us that this sign got buried in about two months’ time…

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Another couple on the tour took our picture, and we took theirs. You can tell that neither Steve nor I were fancied up for our 36th wedding anniversary. Luckily this is how we like to celebrate :-).

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The visitors center, a white building, bathed in blue reflected color, was lovely on the walk back.

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The best picture of me today, might be this one. It’s sort of a selfie and I took it with a friend in mind. If you are from Texas, it might remind you of Big Tex :-).

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We did stop and take pictures of each other in the yellow flowers. I photoshopped us into the same shot. Fun!

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What’s behind Door #2?

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I think there is a happy family behind Door #2! I know the new block looks way too big to fit with Door #1, but it gets trimmed to size after the applique is complete. 

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I've made some progress since I last showed you the doors. The panels in the yellow doors are reverse appliqued and the 'stained glass' window over the door is stitched off the block. I needed to get the whole door and trim appliqued so that I could set the rest of the block together. I've designed these blocks so that they can be set together in one quilt or stand alone as individual quilts.

Here's a tip for stitching something like the window. Cut the underneath fabric bigger than it needs to be (in this case it's the floral print). Trace around the template onto the underneath fabric. Trace and cut out the smaller pieces. Finger-press them and sew them to the fabric like this…

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Once the 'spokes' are sewn to the underneath fabric you can treat this as one piece and sew it in place. 

As I type this I'm taking a break from cutting leaves for the plants that go next to the door. I'm going out of town tomorrow to visit the Mississippi Valley Quilt Guild in Iowa and I really want to have some stitching to take with me. So now I'm going to get back to it!

FYI – You can click here to read about my class for Adventures In Italy where I will be teaching from the door patterns. My class is called Open A Door To Adventure.