Quilting Bee circa 2008

After designing quilts on paper for two months, it was finally time to put scissors to fabric!






With the Mountain Aerie home available for the long Thanksgiving weekend, I packed up my machine and fabrics and set up shop on that 8-ft dining table overlooking a redwood forest.



I put out the call to a few friends and they showed up to pour wine, serve tea, use the sewing machine, and entertain with hilarious stories and girltalk. It was a Quilting Bee, circa 2008.

Surprise of the weekend: there is glee in sewing a smile on the face of a cartoon cat and watching an expression emerge...

Farmer's Market

This is where it started. We completed this kitchen remodel using Amazon Verde Fire granite, custom cabinetry inspired by both antique red lacquer tansu and natural cherry lumber from the Leopold Preserve in Wisconsin, a custom light fixture, two family chopping blocks, and those many personal tweakings that make a cook's kitchen highly personal and just right.

And then came the question, "What goes on THAT wall?" I was reminded of an Oakland Art Museum exhibition commissioned in 1998, which paired women chefs and quilt artists, producing 50 varied, extraordinary art quilts. We looked at the museum's monograph of the show, selected our favorites, and were about to contact the artists, when I admitted my secret longing.....I wanted to make it. After all, I knew the homeowner was the Beet Queen, I knew that she got teary at the beautiful bounty of tomatoes at the Palo Alto farmer's market, I knew that she had been making Thanksgiving dinners since she was eleven. And I knew that her husband plumbed and wired that kitchen to code, that he ordered up the solar panels and music system speakers, and finally, that he grilled those beautiful vegetables outside. Yes, I had to make this quilt! They said, "We'd LOVE that, but didn't want to ask...."

And so, this wall hanging is a fantasy, a crazy salad of dancing vegetables, all of dupioni silks, beads, and embellishments. It is a combination of the homeowner's silk fabrics from her India travels, deer antler buttons she carved as a teenager in Minnesota, and pleated silk fabrics from my collection that picked up the kitchen color scheme of a redwood forest.

Oh! And this all took place before I was a pet owner. The world looks different now, and this is one quilt that didn't require rolling with the lint remover before delivery.....

Moon Town Schmatts

Half Moon Bay is home of the Moon Town Schmatts, a bassoon trio, and not your ordinary bassoon trio: favorite hits of the the 40s, 50s and 60s, rendered for bassoon. Contra-bassoonist Mia Gates and I were featured on an HGTV segment Crayons and Cats, which showed her colorful home packed with design ideas in, yes, crayon colors and cat paw motif. This prompted the red bassoon to serve as rod for her wall hanging. Each of the nine cats has its special personality and name, surrounded by the text "Every life should have nine cats." Shown here at Bamboo Hair Salon and later to be displayed in Mia's home against some crayon wall color, yet to be determined. Electric blue?? Cheddar cheese yellow?

Designing and Stitching Art Quilts

When Julie Powell decided to blog about cooking, she cooked to blog and blogged to cook. Which came first?

I have quilted without a blog, but never without a cat. In fact, I don't know how to make a quilt without a cat pawing at the threads, beads, tape measures and other paraphernalia spread out as I work. I watch my thimble get batted across the table till it tumbles on the floor and rolls away. Tom's favorite pastime is toppling things. And reclining on the ironing board to survey the world.

Feel free to add a thread.....