The Secret is out!!!

We've been keeping a secret.  It's been hard.  Liz and I feel as if we've won an Oscar.  In fact, becoming a Better Homes and Gardens Quilt Sampler Featured Shop IS like winning an Oscar, a Grammy or a Pulitzer Prize....in the Quilting World it means you are among the best of the best.  The news was announced at Quilt Market a few weeks back in Kansas City. 

This is the logo we can now display on our website, in our store and on our paperwork.

Here's a picture of some of the Spring Issue, we'll be featured in the Fall Issue (available in September).....I wonder if our quilt will make the cover?  We've known our secret for a long time and were allowed to tell our spouses and our staff.  We got the call from Jennifer Keltner of Better Homes and Gardens letting us know that Scottie Dog Quilts had been selected from over 3000 stores as a Top Ten Shop for Quilt Sampler Magazine. They sent out an awesome team to photograph our shop and staff.  Can't wait to see the photos they took.  Along with the article about our store, they will publish a pattern for an original quilt Liz designed.  The "working title" of the quilt is String Pieced Stars but I am pretty sure they'll change it.  Here we are "visiting" our quilt in Kansas City....we won't get it back until September. At Quilt Market they had a presentation of the 2012 shops and their quilts.  We received a nice certificate to hang at the store and a photo of our staff.

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Here's a close-up.  Angela Davy of All Washed Up quilted it beautifully for us.

 You can be certain that we will have copies of the magazine available when it hits the stands in September.  Stay tuned as we will be pre-selling the magazine in a special zippered vinyl project bag and the special ruler that helps make sewing our quilt a snap. We'll also have kits available to make our quilt in 1930 reproduction fabrics and two different batik versions.

Another surprise at Market was to find us featured in FabShop News, a trade journal for Quilt Shop Owners.  Liz and I are pretty much on top of the world right now!  We are quite proud of the recognition of all the hard work we've done to make our store, Redwood Sewing Center/Scottie Dog Quilts a great place to shop! 

It only took me 60 years!

I was born in Redlands, CA sixty years ago.  My parents were Midwesterners by birth but came to California after World War II to escape the cold winters and to make new lives in the growing Southern California post-war boom economy.  It has taken me 60 years, but last week I visited Kansas and crossed off the last state on my list.  Fifty States; a lifetime of experiences and memories.  I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane and give you a little bit of my impressions of each state.  Many of my memories go back to the summer of 1967 and a trip I took (Y-Tour USA) with 70 or so other high school students around the US and parts of Canada.  I was 15 and spent 6 weeks on a tour bus....and loved it!

 Alabama

I remember only two things from my visit to Alabama.  

One: we visited the White House of the Confederacy.  United States History has always been a passion of mine and I love to look at historical homes and buildings.

Two:   We met George Wallace.  I didn't like him one bit...he was a racist and a staunch segregationist (a view he later recanted).  I couldn't abide by either view.  I remember not wanting to shake his hand.  His Governorship terms of Alabama were up so they just elected his wife governor.

 The other thing that has stayed in my memory is that everyone still called him "Governor Wallace."  That didn't set well with me and I remember asking about it later and that is when I learned that certain titles remain with elected officials: Governor, President, Vice President.  Those titles are for life.

 Alaska

I didn't make it to Alaska until 2004.  I went with two of my dearest friends, Bev & Lynn.  We went on a Quilting Cruise.  It was wonderful! The scenery was breath-taking, the company was spectacular.  I remember when we were in Sitka we watched the Russian Dancers.  I was so excited because my daughter Beka and family were living in Ukraine at the time and I especially loved the Ukrainian dances.   In 2009 our store began sponsoring Quilting Cruises and our first cruise was to Alaska.   I got to take my husband and loved to show him the beauty of Alaska....which became a state on my 7th birthday, January 3, 1959.

 The glaciers were awesome!

 In Skagway I will always remember our trip on the White Pass & Yukon railroad, the quilt shops and my son-in-law Steve who plucked several spawning salmon from the river with his bare hands!  I'm looking forward to my third Alaskan Cruise this summer, again with Scottie Dog Quilt Cruises.

 Arkansas

 I remember eating at a "Stuckies" in Arkansas, the Civil War sites and log cabins.

Arizona

 On the Y-Tour we spent our first night at Northern Arizona University, sleeping in the  gym in sleeping bags.  Only the men's restroom had showers in it so the girls had an allotted hour to use it.  The counselors told us about the "foot washes" (because it was a gym, we needed to wash our feet in them to ward off athlete's foot.  I was pretty naive and had never seen a floor urinal before!!!! Of course I fell for it as well as other indignities!

Then there was the Grand Canyon.  What can you say?  It's Grand!  Even at 15 I was so impressed.  Beautiful, immense, I knew it could put there only by God's hand.

 California

 I was born in Southern California and lived my first twenty years there.

 Here I am shortly after moving into our Los Angeles house.  I'm four and my brother, Pat, is three.  When I was a little girl, we wore dresses most of the time.  I did own a few "pedal pushers" (capri) and shorts but we wore mostly dresses or sunsuits.  My childhood was idylic, very much "Father Knows Best" and "Leave it To Beaver."

At twenty, I married Mr. Scottie Dog and moved over 800 miles away to the Northern California Coast.  To Eureka, home to the Carson Mansion.

 Lots of Victorian homes here...I am a huge lover of interesting architecture.  And redwoods, you can't forget the redwoods!

 We live in the middle of the Redwood Forests.  I know we take them for granted, but it is truly a beautiful place to live.  Green all year long.  Never gets hot, never gets really cold either.  For snow or summer heat we just drive an hour over the mountains!

I have many memories of California: Disneyland, Mt. Shasta, Huntington Beach, Solvang, Yosemite,  all my wonderful family (so many of them gone on now).  Here's a shot of the family home in Redlands.

 Back: me, daughter Liz holding Sydney, daughter Beka holding Jakob, my Dad, nephew Kevin.
Front: Brother Pat & his wife Debbie and Willa Mae, my Dad's second wife (we love her so!).

 Next post I'll give my impression of five more states.  Indulge me, OK?

Mother's Day 2012

Mother's Day is here again.  I was going to re-post last year's blog but couldn't figure out how to do it.  Click here to read it again.

I got a call from Willie, my stepmom.  She was tickled to get the flowers we sent her.  A big bowl of assorted roses.  She lives in an assisted living retirement center and chooses to eat dinner in the main dining room.  She said she couldn't wait until dinner so she could bring her bowl of beautiful roses and announce that her STEP-daughter and step-grands sent her flowers.  One of the ladies she usually sits with is always complaining about her step-children.....I can just see the twinkle in Willie's eye!

Happy Mother's Day to you all!  I'll be spending it with daughter Liz and her family. 

Scottie Dog Quilts Spring Mystery Quilting Retreat

 Retreat time! We recently held a Scottie Dog Quilts Mystery Quilting Retreat at the Historic Eureka Inn.  This hotel has been hosting dignitaries, movie stars, politicians and royalty since it opened in 1923 as the premiere Inn in Redwood Country.

As usual, we had lots of fun....we ate too much food (a chocolate buffet on Saturday night!), laughed, chatted, sewed and sewed and sewed.  One of the reasons I love retreats is meeting new people (some I have had the pleasure of knowing through the internet) and seeing the "regulars" who seem to come to all of our retreats.  We've been holding retreats here on California's Northern Coast for at least 12 years.  It's fun to see how far people travel to quilt with us.  We've had quilters from all over the US.

 Here's Jackie working on her purples.

 

Lani has time for a smile.

 

 Christine is embellishing a cute panel of doll clothes.

And Linda is all set with her Singer Featherweight. 

The Inn provided a large, well lit sewing area abounding with the chatter of happy quilters.....as well a quiet spot in the lobby...more than one quilter was seen taking a quiet moment on the great leather sofas in the lobby.  I know Sydney and I settled down on one great sofa and read a story together.

The rooms are nice, my bed was so comfortable, imagine my surprise to later find out it was a Murphy Bed as the room I had is often used by business people and if you put the bed up, it becomes a desk!  

Here's to hoping that perhaps you can join us in the Fall for our next Mystery Quilting Retreat!

Poetry

 As you must know I turned 60 in January.  What a shock to change the decade with the changing of the year!  In any event, I celebrated over a 6 week period and  it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.  I like the discounts I am now afforded and I don't really look any differently than I did in my 50's (just a few months ago!).

My daughters threw me a marvelous surprise party and for the first time in many years I had many gifts to open. I want to tell you about one of them today.  I have always loved poetry.  I don't know a lot about poetry, but I love the cadence, the metaphoric language, the imagery of poetry.  I especially love to read poetry out loud.  My friend Jen gave me this lovely book by Judith Viorst, Suddenly Sixty and Other Shocks of Later Life.

I'm going to copy here one of my favorite poems from the book and I am hoping you will read it out loud....it speaks to my soul and makes me cry every single time I read it.

The Blissful Couple

They laugh together.

Read Together.

Dance together.

Paint together.

Listen to music together.

Walk, holding hands, 

Together.

They love exchanging

Warm

Wet

Mushy

Kisses.

He rushes to greet her, 

His arms outstretched,

Joyfully calling her name, 

When he sees her arrive.

Who, you are wondering,

Is this blissful couple?

She is his grandma.

He is almost five.

Thankyou Judith Viorst for such a lovely poem.  It speaks to my soul.

A little bit of sewing

Lots of sewing has been going on at Redwood Sewing Center.  I've taught a few classes and of course every Tuesday morning I host a Sit & Sew from 10-2 pm.  We have lots of fun and everyone works on different projects.  

For the past two months I've been teaching three classes of The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt.  Each month we get together and make 10 or 11 of the blocks in the book.  All blocks are 6" square and there are 111 blocks in the book.  I'm so proud of my gals.  Here are many of the first month's blocks from one class.

 

 I love the variety of fabrics everyone is using!

 One night when our small quilt group of ladies was getting together to sew Sydney came along.  She wanted to sew too so her mom set her up on the Singer Featherweight and had her sew.

 

Sydney's first 9-Patch! Perfect 1/4" seams!

  What do you think of Sydney's block.  Grandma thought it was perfect!