International Visitors

We spend a lot of time while we tour staying in homes of quilters.  Some of these people become friends, and that is what happened with the five women who have just visited us.

Mary and Dorothy are from Salem, OR. Jerrie Lou is Mary’s sister in Kelowna. Janet is Jerrie Lou’s sister-in-law from Des Moines, WA. Judy is from Blairgowrie, VIC, Australia. We have stayed with all of them over the years, and they decided to come and visit us for a change!

It was wonderful to spend three days with so many good friends. I was tour guide, showing them the “sights” in Victoria, including the Butchart Gardens!

Dorothy, Jerrie Lou and Mary at the Sunken Garden

I have never seen the Gardens so beautiful - July is the BEST time to see them.  I was taking lots of notes on things I want to plant in my garden sometime. 

The next day we all met at the Satin Moon Quilt Shop, my home shop, for some serious browsing.  They have so many great fabrics and patterns by local designers.  As we were paying for our purchases, Denise Gunn offered to show us how she makes bias binding.  We were not going to turn down a free demo!

I have avoided bias binding partly because of the hand cutting along lines at the end.  Denise showed us how to make it easily with her rotary cutter. First, cut a square of fabric about 20″.  Cut it in half diagonally, using the 45 degree line on your ruler. Sew those two pieces together so they make a parallelogram. Press the seam open.  Then - and here’s the trick - for a 2″ width of binding, cut the fabric strips 2″ apart, leaving an UNCUT 1/2″ on either end of the strip, so the fabric does not come apart.

Cutting part way through the fabric

Then fold the fabric over so the first strip lies adjacent to the second one down. Pin together. You will be sewing a straight grain seam, so you don’t have to worry about pulling it out of shape.

 When it is sewn, finger press the seam open. Cut the strips straight through the seam from one slash to the next. Ta Daaaa!

And now it's bias binding!

I’m going to try this on my next quilt.  Thanks, Denise!

We left the Satin Moon and walked to the Inner Harbour.  Our adventure of the afternoon was to take a one hour harbour tour in a Harbour Ferry.  These are very cute little oval-shaped boats that fit about 12 people. They ply the waters of Victoria Inner Harbour daily during the summer. On Sunday mornings, they even do a harbour ferry synchronized dance to music.  But we didn’t see that this time. Here we are just before we left on our trip.

Dorothy, Judy, Mary, Jerrie Lou and Jan on the Ferry.

We had a fun and informative skipper on the boat, who told us about the local First Nations tribe, the million dollar houseboats, the world famous fish & chips place at Fisherman’s Wharf, Marilyn Bell’s swim of the Strait of Juan de Fuca over to Port Angeles WA, and the real estate values of the condos we saw. We passed by a big luxury boat that was once owned by Winston Churchill, and where Jacqueline Kennedy first met Aristotle Onassis.  Very fun and informative.

The next day we caught the 8:35 ferry to Pender Island. My quilting group, the Spool Board quilters, were holding our first retreat at the cottage of Susan Purney-Mark (of Patchworks Studio fame).  We brought some handwork with us, but there wasn’t a lot of time for it. Pender Island has lots of artists living and working there, and Susan had planned for us to visit one of them:  a glass bead maker. Michelle Wilman of Blissmania wasn’t expecting 11 women to show up at her tiny shop, but she was able to show us all at the same time how she makes her exquisite beads.  It looked easy, but she has many years of experience.

We stopped off at her neighbour’s studio (2 painters), then headed back for a barbecue before catching the evening ferry.  It was a full day, and we were all exhausted by the end.

My International Visitors left the next day.  They are on their way up to Alaska eventually, in search of the Duck Neck Quilt at the museum in Skagway.  They will see it in person - far preferable to photos, which can’t catch the iridescence of the mallard feathers. I wish I could go with them!!!

Gardening

Hi from Victoria! We’ve been home for a couple of weeks, and have been very busy with gardening, quilting, catching up on business, and entertaining.  I’ve updated my website at http://www.singingquilter.com, learning how to write some HTML code at the same time — wow, what a steep learning curve! Let me know how you like the new look, or if there are any glitches I should know about.

My garden is coming along beautifully.  Last winter, we decided to get rid of almost all the grass and plant with drought-resistant shrubs and flowers. We are on tour so much, grass became too much of a challenge to take care of.  So we hired a friend to design a new look for our front and back yards.  She suggested we lay down cardboard and arranged for a huge pile of leaf mulch to be delivered.  Then John and I moved the leaves around so that we got about one foot of leaves over all the damp cardboard. 

The pile of leaves.

Cardboard and Leaves

Then, we waited.  I planted some things before we left on tour, and while we were gone, our garden designer filled in some more.  When we returned from our two months of touring, this is what we found: a GARDEN!!!

Things are starting to grow!

Okay, maybe it doesn’t look too exciting yet - but it will!  Promise! I’ll show you how it looks NEXT year!

Security Blankets

When we left Dubuque Iowa, we headed back to Illinois for our last two US performances on this tour. Kenny IL is a tiny town just south of Bloomington, and our hosts there were the Salt Creek Patchmakers.  I’m sure most of the gals there were wondering who this “singing quilter” was, but they were very generous in their appreciation at the end of the show - they made us feel right at home with a standing ovation!  And chocolate. We always love chocolate!

From Kenny, we drove a half an hour to our next show.  It was the Project Linus annual coordinators’ meeting in Bloomington.

If you haven’t heard about Project Linus, where have you been? For the last 13 years, throughout the US, they have been providing blankets to children.  It was started in Denver by Karen Loucks-Rinedollar, giving blankets to children with cancer.  Since then, the organization has expanded hugely, and they have given away over 2.5 MILLION blankets.  The coverings may be quilted or knitted or crocheted, it doesn’t matter.  What matters is the love stitched into each and every one.

Karen has been on many national television shows, including Oprah, and after that appearance, the people who control images from Charles Shultz’s Peanuts cartoon contacted her and gave her permission to use the real Linus for the project.  There were lots of Linuses at the conference, including the fellow at the right!

The coordinators certainly have a wonderful time at these conferences, and we were warmly received. In fact, they gave us three standing ovations - two of which were in the middle of the show!  If you would like to help out with this most worthwhile project, you can contact them through their website: http://www.projectlinus.org.

Now, we’re on our way home, via one more show in Drumheller Alberta. This was our old stomping grounds when we lived in Calgary, and we’re looking forward to getting back to Alberta. I’ll also be buying a new guitar!!! My poor guitar has been bashed about one too many times by the airlines, and so I’ve decided to buy a new one that I’m told is indestructible — made of carbon fibre (hey it’ll still counts as fibre, right? Just not cotton or wood fibre….)  Watch for the new guitar next time we do a show!

We’ll be home a couple of days after that - to take care of the garden, the mail that has piled up, and prepare for a busy summer of visitors!

Thanks for reading - until next time!
cathy and john

Rolling on the (Mississippi) River

Tonight we are in Bloomington Illinois. We have had a lovely few days getting here. We spent two nights in Red Wing Minnesota, which is famous for two things: Red Wing Shoes and Red Wing Pottery. We didn’t get to the Shoe factory, but I did visit the Pottery museum, which displayed a huge number of old crocks, jugs, and dishes made from the excellent clay found on the shores of the Mississippi River in Red Wing. This pottery is a favourite among collectors, and I guess I was in the mecca for all things Red Wing.

On Sunday we walked downtown, where we discovered a big vintage car show. The main streets were blocked off to traffic and everyone was there. I get the sense that vintage car owners are very similar to quilters (fabric collectors). They get out the spit and polish for these events, and they do have a great sense of humour about what they love, just like quilters. Here’s an example:

We’ve followed the Mississippi River for a few days. We’ve been hearing so much on the news about the floods in Iowa because of all the storms that have lingered over Iowa and Wisconsin. We’ve passed many fields where the newly planted corn has been either drowned or washed away. We’ve heard that 16% of Iowa’s tillable land is under water right now!  The Mississippi in northern Iowa is high and there are lots of trees submerged.  It will only get worse as we move south. There are pictures on the news of downtown Cedar Rapids under water on the Cedar River.  It’s really shocking to see the University in Iowa City under so much water, too.  The Mississippi is supposed to be cresting in Rockwood tonight, in the southern part of Illinois, south of where the Iowa River joins it.  But the water levels will only slowly subside to below record flood levels.  We noticed that the normal barge traffic is nonexistent on the river. We are told this is because the significant danger in the forceful currents.  But we did see a small indication that the river is still operational in Bellevue Iowa.

Last night we stopped in Dubuque Iowa for a return visit to the Cable Car Quilter’s Guild there.  It was great to see many familiar faces from our last visit in 2005. We stayed with new friends, Ann and Gary Mauritzsen, while we were there.  John was thrilled to find another kindred soul - an engineer and a quilter’s husband!  They bonded with their laptop computers while comparing notes on Google Earth. 

Before we left Dubuque, we looked around downtown. There is a wonderful museum focussing on the Mississippi River there. It features a description of the flora and fauna of the River, its history and its nature.  People tend to wax poetic about the Mississippi: they write songs about it, personify it, revere it, even want their ashes strewn upon it!  Its watershed drains most of the lower 48 states of the USA. They can be forgiven for believing their history is contained within its banks.  It is one of the great rivers of the world. And in times like the 500 year flood that is currently occurring, we are reminded that nature always bats last, no matter how energetically humans attempt to control it.

We have another day off tomorrow, when we’ll catch up with our business and have a rest before our last two gigs in the US on this trip. We’re excited about singing at the Project Linus Annual Coordinator conference here in Bloomington on Friday night. Before that, though we’ll be in Kenney IL at the Salt Creek Patchmakers guild Thursday night.

More later!!

Visit to Paul Bunyan’s Land

 We spent a delightful three nights in Keil Wisconsin with our new friends Pat and Vic, and got the chance to explore the area a bit.  The weather was good for us, but the rains had been significant up to a day before we arrived. Sheboygan Falls was roaring when we got there.

We’re hearing about many towns in the Midwest under water, and about storms continuing in Iowa.  We crossed through the storm front on our way west from the Sheboygan area - torrential rain like the tropics, and fierce thunderstorms.  I hope the weather settles down soon, or at least moves to areas in greater need of water, like California. 

 

Our travels continued to Minnesota, where we sang at the Pinetree Patchworkers Quilt show in Brainerd. This is in the heart of Paul Bunyan country, where he and his trusty sidekick Babe, The Blue Ox, made their mark on the land. Here I am with them, just chumming around!

Of course, he’s just taking a short rest between felling the Great Trees, according to the legends in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan.  I’m happy to find out that there is some similarity between the exploits of  Paul Bunyan and Canada’s own “Saginaw Joe” and “Big Joe Mufferaw”. These big men should stick together!

 

 

The Pinetree Patchworkers Quilt Show is held biennially in Brainerd High School. The hall was filled with lovely quilts and very friendly helpers. We were scheduled to present an evening show in the auditorium. It was beautifully decorated with vintage quilts and a couple of stunning Trip Around the World quilts.  Both the show and our part of the celebrations were, amazingly, free admission!  The gals at Cherrywood Fabrics invited us to come to sing, and they made sure that anyone who wanted to come, could.  We had very close to a full house!

Here I am with Linda, Dar and Karla after the show.  Check out those luscious fabrics in the quilt behind us - they are mostly made by Cherrywood, and look like suede, but really are cotton.

We have a couple of days off before our next show in Dubuque Iowa. We intend to travel part of the way along the Mississippi River, and follow some roads less travelled. The weather is clear, with a bit of wind but warm temperatures. I hope we’ve seen the last of the rain!

Driving to Sheboygan

 

 

 From Lake Geneva today (Monday), we wound our way in a northeasterly direction through the back roads of rural Wisconsin, following the advice of our host Joanne Gasperik.

 

 

 

 

 

Along the way, we saw lots of evidence of the previous days of rain, some more humourous than others!   This is a picture of a swimming pool - swimming! 

We splashed through water on the road in Allenton, and north of there, a sideroad was completely blocked off due to about three feet of flowing water covering the road.  Most of the streams we crossed (on dry roads!) were just roaring, with the homes on some frontage properties having their basements pumped out!

 

 

 

We stopped for lunch at the National Shrine, Holy Hill,   and visited the interior of this magnificent church.  St Mary on the Hill occupies the top of one of the highest glacial moraines west of Milwaukee, and from the site we could just make out the skyscrapers of the downtown.

Then on to Sheboygan, where Cathy teaches Hexagons tomorrow, and we present our program of songs, stories and quilts to the County Quilt Guild on Wednesday.

Stay tuned!

Almost Flat in Fennimore

The Sewing and Quilting Expo at the SWTC in Fennimore has ended!!  A really good two days.  Cathy’s Hexagon workshop went off without a hitch on Friday morning, and our concert to wind up the evening banquet was very well received.  Yesterday, three more classes: Freezer paper applique in the morning, and raw-edge machine applique and paper piecing made easy in the afternoon.  There was a very tired puppy at the end of the day!! 

The afternoon classes, however, were interrupted by a tornado!!  The weather has been somewhat raucous, and the midwest thunderstorm wall passed through Fennimore in the afternoon.  A funnel cloud was sighted just north of the town, and all the folks at the Expo had to relocate (temporarily) to the below-ground tunnels linking the various buildings on the campus.  Fortunately, the errant wind wandered off northwards without damage, and the classes resumed!!

Met Lois Jarvis here, and it looks like there’s enough material from her 9/11 quilt to inspire another song!!  Roberta Walker and her staff at SWTC made the hosting of the event look easy, and the attendees appeared to be happy with the results as they departed for home - under the threat of tornado watches!!

However, this morning (Sunday), the overnight and continuing rain has resulted in a flash flood watch for most of southern Wisconsin!  So we’ll be keeping our eye out for water on the road on our way over to Lake Geneva.  Hopefully our diesel Jetta station wagon will be able to ford the wet patches!!  8-))

In the Midwest

Having had lunch with Ami Simms on Tuesday in beautiful Flint MI, we have been encouraged to start a blog for the Singing Quilter - so here it is!!

Ami and Debbie accompanied us to BadaWest Lebanese restaurant and then we headed on west.

We took this picture with Ami, to show off her car - was she the first quilter in Michigan to think of putting “quilt” on her license plate?

 

After a program for the quilters in Lake Villa IL on Wednesday, we carried on into the heart of the midwest, to the Sewing Expo at Southwest Wisconsin Technical College in Fennimore.  Here Cathy is teaching 4 classes, and we are presenting our program to the attendees tonight.  Hope the weather doesn’t get too raucous - we’ve had a couple of doozy thunderstorms over the last couple of days!  We’re here until Sunday when we will be visiting friends in Lake Geneva, and then on to Sheboygan WI for some more teaching and a concert.