Grovepark Inn - Birthday celebration

The Grovepark Inn in Asheville is a beautiful (and our favorite) place to go.

It's a 5 star hotel that has hosted many presidents and other well known people.

You can just go and walk around or eat in one of their restaurants...

We were celebrating a birthday so this was the choice.

This is looking out the back - the city of Asheville...

Quite breathtaking....

and the sunset. We always manage to have our wine just as the sun is going down.

myself and hubby.....who turned ______ yesterday!

and our son Mike who loves to come here too...It's always a wonderful time and even though it's not sewing related, I love for it to be in my blog book when I have it printed each year.

A Break from my Studio

Sometimes a break from your studio compells you even more to get back in it. My husband's cousin came to visit recently and never having been to NC...we gave her the royal tour...for 9 days!...We were all so tired but happy campers. Here are some highlights...

We do love to go to downtown Asheville...such a pretty and manageable city. This is the Grove Arcade...

and of course the famous iron sculpture of an iron. Every quilter that comes here wants to see the iron.

We love the Battery Park book exchange and champagne bar. We have some of our PTA fiber group meetings here...You can reserve a space like the one in the upper left, sit and read, have some sweet goodies and wine...it's a wonderful idea. You are surrounded by used and "in wonderful condition" books.

We also went to the Biltmore Estate....everyone needs to see this at least once.

Our luck, they now have an exhibit of the costumes from the movie - Titanic

They also feature a picture of the scene the costumes were used in.

Eating lunch in the stable is always fun....food is good and the ambiance - wonderful!

Very impressive...more than 250 rooms in this estate..only a small percentage is open to the public. The rooms chosen for the tour give you a good idea of life on the estate from the upstairs aristocrats to the downstairs help.

The hothouse is one of my favorite things...plants are lush...

And as luck would have it, we got to see the tulip festival going on...only lasts a short time so we picked the perfect time.

We also went up to Little Switzerland on the Blue Ridge parkway...a beautiful ride but avoid 226A...My husband knows how badly I react on these twisty snakelike roads...apparently I'm not alone. Not only do they have a sign and large snake (on right) but t-shirts you can buy saying you survived 226A...that about says it all.

At such high elevations on the parkway, we saw some beautiful sights with fog and ice crystals on trees...

I got some great pictures of trees for my file...lots of possibilities for quilts and silkscreens.

Another place we like to go to is the Grove Park Inn...a nice way to end the week.

We have been going to this place since our Marietta Georgia days...we happened on it on one of yearly leaf peepin trips to Asheville...we've been going ever since...a magical place.

You can see the city of Asheville from the back of the Inn....and it never gets old. It was a busy and fun week....now time to get back in the studio.

A Day with the Monkey

Meet my granddaughter....she's 3 1/2.

 She's adorable. She's very busy.... AND She loves my studio.

 She loves making messes with stuff. I have a big design wall and a while back, decided to make some felt shapes. She now has the biggest flannel board ever.

 She also likes to go hunting in my cabinets and drawers. She found these - a Halloween purchase. I thought they would be great for deconsructive screen printing. Audrey thought they would be perfect on the design wall...hmmmm and where to put the little daisy flowers in her hand...

right next to each house and tree......Silly Nana!!!!

And her favorite is the 2 drawers filled with "stuff" I use for deconstructive screen printing. What a fun mess to jump in and swirl around...and she can't hurt anything. As a matter of fact, sometimes getting it messed up makes it more interesting in the printing process.
So...did we have fun.....? YES....did we make a mess?... YES and do I miss that little monkey...?  A BIG YES....but I can't say I'm not pooped by the end of the week and ready to get back to some serious sewing!

My Mothers' Name was Alice

My mothers' name was Alice. Thinking of her reminds me of a wonderful movie from years ago; It's still on TV sometimes around Mother's Day - "I Remember Mama" - about a Swedish family who had migrated to the US and  living in New York in the 1930s. The story is simple, everyday life involving 3 children, parents, aunts and uncles, but the message it sends is heartwarming. The mother and main character played by Irene Dunne has incredible emotional strength and "moxie" - the kind of mom many haved wished for or have been lucky enough to have. I fit into the latter.  

 My mom was a single parent and I was an only child so we leaned on each other a lot. It was 24 years ago today that my mom passed away from breast cancer. She was 71 and left us too soon. She gave me with a lifetime of wonderful memories and I miss her still. I think of all the things I would say if I could have her back for just one day.

 She loved, loved to sew and started on her sewing journey at a very young age. It continued throughout her life. One of my fondest memories was sitting next to her, watching her use the machine and wishing I could be sitting there. The spark for my love of sewing had begun.

 Although there was nothing she couldn't make, to my knowledge this yoyo quilt is the only quilt she ever made.  She started it when she was 10, don't know when it was finished.

 I pulled it out the other day thinking I need to mend this and then keep it out. How lucky I am to have this.

 There is some deterioration of some of the yoyos and I know I can take the yellow yoyos from the border to replace the worn ones here and there. But that would mess up the border; I've never attempted anything like this and don't know if one adds a new vintage looking fabric or works with what is there. I guess it's a matter of personal choice but right now I don't have a clue.

 My mom gave me a love for so many things but my love of sewing has brought me so much joy and opportunities over my lifetime, for that I'm forever grateful.

My mothers' name was Alice - a beautiful lady both inside and out. Thank you for everything.

Where's Audrey Pt. 2

This project has been such fun and very challenging. Towards the end, I was burning the candle at both ends to get it done in time. My husband even took over the cooking to give me more sewing time.

Audrey loves to zip zippers so there are 2 in this book. She also loves princesses so how fitting to include Cinderella with Audrey as a princess in the upper corner.

I unfolded an envelope to use as a pattern for this next page. I sewed a giant hook and eye as a fastener and included some "Frozen" fabric cards along with Frozen gel markers inside.

This page was a last minute thought - to string a shoelace through the rings; it turned out to be her favorite thing to do. I sewed a white satin stitch as a path to follow. Olaf fabric of course!

Weaving is a difficult skill for a toddler so this will be for later on.

but I included a lot of jungle animals underneath the weaving which she loved.

I loved this fabric with built in backyard scene and some cute chipmunks appliqued on. A small cover snaps over the picture and Audrey is peaking from behind.

Velcro as used in closures for sneakers is undone to reveal

some cute little kitty-cats.

A seat belt is opened to reveal....

Sully from Monster's Inc. It's amazing how familiar I've become with all the Pixars and Disney movies since having a grandchild - love it.

A dog house has a door which is snapped closed, when opened, a bunch of puppies along with Audrey.

 More buttons....

 and zippers....

 and snaps and velcro.

 I finished the edge of each page with a satin stitch...

 I put the pages together by spraying with a quilt adhesive spray, wrong sides together and a machine buttonhole stitch along the edge.

 I struggled with ways to put the pages together to make a book. Metal eyelets would be too bulky sewing wouldn't work as it was too thick. I finally realized I have this wonderful "eyelet" stitch on my BERNINA which worked beautifully. There were 13 eyelets along each edge. Narrow ribbon was strung through the eyelets to "bind the book".

 My son came up with the idea for the title -  printing with a crayon in a childlike handwriting. It was then scanned and printed on fabric.

 I wanted something to be writing the title so I cound this cute pencil on free clip art and printed it on fabric.

 The back cover used the same fabric as the front.

 The arrows show where Audrey's picture is, handles make it easy to carry around...

and a velcro closure with a big red heart finishes it off - made with so much love for the most darling little girl I know. I love being a grandma!