Getting Down and Dirty

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:38:55 +0200

Thank goodness for sunshine! I think someone was watching out for my state of mind and delivered the first day of Spring when I most needed it.
Yesterday I spent the whole day fighting with my computer. I had recently bought Microsoft’s most recent version of Office for the Mac and was all excited to draw up the diagram for the Toybox children’s quilt that so many of you asked about at the Quilter’s Anonymous Show.
Well - I don’t think I ‘m alone when I say I wish they wouldn’t mess with a good thing! Last week I spent quite a bit of time drawing the quilt diagram and writing up the construction notes. Saved it, moved on to something else and came back to put the finishing touches on it yesterday.
Lo and behold, the colors of the quilt diagram and all changed - willy nilly, no rhyme or reason. What used to be red was now lavender, what was blue (to resemble the marble fabric) was now white with little blue polka dots.
Needless to say, I was ready to throw things and my husband looked for places to hide. This morning I remembered that I hadn’t junked my old version of Word and am almost back on track.
However, in the meantime I woke up to sunshine this morning . . . lovely! We’ve been needing it. It snowed here in Belgium too, the week after Easter. Yes, I know Easter was early but snow that late? Yuck. Except it looked so pretty.
So after a bit of housework, another hour of Toybox and reading my emails - I headed outside to weed for the first time this year. It was lovely and one thing led to another when I thought it was a good time to clear off my potting bench and found 100 daffodil bulbs and quiet a few tulip bulbs that never got planted. Yikes. They were actually sprouting and one was nearly ready to bloom.
What the heck - into the ground and various pots they went. It will be fun to see how many materialize and if we still have daffodils in June . . .
Now, it’s back to that computer . . . for a good fight until the Toybox pattern is complete

. . . wish me luck

Jovita

Where have I been?

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:21:43 +0100

So, once again, it’s been ages since I was able to update the blog. I did keep something of a journal though - but was on the road constantly for about six weeks. Property hunting, moving, packing, opening and trying to stay sane - you can read all about it in the following journal entries.

4th February
2008 - Monday
Arrived in Seattle last night, met with Patti today. She’s taking the month off to prepare for her daughter’s wedding so today we concentrated on the hand-over. Questions, answers and to-dos. Began the hunt for the new office space. Need to get over this jet-lag.

11th February
2008 - Monday
Spent the rest of last week down with the flu. Not what I needed. Am somewhat reconciled this morning as I’ve found the location of the showroom! I’m very excited and feel like it ticks every box on the list. Enough space for a small showroom and office space for Patti to work. Great light!
15th February
2008 - Friday
Axel arrived today, flying directly into Portland for the wedding. I know it’s only been a couple of weeks but it sure is nice to be on the same side of the world. Sometimes I wonder how we ever managed all this to’ing and fro’ing.
17th February
2008 - Sunday
Jessica’s wedding today. It was truly beautiful. The ceremony was lovely and the reception happy. Axel and I kept the kitchen going, taking care of the buffet and trying to keep hungry guests happy - they were truly a hungry crowd. Must be those starving medical students. We’re both exhausted and I can hardly feel my feet, but we drove back to Bellevue tonight. Trade the rental car tomorrow for a van and start moving into the showroom.
18th February
2008 - Monday
Emptied the “shop” storage unit. The first of four storage units that we need to sort, organize, throw out and pack in order to ship all of our personal belongings to Belgium. Began moving everything into the new office today. And the sign went up! Yippee, an official “P&P lives here” sign! It feels real.

22nd February
2008 - Friday
Amazing! The first day of the Open House for our new showroom is behind us. Everyone’s reaction was wonderful and their comments made it all worthwhile - "wow - it's really bright in here", "i love the lighting", "it has the same great feel that peacock and periwinkle always had in that little house", "it feels so homey", "there are some great fabrics in the clearance corner", "hey - did you see that??", "it’s nice to have you back"

23rd February
2008 - Saturday
It’s official - PEACOCK & periwinkle has re-launched! It’s been a bumpy few years but it’s clear that opening a showroom was the right idea. Even if it’s only open one Saturday a month.
Am absolutely exhausted but it feels good. Finished off the evening by having a wonderful meal with Dave and Sharon McCallum. Their new DVD “Fantastic Featherweights” are nearly ready and they gave me an advance copy to preview.

24th February
2008 - Sunday
Staying in bed ALL day seemed like the thing to do today but a slow start was nearly as good. Met up with John for “breakfast.” It turned into a four-hour brunch full of every topic imaginable. And a nice walk in the crisp sunshine. I wish somehow that we lived nearer, but it seems that will likely never happen. We took a picture - surely the first of the two of us together after 20 long, wonderful years of friendship.

25th February
2008 - Monday
Enough rest for the weary, began what feels like the insurmountable task of sorting, packing, organizing and making decisions on what will go in the container of our personal belongings being shipped to Belgium.

28th February
2008 - Thursday
Lectured for Quilters by the Bay in University Place. Shared some old and new samples of working with silk and went through the entire pre-washing process.

29th February
2008 - Friday
Picked up my nieces and nephews and headed to the Nicholson’s.
Oi vey, it was a full house! 11-year old wisdom, followed by FOUR 8-year olds (triplets plus my niece) and a 5-year old “I can do that too.”
I know I’m a glutton but I love ‘em all! Group overnight, bike-riding, lunch, skateboarding, 4-square (Jacob taught me how to play again) and dinner!

3rd March
2008 - Monday
The packing continues as we get ready for the movers to come on Wednesday. We’re looking at a 1/2-container. 20’ x 8’ x 8.5’. Yikes, that’s 1360 square feet, amazing to think we have so many belongings. I’m most excited about having my entire stash and sewing supplies in one place. Watch out world - I plan on quilting! Too bad, we didn’t take pics of the container packing - maybe we’ll remember when it reaches the house in Schellebelle.

6th March
2008 - Thursday
Axel flew back to Belgium this morning, it was hard to let him go and I longed to be stepping onto that plane with him. I’ve been here 4-1/2 weeks and it’s been packed full of moving, shifting and organizing. I’m ready to wake up in my own bed in my lovely house in Belgium, listen to the birds singing, pad downstairs for a cup of coffee and walk through the garden.
Instead I got up and headed to the showroom to pack the van for the Evergreen Piecemakers Retreat in Renton. Ok - so I got over it and had a great weekend! Number one goal, design a great kids quilt using the Toybox Collection. I think I did ok . . . need to add a border top and bottom and we’re there!

14th March
2008 - Friday
First day of the Quilter’s Anonymous Show in Monroe. Another 10x20 booth, it’s exhausting to set-up and this year I did it alone except for a couple hours of generous help from Jennifer who it turns out is married to the brother of my best high-school friends, Kristin and she’s a quilter! The biggest question / announcement this weekend was our new showroom! Everyone was excited to hear all about it. Well, we finally came up with the best description -
“We are an on-line shop with a local showroom!”
The booth was bright and eye catching - helped by the Block Party Quilter’s Raffle Quilt designed by Lisa Jenni - we sold pins, patterns and tickets to benefit their guild. The Amish-inspired 9-patch top intended for our bed hung next to it Lisa and I are talking about future collaborations . . .
This show is always a blast as so many of our local customers attend. It’s a weekend full of hugs, laughter and yes, sometimes even tears.
This year I’m staying in Monroe with “I’ve always wanted to get to know you better” friend, Jodi. What a blast! I’ve been very blessed in my lifetime to find a few kindred spirits that you knew you needed to spend more time with and that you know it doesn’t matter how often you get together. We laughed and cried until the wee morning - primarily because her first husband’s last name was “Horrible.”
17th March
2008 - Monday
Eeeks, there’s so much to do. My flight is at 6pm tomorrow night. Unpack the van and put away as much as possible in the showroom. Last minute good-byes. Piles of little jobs - and, oh yeh, pack my suitcases.
20th March
2008 - Thursday
Arrived back in Belgium today. It’s so nice to be “home.” Too tired after the past six weeks to even think about unpacking. Usually I have it done and nearly everything put away before bed-time. My hand project is coming along nicely. Needing a small project to unwind with in the evenings I started just after the Evergreen Piecemakers Spring break. Our silk dupioni and hand-dyed cottons from Judy Robertson. It’s destined to hang above the sofa . . .

So that covers 6 weeks and I hope you’ll agree this helps close the gap a little. I’m looking forward to a few weeks of settling in and piece and quiet before the container arrives in Belgium. Plus developing our showroom and website. Am sure it won’t be as much relaxing as I’d like but there are always the garden and handwork to distract me when my brain starts to get muddled.
In the meantime, it feels good to be a little more caught up . . . next . . . Jovita

And please do leave a comment - it’s nice to know you stopped by. I heard from so many of you during my visit that you were reading my blog, but I had no idea . . .

P&P Unveils it's New Showroom

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:36:37 +0100

By golly, we did it!!!
P&P’s new showroom is open. A venue where local customers can come to touch and feel the goods they can see on-line.
Our new Showroom will be open one Saturday per month.
Be sure to check our schedule for regular updates!
You’ll want to mark your calendar for our next Open Saturday.
Monthly Sales, New Product, Great Atmosphere and Friendly Faces are only part of the experience you can expect at PEACOCK & periwinkle.
Welcome! Jovita

The Joys of Friends

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:45:47 +0100

Sorry about the two week pause. I was in Koblenz for the Tumbling Blocks class. We also opened up Sunday so anybody could bring any project and we made loads of progress! I’m just realizing that we took no pictures, but the list of all we accomplished was huge. 12 fantastic ladies and at least 20 different outstanding projects. What a day!
After a fun weekend in Koblenz, I travelled North to spend a day sewing with my friends in Mülheim. Every year we do a challenge, the 2007 theme was “Spitze” which can translate as “lace” or “points.” Somehow I wasn’t in the mood for lace, so . . . my Tumbling Blocks fit the bill perfectly. There’s not a single 90˚ anywhere in there. See the last photo in the column >>
I spent the remainder of the week with my friend, Elisabeth. She has a great sewing room that allowed me to set up across from her and sew like crazy!
Elisabeth enlisted my help to learn how to measure for accurate borders and mitered corners. She was ready to finish a quilt top she had pieced in October from fabrics bought on her trip to the Northwest in April 2007.
<< Here she’s busy adding the last border. Today she emailed me a photo of her basted sandwich and plans to quilt by hand. It turned out gorgeous and is destined for her guest bed. I can hardly wait to sleep under it! The pattern is from Stack a New Deck by Karla Alexander. With this one off the sewing machine, while I was there she put me to work converting two patterns from inch measurements into metric. Elisabeth’s now ready to cut and sew a quilt for her own bed finally using hand-dyed fabrics from one of our friends, Angela. Look for Angela’s challenge piece using her own hand-dyed fabrics >>
Not to be outdone, I finished something too! You might remember the Amish 9-Patch Exchange that I did with my students in Germany. Well, throughout the last crazy year I had finally finished piecing all my swapped 9-patches into double 9-patches. Only I didn’t follow one of my very own rules . . . use the same machine throughout the whole project. We were just too much on the move and I thought I’d be able to work with it.
Boy, oh boy, was I wrong! So . . . spent a couple afternoons and evenings picking apart all 25 blocks. In a way I was glad that I did because I took some extra photos for my album to document the story of this quilt. I put all 125 patches up on my design wall! Too fun! I think I might have to do this as an entire quilt someday. I’m happy to report that the center of my quilt is pieced and I’m ready to start working on the first border . . . this will eventually be my first quilt for our bed.
So what else? Well . . . more red tick marks this week! Yipppeee!!
Made a super simple sample for foundation paper piecing. Houses and Trees.
Made another quickie sample - silhouette tree with a swing, need to embroider rope.
My last class before heading back to Belgium was Foundation Paper Piecing. I shared both methods - sewing through the paper as well as using Freezer Paper. We made a village! It was another fun group of eager ladies.
After 8 nights and 9 days on the road and away from home, it was nice to be back. Have I sewn since. No! . . . figures, huh? I’m finishing up exams for my Nederlands class, came down sick and getting ready to fly back to Seattle on Sunday. Time flies . . . seems to be another recurring theme with me.
But I have to say, again, what a joy friends are that spur you on, inspire you to do something challenging and encourage you to sew and be creative. Thanks to all my girlie friends, your the best!
Sew I hope this finds you all well and sewing like beavers!
Jovita

Sewing Like a Fiend

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:02:36 +0100

Phewf - what a week! I’ve been sewing like crazy. Running on pure adrenaline I’m sure . . .
I skipped my Dutch classes for the first week back after the holidays and I’m sure that had something to do with it.
Ticked off this week includes . . .
worked farther on the Stars Galore houses pattern
finished my Tumbling Blocks top - (purples and greens) It’s a sample for a class on machine piecing Y-seams that I’ll be teaching in Germany this weekend - am contemplating on an on-line class too, so let me know if you’re interested. The quilt will be one that rotates through the guest room.
finished hand-piecing a Tumbling Blocks pillow front that matches the quilt above, but will go in our living room instead.
fine-tuned the pressing plan for Tumbling Blocks with a started top of only solids. I love how it’s turning out. Really, really cheerful.
oh yeh, I also trimmed and sewed some leftover triangles from the Bali Beach House quilt I made last year. The triangles worked into a fun mini measuring only 6-1/2” x 9-1/4”.

Click here to see what’s on MY design wall today
I have to say, I just love those tick marks. There’s something quite accomplished about it.
But I have to admit, there was a certain amount of un-sewing as well. I have gone through miles and miles of thread. On the bed-size Tumbling Blocks, there’s no seam longer than about 10 inches an constant stops and starts means that bit of thread between each one. Plus all that I ripped out - where the six diamonds meet. Oi Vey! - they were tough and some of them I stitched three or four times. I know, let it go, but it would have bugged me each time I looked at it. But then again it was pointed out to me, how often will I sleep on the guest bed?
The diamonds at right are 3/4” wide >>>
For those of you who would rather avoid a rather strange but true drift off-topic, skip the following two Paragraphs . . .
But now, another topic . . . Axel (my husband) reads and translates my blog entries into German, so I just read the last paragraph to him. Remembering that he grew up in Germany and speaks British English you will understand that there is a certain amount of translating that goes on in our house everyday. I made Chicken Mole tonight, wasn’t sure what he’d think but yeh, ok it went down ok. He couldn’t figure out what was in it though, so . . . while I usually try to stick to American English after 12 years of exposure the odd and oh-so-very-occasional (here you’re supposed to chuckle) British pronunciation slips in. When I said “a tin of to-mah-toes” he didn’t understand me. I actually had to repeat “a can of to-may-toes.”
Why onto this, well because he asked me what “oi vey” means . . . “I don’t know.” I even wondered where it crept into my vocabulary. I have to say it’s not something I usually say, but it does creep into my writing, so sometimes I have to figure out if it’s a Brown-ism (my strange family has invented some of it’s own dialect phrases). Aha - my friend since high school, John! That’s where I got it. Ok, well what does it mean? Ooops, off on a tangent answering the wrong question . . . so I did an on-line search and nearly fell off my chair (ok, I’ve had a glass of wine) the first and only real definition I came up was that it’s Yiddish for “rolls eyes.”
Ok, so all this quilting has been making me a bit loopy . . . but how fun to finish some more projects. I’m off to Germany this coming weekend to teach, teach and meet up with friends. Spending the week over with friends should be a fun diversion . . .

Get together with a friend this week and show her something you want to finish, she’ll help motivate you!
(Thanks Liz! for all the chiding the last couple months, I’m a slow start, but it’s paying off!)
Jovita

Wow just remembered I had written this after a glass of wine, I hope I caught all the typos. Some of them just “crepted” in. Thank goodness I caught that one!