Thursday - visited Karen Haynes, my tutor for the Sparkle Plenty quilt, who has since become a good friend. Karen was home on bed rest awaiting the arrival of her twin babies so we spent the afternoon talking all things quilty and baby and girly. I did marvel at Karen's rented apartment wall - I've never heard of this before - dare I say it "only in NY"? ... great idea though! By Saturday those babies refused to wait any longer and thrilled everyone with their arrival - a huge welcome to Georgia Maeve and Weston Michael :)
Friday - Daughter, F, had her hair cut and dyed again - here's a peek at how it looks this time, I love, love, love it
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| Hair by Peter & Jess at Toni & Guy, Maxwell Place, Hoboken |
Saturday - Got smashing news from my eldest son, JA, that this week he'll successfully complete his CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and has accepted at job at a language school in the centre of Seville, Spain, starting next week through to June/July next year. Excellent news and we're all really thrilled for you JA, you deserve everything for all your hard work xxx
Took my first trip out to 2 Stix & a String, a new wool shop on York Street, Jersey City with E & M from my Jersey City Crafty Knitters Meetup group. The shop is fab - Karen, the owner, is very welcoming as are the farmhouse kitchen table and chairs so you can sit, chat and knit and the yarns are sooooo delicious, I was spoilt for choice. I finally settled on a great knit and crochet hat book imaginatively titled Hats! I stayed a while at the shop and started crocheting the Bobbly beanie using Rowan Cocoon in Lavender Ice - it's an 80/20 Merino wool and Kid mohair mix and scrummy to use. Finished the hat later on Saturday evening, it's going to be a gift for someone very soon so can't share photos just yet.
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| That's me outside 2 Stix & a String, 234 York Street Jersey City |
Monday - October Bee Block fabric and instructions arrived. Another great month with Queen Bee Bernadette giving us lots of freedom with the design so I'm already well underway with my planning. I'll post about it separately once the block's completed.
Tuesday - Since I started blogging I've made some great blogging friends and one of these is Sarah of Sarah Sews Quilting Blog. A few weeks ago we were discussing the merits of air erasable pens and I mentioned that my pen had run out of ink and I was having a bit of difficulty getting hold of the identical pen here in the States. Turned out Sarah was having a similar problem on Jersey, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Normandy. Within days a friend of Sarah's had picked up a couple of the pens in England for the two of us and Sarah posted it off to me, how fab is that?
Well this morning the pen arrived, but not just the pen ... Sarah also sent me these goodies - how cute are they and I'm loving the Kath Kidston Notecard? Thank you, thank you, thank you Sarah, your timing is perfect - I need the pen to draw quilting designs on my Dad's Memory Quilt and also my Double Irish Chain Quilt, I'm so happy and grateful :)
Pop over to Sarah's blog and her Flickr page and take a look, she's studying for the City and Guilds Design and Craft Level 3 Certificate in Patchwork and Quilting with the The School of Stitched Textiles and her work is so fun, cute, crisp and simply perfect.
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| My parcel of goodies - thank you Sarah :) |
The rest of the week - every day I've been doing some quilting on my Dad's Memory Quilt for my Mum. My right shoulder is giving me some pain at the moment and each time I quilt it aggravates it further, so I've been doing it a little at a time but I'm not moving on with it as fast as I'd like.
Tomorrow - I'm so excited about meeting fabric designer Tula Pink at 12 noon when she does her trunk show in Manhattan - I'll take pics to share if I can
TULA PINK
The fabric designer, quilter, sewer extradinaire, Tula Pink will give an insightful
talk about her love of sewing and the creative process that has allowed her to produce four fabric
collections, and become a national spokesperson for Bernina. Along with sewing and talking,
Tula will have an extensive trunk show to share during these free sessions.
talk about her love of sewing and the creative process that has allowed her to produce four fabric
collections, and become a national spokesperson for Bernina. Along with sewing and talking,
Tula will have an extensive trunk show to share during these free sessions.
And finally, for my round-up of the last week here's the latest posts and tutorials for you to check out as part of Plum and June's Let's Get Acquainted! Blog Hop:
10 Tips For Better Blog Photos from Holly at Bijou Lovely
Peak Hour Quilt tutorial from Jen at Closet Quilter
Reversible Coaster tutorial from Amanda at Fabric Engineer
Charming Hexagonal Table Topper tutorial from Amanda at Material Girl Quilts
Oh I LOVE your daughter's hair! I had some pink in my hair as a student because I knew I wouldn't get away with it when I was older. But it never looked as funky as hers!
ReplyDeleteI also follow Sarah's blog and am in awe of the fact that she is doing a City & Guilds with 2 little ones at home. I get almost nothing done with my 2 little ones - I need to get more organised!
Enjoy Tula Pink - you will have a great time. She is so interesting. And very entertaining!
Hi Gertie, I love F's hair too. The colour has already faded away to something very much paler - as these strong colours do, which is a shame. Over the summer she had it coloured a silver grey which was stunning and I think blue would look good on her too.
DeleteIsn't Sarah amazing - how does she do it?
Tula was everything you said she'd be and more - she was so friendly and open and honest, a real gem. I took lots of pics which I'll be posting shortly. :)
So glad the bits arrived safely! Very excited for you that you are going to see/meet Tula Pink, I can't wait to hear all about it :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks again :) I haven't opened the pen yet but it's interesting that it's a felt tip this time and not a ball point - fun to see how that works. I'll be posting the Tula pics soon - she was simply great :)
DeleteHi Gertie, thank you so much for being a loyal follower! C and G progress is slow at the best of times, but I will get there one day!
ReplyDeleteSarah, I think you're doing just great :) Have you seen this blog Cleveland Girlie by Cathie not surprisingly from Cleveland, she's just signed up for the C&G Machine Embroidery course?
DeleteFab hair. Reminds me a bit of Tonks from Harry Potter books.
ReplyDeleteI have a fabric marker like the one you just got. It works well and does really disappear. I have found however that it disappears a bit too quickly. I had marked up a quilt ready for quilting after children's bedtime when I came downstairs from tucking them is the markings were gone.
How funny, I had the same problem with my previous air erasable pen - at first it was visible for a day or two and as it got older the quicker it faded. I learnt to work quickly with it, only drawing what I needed as I was ready.
DeleteI have to admit to having to look up who Tonks is on google images. I'm not a Harry Potter fan, though I confess to being the owner of all the books - I read the first book with my kids as soon as it was published and then left them to read the rest alone (apart from when the last book arrived and I did immediately the last chapter to see how it all finally ends). I've been to the cinema on opening nights to see all the movies (fallen asleep during most of them and on one occasion left the cinema and sat in the car for an hour and then came back in for the ending) and I even accompanied my daughter, F, to the Times Square HP exhibition last year ... but nothing can persuade me to like it. My kids and husband have, however, adored it all, in every format, and I have no doubt they'll be horrified at my public admission of dislike and they'll probably feel that I deserve all the feedback I anticipate now coming my way via my blog!!! ;)
F's hair looks AWESOME!! She's such a pretty girl and so brave to have a hip hairstyle like that! Yaaaay and good luck to JA! Hope He'll have fun teaching in Seville.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kati, F's hair has already faded away to a very pale, barely noticeable pink. She's just picked up a wig for Halloween that's prompted her to consider dark brown hair and extensions next - she does look good in the wig though! JA's working so hard with lots and lots of lesson prep on top of his teaching time but he's loving it :)
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