Another Week In Manhattan

Thursday - morning coffee with Christopher Columbus at his apartment on Columbus Circle.  If you're around NYC anytime through to 18 November be sure to visit this free exhibition - the artist Tatzu Nishi has built a temporary apartment around the Christopher Columbus statue on Columbus Circle and you can go up into the apartment and stay for half an hour.  Christopher is standing on his own coffee table!  For free timed tickets here's the link.

Me and my good friend W enjoying the view from Christopher Columbus' living room!

Saturday -
First meeting of the year for NYC Metro Modern Quilt Guild.  Good to finally put faces to people I've been chatting to via the blog and to meet everyone.  I took along my Dad's Memory Quilt to share in 'Show and Tell' and the group were so encouraging when they saw it.  You can see my quilt and all the other great quilts by following the link below (Mum - if you're reading this do just don't follow the link x).

 'NYC Metro Mod Guild 'Show and Tell' quilts - October 2012 
There's more photos also on Victoria's blog  Bumble Beans Inc (Guild President) - I'm sat on the floor on the right wearing a blue and grey stripped t-shirt and chatting to Maren from The Agitprop Quilter.

If you followed the link did you spot Lisa's 'Triangles Galore' quilt which includes my July Bee Block?  Well Lisa has finished her quilt now and you can read all about it here on her blog The Red Headed Mermaid.  I love that I can see my block in so many of the photos - the yellow star with a sky blue surround!!!

While I'm on the subject of my Bee Blocks - another Bee Block quilt has been completed incorporating my two June Bee Blocks - check it out here it's Kimberley's New York Beauty quilt.

Look what I won in the door raffle  

and here's are challenge for our December meeting - it's 1/30th of a Kandinsky painting and I can reproduce it in any media - paint/paper/fabric/etc and it doesn't have to be washable.

 Other News:  Here's a peep at an applique block I've made for a very special quilt - I'll tell you more about it another time :)

For details of other fabric, yarn, trim and notion stores that I've visited around the world along with the NYC stores I love, exhibitions and events I've attended and wonderful people I've been lucky to meet click the links below or in my side bar :D

My Very First Ever Quilt

That's me putting my first ever basting pin into my quilt at CQ
- the other ladies in the class then helped to baste the quilt

Before I arrived in the States in August 2011, I knew once I got here I wanted to continue my studies into Textile Arts alongside taking the opportunity to make new friends.  I searched and searched the internet but Textile Art courses, of the type that is becoming more and more available in England, just weren't happening out here.  Well, at least, they were few and far between and hard to get to when I was looking for something that I could just jump on the subway and go to for a couple of hours once a week.  A lot of the courses seemed more, what in America, you call retreats - 3-5 days in some remote location, that only a plane journey and/or car ride can get you to, oh and bring your own sewing machine!

I quickly discovered though that what you do have in America is quilting.  Quilting didn't interest me, not in the slightest - it's for frumpy old women and who wants a boring old quilt anyway (please bear with me at this point, I will be proved wrong!)?  Searching for an outlet for my love of sewing showed me that I didn't really have a choice - it was quilting or clothes making or nothing.  So with great trepidation (and my husband, S, and daughter, F, on my arm for moral support and to stop me backing out) one Sunday afternoon in August, we ventured out to The City Quilter in Manhattan.  We weren't even sure that we wanted to go in at the door, but we rang the bell and were buzzed in.

We were all looking at each other not sure that we liked this place and not knowing what to do and then a really friendly young lady (now fellow guild member and friend, Karen Haynes) asked if she could help.  I told her I was new to the country and new to quilting and wanted to sign up for a course to learn to quilt.  She told me that she'd done the same course, Introduction to Patchwork By Machine and that I'd learn so much and meet great people and she said that the instructor, Christine Janove, was amazing - by the time she'd finished I was feeling much more comfortable with the idea of learning this new skill, quilting, in what was then my strange new world, America.

At the end of the 6-week course,
I'm proudly holding up my sampler quilt for a CQ photo

By the 6 October (2011) I was eager for the class to start but who'd have thought that this day would completely change the course of my life?  The class was amazing, a great bunch of women eager to learn, to share our limited knowledge and to encourage each other.  The tutor, Christine is an absolute treasure - she knows so much and shares it all in her softly spoken, positive and encouraging way, I'm so lucky that she was my first quilting tutor.  And I did make some really good friends in this class, particularly W and D.

I quickly learned more and more about quilting and realised that it's not an old-fashioned technique for grandmas, what's gone before is an incredible passed on tradition with so much skill and artistry and now there's a whole new wave of quilters coming through taking this skill forward, learning the 'rules', following and breaking them in modern, contemporary ways that are artsy and fun.  People love quilts, and now my family and I know why - they keep you warm when you're cold, they are cool when you're hot, they're lightweight and fold up smaller and neater than you'd ever imagine, they can be customised, personalised and make great gifts, you can sit on them, lie under them, cry into them, hide inside them and snuggle up with them, they hold memories of people and places that we love and have loved and they become so personal to you that you cherish them ... it's your quilt, it's part of you to be used, hugged and treasured and eventually handed on to the next generation - who'd have thought all that about a quilt!

And here is what I made, my very first ever quilt - it's a Sampler Quilt made for my daughter, F, and from the moment she reluctantly held it, she fell in love with it - and now, at those times when the quilt starts to crawl to the washing machine all on its own, it's reached those dizzy realms of "if you're washing it, it has to be dry in time for me to go to bed tonight?", and that's true love!

 

So that's it, I'm hooked - 9 months on and I'm using quilts, making quilts, blogging about quilts and building my life around quilts - what was that I said about quilting " it's for frumpy old women and who wants a boring old quilt anyway?" - well, what did I know and WOW, wasn't I proved wrong!

Disclaimer: 

This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.

Shopping List? What Shopping List? Are We Supposed To Stick To The Shopping List?

How I pass a day in the City:

Tuesday, 19 June 2012

10 to 11 am

F's fab shoes

Sit in Think Coffee, Meatpacking/Chelsea district, drinking Earl Grey tea and eating smoked salmon cream cheese bagels with your daughter, F.  Discuss all the items you both need to purchase to finalise your outfits for JA & JT's (my 2 sons) university graduation ceremonies in England in July.  The shopping list includes:

• black suede summer weight shoes for F;
• clutch bag for F;
• cream strappy top for F;
• long sleeve 'floaty' cream blouse for F;
• nude summer weight handbag for C; and
• 2 cardi's for C to match each of  my 2 graduation dresses purchased last week.

Get a text from husband, S, telling me that No 2 son, JT, has been awarded first class honours for his MDrama degree in Drama and Theatre Studies at The University of Kent in Canterbury, England.  JT, we're so thrilled for you, you've worked hard and played hard and you deserve your success xxx.

11 to 12 noon

F tries on shoes in Shoegasm and picks up an incredible pair of Chelsea Crew shoes - they're exactly what she's looking for.

12 noon to 1 pm

Watch F try on pretty much everything that's currently available to purchase at Urban Outfitters - F comes away with a dress, tie-dye purple shorts and 2 pairs of strappy sandals (yes, you're right, none of these were on the list but we both know she looks great in them and they're such a bargain!).

1 to 1.30 pm

Nip into The Container Store and pick up a necklace holder for, yes you've guessed it, F!  Leave F at subway loaded down with bags though none of it's for me - some use that shopping list proved to be!

1.30 - 3 pm

Meet up with my friend, W, at our Manhattan LQS to put together a collection of black and white fabrics with a splash of red for a table runner she's going to make.

Spot a laminate that I just have to have a yard of Kaffe Fassett Studio- Petunias Blue.  Thinking toiletry bags lined with the Early Birds by Jane Sassaman 'Poka Dot' that I've used with my Sparkle Plenty quilt and lime green zippers.  But I've also got a hankering for a picnic blanket using this laminate as the ground sheet, how stunning would that be?  Mmm, I'll have a think on that one.

Kaffe Fassett - Petunias Blue

Jane Sassaman - Poka Dot

3 to 4 pm 

Hot Lemon Ginger tea and none stop chin wagging at The Blue Dog, then jump in a taxi with W and you'll never guess where we're off to ... (some readers may recall a place in NYC that I've not been to yet but am very keen to visit) ...

4 to 5 pm

... finally, my long promised and awaited trip to Purl Soho and I'm not disappointed.  It's a really cute shop in a fab area with lots of other great shopping and eating.  Right opposite is Kiteya, Soho, a Japanese accessory and fabric shop so we pop in here first and I pick up a small canvas shoulder bag and a notepad - will be calling back again when I need to stock up on gifts and pressies.  Satisfied with our purchases at Kiteya, W and I cross over to Purl where we are greeted with a great selection of yarns and fabrics.

So PurlSoho, not as many fabrics to choose from as at my LQS, some fabrics are the same but enough are different and are current popular ranges so it makes it worthwhile to shop at both locations, which is good.  A bit pricier than my LQS also - a fat quarter is $3.50 compared to $3.00 but not too badly priced (nothing in NYC seems badly priced to me compared to English prices where retailers seem to think they can just change the $ to a £ instantly making all English prices 1/3 more expensive than the American price).

So here's what I bought:

I've got a bit of a thing for purple and green!

Loving the Avalon Birdie Spokes (Concrete) - it grounds all the other colours and stops them being too sickly together

Not my usual colour palette but thinking I should work outside my comfort zone sometimes just to see how it feels

5 to 6 pm

As we're walking back over to the West Side to get on the subway let's just recap that shopping list for today:

• black suede summer weight shoes for F;
• clutch bag for F;
• cream strappy top for F;
• long sleeve 'floaty' cream blouse for F;
• nude summer weight handbag for C; and
• 2 cardi's for C to match each of 2 graduation dresses purchased last week

Looks like we'll have to go back again another day - now isn't that a shame?!!!

For details of other NYC fabric, yarn, trim and notion stores that I love along with other stores around the world, exhibitions, and events I've attended, click the links below or in my sidebar

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.

Wonderful Friends

Just took a call from my apartment doorman - a flower delivery for me.  And here it is, the most beautiful flower arrangement, stunning colours and I'm only sorry I can't share their fragrance with you as it's fabulous.

Thank you very, very much to my wonderful friends W and K for your help, for caring and for making life so much more bearable right now.  I send you both a very big tearful hug x