There

The original title of this post was "Here and There," but I realized I won't have time to do justice to both this morning. Stay tuned for "Here" in the next day or two!

There is California, where I went to visit my family and the Pacific International Quilt Festival. On the last post I linked to my niece's slide show of many of the quilts there. I'll do a more in-depth presentation of a couple quilts for now. I couldn't possibly choose a favorite, these are just two that caught my attention again this morning as I scrolled through my finally downloaded photos. Don't forget to click on a photo to enlarge it if you want a closer look.

This quilt by Jo P. Griffith shows the wind farm at Altamont.
I have always loved the look of these huge windmills -- so graceful, so powerful. As I looked at the quilt, I started imagining lots of ways to incorporate that image into a quilt. But the other thing that caught my eye was the pieced background and border. I love pieced squares that are all different but all part of the same. It adds so much texture and interest!

This next quilt, The Gold Lady, was put together by twelve members of the Ocean Wave Quilters of Fort Bragg, California. (Such a gorgeous town, right on the coast!)
They enlarged a photo and divided it into twelve parts. One quilter took each part and, without consulting the others, recreated it using any materials she wished. Then they were all joined together. Much like the pieced background above, this is so much more interesting for the variation. I really like it.

At the show I also got to meet two other quilt bloggers, Tami of Lemon Tree Tales and Julie of Floribunda.
It was wonderful to meet them! My niece Laurel took the photo, and a kindly passerby took a photo of the four of us, but the sun streamed in across the top of the photo and the faces are hugely overexposed.


This little basket photo I took at home this morning, but wanted to put it up after I saw a photo of a similar basket on Julie's blog. She had just purchased a basket from Ghana to use to carry her groceries, and about a month ago I purchased a similar basket from the food co-op. I think I'll keep mine for projects in progress, as I find it's a little bulky for shopping.

The rest of the trip I spent visiting family. I won't bore you with family photos, but I met a new member of the family, born in July, and she deserves a welcoming photo. Here's Maggie (being held by my older daughter, Jocelyn).
And here's the I Spy quilt I made for her and her brother and sister. Their mom (my niece Andrea) hung it on the bedroom. I love seeing my quilts in use!

As a belated birthday present, my daughters took me to the city for dinner at Millennium Cafe, where I have wanted to go ever since it opened. Wow! Scrumptious, delicious, succulent, juicy, superbly balanced -- the list of superlatives to describe the food could go on and on! We stopped in at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art beforehand. There it is, that circular building seen from the Yerba Buena Gardens. I love the circles and stripes in that building!
And finally, on a crafty note, here's a stamped cross stitch sampler I made in high school.
My father used to love that quote, and so when I saw the kit I made it up for him. I asked my mother about it when I visited, and she still had it. I asked to see it because my niece Laurel recently changed her blog name to Set of the Sail, and I got to thinking about it. My mom has now passed it on to Laurel, which is absolutely as it should be. The sampler is clearly made by someone who knew nothing about cross stitch, but the words are powerful.