vacations

Quilt Blocks Made and some Slow Stitching from The Cozy Quilter

Last weekend, I showed you some fabrics I purchased when we were in Phoenix, Arizona in the fall. I had pulled out some co-ordinating solids to go with them. This week, at the guild sewing day, I started to make some blocks.

I am making four of each block. Each quadrant of the quilt will be a mirror image of the quadrant beside and below/above it. I am using one solid and one print in each block. The blocks are 6.5" square. Here are the blocks I made early in the week, in a possible layout. I was ...

added by The Cozy Quilter 2 months, 1 week ago. under counted cross stitch , crochet , finn , hiking , slow sunday stitching , vacations , wall hangings

Subversive Fiber Art by Women on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

Wonderland, Miriam Schapiro, 1983

Over the years, I've written posts ranting about how nobody gets what we really do. I'm mean sure people might understand what a quilt is. What they don't get is the blood, sweat and tears that goes into a quilt. Okay, so that's a little dramatic...but really have you met me? Realistically though, it's that extra "something" that makes quilt making much more than a simple craft. It's definitely an art form no matter if you do

detail, The Bitter Nest, Part II

traditional or modern or art or ...

added by Nina Marie 2 months, 1 week ago. under art quilt , art show , off the wall fri , quilt show , vacations , washington dc

American Art and Portraiture on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

Scenes from American Life, Beach, Gertrude Goodrich, 1914
(Treasury Dept, From the Cafeteria, Section of Fines Arts Mural!)

Our recent trip to Washington DC also included our first visit to The Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture. It is better known as the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. To tell you the truth, until I got home and read the Wikipedia article, I didn't quite understand where one museum started and one ended. Apparently, the way it's laid out now, it just flows together seamlessly, which is what I observed ...

added by Nina Marie 2 months, 2 weeks ago. under art history , off the wall fri , vacations , washington dc

DC on a Dime on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

The Renwick Gallery, The National Museum of Craft

So this past week, I got spontaneous. Yep, you read that right...the princess of plan decided at the last minute to take a quick trip to Washington DC. Two of our favorite art museums, the National Gallery and the Renwick Gallery had some great exhibitions that are going to close in the beginning of January. We've been trying to make time to see them, but with our early winter here on Lake Erie, it's been hard to find a few good weather days. I saw that it was going ...

added by Nina Marie 3 months, 1 week ago. under off the wall fri , vacations

Moving Right Along from The Cozy Quilter

This has been a productive week in the sewing department! I finished quilting the potato chip quilt I made for the local hospice. I used the cut offs from the backing to make the binding, remembering after I had machine stitched it to the front of the quilt that it needed to be machine stitched down, not hand stitched as I usually do. Oops! This is because the quilts for the hospice will be washed and dried by machine often and the binding will stay on better if machine stitched. I did not want to un-sew all of the binding ...

added by The Cozy Quilter 5 months ago. under comfort quilts , counted cross stitch , crochet , finn , hospice quilts , placemats , slow sunday stitching , vacations , walking foot quilting

Getting Back to Normal from The Cozy Quilter

I have been reacquainting myself with my sewing machine over the past few days. I decided to get going on quilting the potato chip quilt top I made for our new hospice (opening in the Spring of 2025). First I quilted two lines in the sashing to get everything stabilized and ready for quilting the blocks. I also added a row of stitching around the entire quilt the width of the walking foot into the beige border and then a 1/8th of an inch from the edge of the border to keep it flat. I hummed and hawed over ...

added by The Cozy Quilter 5 months, 1 week ago. under comfort quilts , counted cross stitch , crochet , finn , hospice quilts , placemats , slow sunday stitching , vacations , walking foot

Zink's Fabric on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

So, this week I was blessed enough to spend a couple of days in Amish country, Holmes County, Ohio. Since it's only a couple hours away, it's become a favorite when we need a quick getaway. Plus, summer is hanging on nicely with 2 weeks now of sunny weather in low 80's. Anybody who's ever lived on a Great Lake knows what a blessing that is. What does one do in Holmes County? Well mostly shop,
browse, explore, chat. It's quiet and fun.

The best part of it - at least for me that is ...

added by Nina Marie 6 months, 1 week ago. under fabric , off the wall fri , vacations

A Week at the Cottage from The Cozy Quilter

Our family, including our daughter and Finn, spent this past week at a cottage near Algonquin Park. We had a relaxing week which included lots of reading on the dock, crafting, watching the olympics, a puzzle and going for walks. On the way to pick up Finn and our daughter, I spent several hours untangling a skein of wool that I bought last year in Newfoundland for the scarf I have been knitting. I'm not sure how it got so tangled up, but it is now a ball of wool, ready to add to the scarf.

I added lots ...

added by The Cozy Quilter 7 months, 3 weeks ago. under counted cross stitch , crochet , finn , knitting , puzzles , slow sunday stitching , vacations

Improv Piecing on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

Hard at Work

You know sometimes all you want to do is sew and boy, have I done that. Taking Improvisational

Piecing with Veronica Hofman-Ortega at John C. Campbell's Folk School was one of my better ideas. I love a class that starts with design exercises that will lead into bigger and better ideas. Not to mention the ladies in my class were great! There was a full range of quilters in the class - from the very experienced to the beginner. All were traditional, so this was pushing pretty much everyone out of their comfort zone. But let me ...

added by Nina Marie 1 year ago. under abstract , creative process , jcc , off the wall fri , retreat , vacations

Mission: Pack 4 Class on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

Okay, show of hands, who out there gives a small groan when you get the supply list for a big quilting class? 25 years later and many, many 5-day quilting classes and I still get intiminadated when I first read the list. You think to yourself, "Self! Does she really want us to bring all this stuff? Are we really going to use all of it? And how much fabric is actually enough?" I mean nobody wants to get to class and think, "Gosh I wish I had "insert the most perfect fabric here" with me." But also you don ...

added by Nina Marie 1 year ago. under fabric , jcc , off the wall fri , organizing , tips , vacations

It's Been A Week on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

Dorothea Lange, Seeing People Exhibit

Okay so here is this week's tip....don't think you can take a quick 2-day trip to Washington DC and not come home exhausted and your mind a big creative blur. We only saw 2 museums, The National Gallery and the National Museum of American History and it still was stimuli overload. It wasn't just the museums which were amazing in themselves, but also the whole National Mall area. We took the metro in from Arlington, VA, and popped up in the Federal Triangle station which is the middle of 10 ...

added by Nina Marie 1 year, 1 month ago. under art show , calender cows , off the wall fri , vacations

6 Facts You Didn't Know about Dorothea Lange on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

Dorothy's Lange

This week finds me traveling to Washington DC to visit the National Gallery. We love the National

Dorothea Lange, Formerly enslaved
woman, Alabama, 1938

Mall since we are kinda museum junkies. But we haven't been back since 2019 due to the dreaded plague. I keep an eye on the National Gallery's webpage and discovered that they are running a Dorothea Lange exhibit through March. So Paul is indulging me with a quick trip down to see it as well as the Mark Rothko exhibit and Masters of American Furniture, the Kaufman Collection (see a little ...

added by Nina Marie 1 year, 1 month ago. under art history , art show , factsyoudidn'tknow , likedislike , off the wall fri , vacations

Thinking about Classes on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

So it's getting to be that time again...the time when I start thinking of next year's quilt class/workshop/vacation. Every year I start the hunt for where do I want to go and what do I want to learn. In the beginning, it was so much easier....I never had been anywhere and I didn't know anything, so it was all new. I remember picking Paula Nadelstern for my first class, not because I actually thought I would learn to make quilts like she did (which I did not) but because I just wanted to ...

added by Nina Marie 1 year, 6 months ago. under off the wall fri , vacations

Last Day of Mosaics on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

By Gretchen VanNostrand

Contrary to how last week's post read, I really did have a good time on my creative vacation. I try to do at least one week a year to recharge my batteries and this week surely did. It wasn't that the piece really lead me to new ideas, but more the people that surrounded me were a pleasure.

One of which was Gretchen VanNostrand of West Virginia. Gretchen has been quilting for about 20 years, but she specializes in fabric bags and organizers. So she walked into the class never really having tried anything like ...

added by Nina Marie 1 year, 8 months ago. under art quilt , guest , off the wall fri , vacations , wip

When Your Big Idea Changes on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

Our Classroom at Marc Adams School of Woodworking and Time Honor Crafts

Okay, let me start by saying, this is not this clown's first rodeo. When I get ready for a 5-day design class, I normally have a plan in mind of how it's going to go. This week with Timna Tarr's Stitched Mosaic was no different. Since I took this exact same class last year, I thought no problem. You pick a pretty picture - you edit - you place fabrics - you sew - you get your pretty picture in fabric. Right?

Well, apparently not.

It started off pretty ...

added by Nina Marie 1 year, 8 months ago. under abstract , creative process , off the wall fri , vacations , wip

Getting Ready for More Mosaics on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

After much angst, I did manage to come up with a photo for my upcoming Timna Tarr's Stitched Mosiac class. Good thing too since it starts on Monday morning! I did do a lot of research, but ultimately I took the easy way out and bought a picture from IStock.

Points that lead to this choice

It has the same joyful theme that Tessa's Mosaic does so it will form a series
The color palettes will be similar
No faces to obsess about
Hands that I know how to do
Landscape orientation

You see, somewhere in my research ...

added by Nina Marie 1 year, 8 months ago. under inspiration , likedislike , masterclass , off the wall fri , quotes , series , vacations

Carnegie Museum of Art on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

Monday, May 1st was my 30th wedding anniversary. It seems like a big milestone, right? Really, though I don't think of it that way. Every day with my husband has been a blessing and I'm just glad it all turned out the way I thought it was going to back in 1993.

Every year we try to do something together that is a little different. This year we made a day trip to go down to Pittsburgh to revisit the Carnegie Museum of Art. The last time we were there was 2006ish and so much has changed. The ...

added by Nina Marie 1 year, 11 months ago. under art history , inspiration , off the wall fri , vacations

Miller's Dry Goods on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

I've made no secret that one of my favorite getaways is to Central Ohio. Not only is it close by (about

2 hrs) but it consists of some of my favorite things gorgeous rural scenery and plenty of quilt shops and antique barns. This year we decided to do a three-day stay to thoroughly explore all of Holmes County. Holmes County with half of its population consisting of Amish has become a popular tourist destination. There are several "villages" (Berlin, Charm, Mt Hope, Walnut Creek, Baltic,) in the county that are fairly close together with Millersburg being the county ...

added by Nina Marie 2 years, 6 months ago. under off the wall fri , quiltshops , vacations

Home from Our Getaway! from The Cozy Quilter

We got home Saturday night at 1am from a 6 day trip to Illinois and Indiana. It was our first time crossing the border to the US since before the pandemic. My quilting friend, Christine, and her husband came with us. The original inspiration for the trip was an advertisement I saw online for a display of Ken Burns' antique quilts at the Peoria Riverfront Museum in Illinois...I told my husband that it would be interesting to see this exhibit and the vacation grew out of this small seed that I planted! We spent a few hours at the ...

added by The Cozy Quilter 2 years, 10 months ago. under baby gifts , baby quilts , finn , frank lloyd wright , ken burns' quilts , knitting , rainbow scrap challenge , scraps , slow sunday stitching , vacations

10 Tips for Quilt Retreats from A Quilting Life

Hello! Today I’m stopping by to share my best 10 Tips for Quilt Retreats. I wrote a post about this several years ago and decided it was time for an update. I’m also sharing a printable with some of my best tips, and I have links to a couple of great packing supply lists too! […]

The post 10 Tips for Quilt Retreats appeared first on A Quilting Life.

added by sherri McConnell 2 years, 10 months ago. under friends , planning , vacations (Comments)

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