vacations

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 5 days, 2 hours 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 1 month, 4 weeks 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 2 months 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 3 months 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 4 months, 2 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 9 months 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 9 months, 1 week 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 9 months, 4 weeks 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 10 months 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, 2 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, 5 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, 5 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, 5 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, 7 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, 3 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, 6 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, 7 months ago. under friends , planning , vacations (Comments)

Timna Tarr at Marc Adams School of Woodworking on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

This is why we asked Will for more tables!

Is anybody surprised that a week after getting home, not only am I just feeling normal again but my
studio is not unpacked? Gosh!! There it all sits in the middle of the room just waiting to get back to its proper place. It really was a great class....exhausting...but great. After spending 2 years isolating it was so odd to be around people for most of the day!

Back in the early 90s, Marc Adams had the vision to start a woodworking school in the middle of a cornfield ...

added by Nina Marie 2 years, 7 months ago. under family , likedislike , off the wall fri , retreat , vacations

Inspired to Travel on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

Blacksmith Shop, John C. Campbell's Folk School

As my class date draws closer, it's got me thinking about how travel always seems to inspire my creative nature. (Obviously, since we have traveled very little in the last two years and I feel all dried up inside.) It's the trips and the classes over the years that have been a driving force in keeping me sewing. There is always something new to learn, places to explore, and people to meet.

But right now I just have one little trip planned for this summer and it's located smack ...

added by Nina Marie 2 years, 8 months ago. under inspiration , vacations

The Word of the Year: Connect on Off the Wall Friday from Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

Can you believe I've been active online since 1998? I've been writing this blog since June 2009. 22 years online....geesh... Honestly, I don't know where the time goes. I knew the internet was going to be a game-changer on how we communicate but really not nearly to what extent. I remember learning how to communicate in my first chat room, joining my first online quilt group, making my first cyber best friend (Julia in AK by way of Nebraska). I joined quilt block exchanges, millennial charm exchanges, round robins. If it had to do with quilting ...

added by Nina Marie 2 years, 12 months ago. under off the wall fri , rants , vacations

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