Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day has been my favorite movie for many years. For Mother's Day, a long time ago, my daughters bought me a copy. They figured it would save me time because I would not have to rent it. I think it saved me an hour per year, which has really added up over time.

To celebrate Groundhog Day, I have a sweet vermouth on the rocks with a twist and drink to world peace.

3 D Photo

When my DH and I were in Houston, so I could teach at International Quilt Festival, we went to the Downtown Aquarium.

The aquarium features a full-service restaurant and bar that seats you around a 200,000 gallon tank populated with all manner of sea life. While we were there my DH took this picture with his Fuji 3D camera. If you look at it crossed eyed you can see it in 3D.

You can learn more about the Fuji 3D camera by clicking here.

Funny Saying

I was teaching in a Lutheran church in Chicago and this was posted in the bathroom.

I took a picture of it because I thought it was so funny.

I am hoping you do too!

If you can't read it click on it and it will become MUCH bigger.

Remotes

DON'T EVER LEAVE YOUR HUSBAND HOME ALONE WITH THE REMOTES. I did and this is how they ended up!!!

Quilter's Home Magazine

I found this in my inbox today. It is from Jake Finch, who is the editor of Quilter's Home Magazine. What she said is below this really cute vinyl apron, which is one of the things you can download from their website!

"Dear Quilt Friends, Non-Quilt Friends Who Like Me and Family:
I have a favor to ask.
If you are on FaceBook, would you consider going to this link (cut and paste into your browser as I couldn't figure out how to link--sad of me...) and clicking that you "like" Quilter's Home Magazine?
www.facebook.com/quiltershomemagazine
(Jake, they can just click on the link it will take them to your Face Book fan page)

As most of you know, Quilter's Home is the magazine for which I serve as editor. My co-editor and I are trying to increase our "friends" and this would help tremendously. If you don't want to, no worries. I'm not keeping track of who I asked, I won't bug you about it again and I'll still love you. But for my quilt-buds out there, we use our FB page to announce new things, ask silly and serious questions, find sources for articles and just generally engage with our readers. For the rest of you who already think my brain is full of thread and want nothing to do with quilts, just ignore us. :-)
So, please consider "liking" us if you would? Also, if you have friends or family who might enjoy participating, feel free to pass this on to them as well. The more, the merrier!
Many quilted hugs,
Jake Finch

Quilter's Home Magazine"

She sounds kind of desperate. I think we all should to it.

I am already a fan. You should be one too.

Madison Contemporary Fiber Artists

Here are pictures I took at the opening reception of the Turning Point show of the Madison Contemporary Fiber Artists at the Overture Center in Madison, WI.

This is me in front of my piece, Moonrise.

People spent along time reading what we had written. The show was up last week. One of our members attended the a concert of the Symphony Orchestra, and noticed that people had to lean over to read the artist statements. She and her friend move them up so the general public didn't have to strain their backs to read what we had written.

Here is what an overall shot. I told you there would be people in the way. The piece with the whooping crane is by Susan Jackan. It has the thoughtful title, Sharing Air. Below her piece is her artist statement.
Sharing Air
The reintroduction of the whooping crane in Necedah, Wisconsin represents a turning point in the survival of this ancient species of bird. Cranes share the air with plant life of nature and with the wind turbines dotting the landscape. Turbines signify a turning point in cleaner energy production.

HAPPY NEWS!!!

My eldest daughter (ED) and my SIL made my DH and I first time grandparents!!!

At 4:00 am January 23, 2011 ED gave birth to a 7 pound 6 oz, 19 ½ girl at Meriter Hospital in Madison, WI.

The happy family

They were married on August 2, 2008. They had a themed wedding called the Pirate and the Princess. Click on this link to see pictures of their wedding:

http://rust-tex.blogspot.com/2008/08/pirate-and-princess.html

Mother, father and baby are all doing well.

I did not post sooner because I was watching the Green Bay Packers trounce the Chicago Bears.

The Green Bay Packers are on their way to the Super Bowl!!!!

Go, Pack, Go!!!

Madison Contemporary Fiber Artists

Madison Contemporary Fiber Artists (MCFA) is having a show at the Overture Center in Madison, WI. If you are in the area come and see it. Here is one of the pieces. It is by Diane Dempsey, showing a detail of her piece Appalachian Spring.

The show is called, Turning Point.

We were suppose to write in about 100 words how this was a turning point in our lives. This is what Diane wrote:
My family lived in Kentucky in the 1980s and 1990s. There seemed to be one day each April – a true ‘turning point’—when every tree would burst into bloom: Redbuds, Cherries and Apples, Sweet Gum, Magnolia, Dogwoods, Sassafras, Spicebushes, Rhododendrons, Azaleas… I knew spring had finally arrived. All life had awakened, and the dull, gray days of winter were gone. In its place was the sudden spectacular beauty of spring. Moonscape

18” wide x 45” long
My piece is called, Moonscape. Here is my artist statement: The biggest turning point in my life came in 2004 when I saw a video on the internet. It showed women laying out white fabric in a junk yard. They came back in a few days. Marks had transferred from the rusty items to the fabric.
I did research on the internet about rust dyeing. In 2006 I wrote the Rust-Tex Instructional CD, which has 4 repeatable techniques on it.
I had so much fun rust dyeing I made more fabric than I could use in a 1,000 lifetimes. My new career became selling rust dyed fabric to art quilter.

The reception is Friday January 21, from 6-8 PM. Hope you can make it.

Exciting News!!!

Quilter's Home Magazine published this about Rust-Tex:

If you click on the picture you can read it what they wrote.

If you want a summary they are encouraging people to buy the "Trees Kit". It is their Feb/Mar 2011 issue if you want to buy it.

Whenever I am at JoAnn's Fabric Stores, and they have magazines at 10% off, I buy it. I like it so much I actually subscribed to it. You can too by clicking here! I can't actually send to the page where you can subscribe. If you go to the home page, in the upper right hand corner there is a place that says, "Subscribe Now".

Do it!!!

You will be happy you did.

Happy Birthday to the Queen

Every year on my birthday, which is in December, I invite the members of the UFO Club to "The Queen's Birthday Party". I am the Queen of the UFO Club, as I had the most Un-Finished Objects. I taught for 15 years and started a new project with my students every week for ten weeks, twice a year. When I stopped teaching I had over 100 UFO's!!! Which is how I became Queen. No one else had any where near that many. Eight years later, I am down to less than 70.

Whoo Hoo!

Way to go Lois!!!

Uni Wash

I was in England when I saw this amazing hand washing machine. It has a place where the soap and water come out and it has a hand dryer built into it. I have never seen a thing like this before so of course I had to take its picture. You can clearly see my reflection as I was lining up the picture.

When we were driving back from International Quilt Festival in Houston, I saw this machine is Arkansas. It is a Uni Wash. It is just not labeled as such but it worked exactly like the Uni Wash. Did you know they were in America?

"Blätz"

Margo, baked this Blätz for a retreat I recently went to. Her father was a baker in Switzerland, where she grew up. I guess you could say it is in her blood to bake this for us.

Rabbit Takes on Snake

A friend of mine sent me this. It was called, "Bad Ass Texas Rabbit".

I hope Keekun never has to fight off a snake.

Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative in Houston

I did not donate any thing to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt

Initiative in Houston this year.

If you are going to Houston here is what you can bid on.

If you are not going to Houston, here is what you are missing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhaecOl7EQI

Let help Ami Simm's wipe out this dreaded disease one quilt at a time.

Festival of Quilts Con't

I was at the Festival of Quilt (FOQ) in Birmingham, England for 5 days and this is the only picture of a quilt I took. They had many of these little quilts in different languages. But this one really tickled my fancy. I was thinking how it would feel to touch a cactus instead of a quilt, OUCH!

Most these quilt were 8.5 x 11 inches or "A4" as they call that size paper in England. I Goggled "A4 paper" and found it is 8.27 x 11.69 inches in Europe. "Close enough for government work", as we say here in the States. This quilt won the Best of Show award. It is a miniature quilt that is a Mariner's Compass with 128 points!!! Not only did she do it once but 3 times as you can see in the photo. The quilting was exquisite. Either it was trapunto or so tightly quilted that it made the less quilted area pop. That is what I do when ever I make on of My Mini 9-Patch Derivatives.

Mission: Impossible 2

I didn't take this picture I downloaded it from the FOQ Facebook(FB) Page. Just go to FB and search for on Festival of Quilts. If you are techno savvy enough to read a blog I am sure you can search FB.

Festival of Quilts Con't

This is how the Rust-Tex stand looked at the Festival of Quilts. Here in America we call them booths. My friend, Peggy, who is American and had never been to England before, had to learn a whole new vocabulary.

Bronwen, who lives about an hour from Birmingham, and has been bugging me to come to the FOQ for years. In 1973 I was Maid of Honor at her wedding.

Here is a picture of the the three of us taken in Venice. Bronwen is on the left, Peggy is in the middle, and I, of course, am on the right.

Donation for Houston

This is the piece I am donating to the International Quilt Association's (IQA), Celebrity Mini Quilt Silent Auction.

It is only 16" x 13". And yes those are ½" squares.

Thanks for noticing. Day at the Beach #7

The email I got from IQA said it should be in my trademark style. I spent 10 years piecing My Mini 9-Patch, which has almost 15,000 pieces in it, most of them ½" squares. These 9 patches keep coming off the back of my sewing machine. (I use them to keep the threads engaged when I come to the end of a line of chain piecing.) If you are in Houston be sure to bid on my piece or any of the other wonderful art quilts you will see there.

Festival of Quilt and the Rust-Tex Instructional CD

Many copies of the Rust-Tex Instructional CD that I sold at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England do not work. They were burned incorrectly. If you have one that is not working please send me your address by clicking on the link below:

http://www.loisjarvisquilts.com/V0uMI5.php?varone=Lois_Jarvis

I only sold 30 copies and some of them worked, so please be honest.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jig!!!

This is what I looked like the morning I set out for my trip to England to attend the Festival of Quilts. It was held at the National Exhibition Center in Birmingham, England. The Rust-Tex Collection (RTC) and the Ground Zero Quilt were displayed in the European Quilters Café.

People were VERY interested in the RTC and the Ground Zero Quilt.

I made an old Spanish lady cry as I told her some stories about the quilt.

Going to England

I am packing up my bags to go to England. The Rust-Tex Collection (RTC) is already on its way. I bought a mini map of London and Cambridge at a garage sale. I plan to do a lot of walking in London. I am taking some rust dyed clothing and I bought myself a new journal for this trip. Not only will the RTC be displayed at the Festival of Quilts (FOQ) in Birmingham, England. I am also bring my quilt, Ground Zero (GZ). They both will be in the European Quilters Cafe. It will be the first time GZ is on display outside of the USA. I will be vending at the FOQ. And most of my product was shipped with the RTC.
I am staying with friends and this little quilt is for one of them. The apron is what I wear when I vend. The gray fabric is the back of my quilt, GZ. Only two days until I leave!!!
My excitement is building!!!