August 30, 2013

My Favorite Steam Iron

I just finished ironing 9 yards of hand-dyed fabric and 10 silk scarves with my Eurosteam iron. Ironing isn't how I like to spend my time, (and I generally avoid it as much as possible), but this iron makes the task a bit easier. If you do a lot of ironing, you may be interested in purchasing one too, click here for their website.


The demo I saw at the SLO quilt show was very impressive and I just had to have one. The iron is either ON or OFF and it either has STEAM or NO STEAM. That's it. One temperature for ALL fabric types. It doesn't matter if it's cotton, tulle, wool, or organza . . . it won't burn or melt even if you leave the iron face down for 3 minutes. I made the woman test every unusual material possible.

The only negative thing is that it runs out of steam pretty fast because the boiler is small. Other than that, the iron is great.

August 15, 2013

Inside Out: Hormones is on its way to Houston!

Yippee, Inside Out: Hormones was accepted into the IQF Festival in Houston! And I'll be going with two of my girlfriends too.
It'll be my first time at the Houston show and I'm totally prepared to be overwhelmed. I've attended PIQF in San Jose in the middle of October for many years, and two large quilt shows in one month is just too much for me. This year, I'll skip PIQF and will go to Houston show instead. I signed up for a quilting forum and an HQ quilting class and didn't get into either of them. So, now I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I might sign up for a raw edge applique class with Ann Johnston, but haven't decided. Will any of you be there? If so, let me know and we can set up a time to meet somewhere. It would be a lot of fun to meet some of you in person.
Fibervision will be having a special exhibit at PIQF again this year. I forgot the name of it, but you'll find it in the program. Here is a preview of my quilt that will be in the PIQF exhibit. "Ancient Artifacts" incorporates a photo of an old gas station that I shot in Los Alamos, CA. It was printed on cotton fabric on my Epson printer and is combined with other unique elements from this rural area.

August 8, 2013

Hot Time in Vegas

If you like it hot . . . there's no place like Las Vegas in the summer! The temperature was between 105-107 degrees . . . but it's a dry heat. It wasn't as bad as it sounds because there's AC and swimming pools everywhere. They make it pretty easy to cool off.
Vegas isn't my first choice of places to visit, but my husband was competing in National Billiards championship, so I tagged along. Most of his time was spent in a convention center, but we did manage to see the Cirque du Soleil "Love" show. We got caught in a freak flash flood on the way to the show, and had to take our socks and shoes off and wade through the streets in knee deep water. I wasn't sure if we were going to make it alive, but we did, and we enjoyed the show immensely.
Vegas never disappoints with the amount of entertaining sights available everywhere. Here are a few photos from my travels.
 Dale Chihuly has a beautiful glass sculpture in the Bellagio Hotel.
 I love his work and spent quite a bit of time there taking photos.
 He had an exhibit at the Santa Barbara Museum years ago, and it's still my favorite exhibit to date.
 The Cosmopolitan Hotel  had a lot of interesting and unexpected things going on. I'm not a girly girl, and would kill myself in heels, but this giant stiletto got my attention.
 I went to the Cosmopolitan to check out an artist in residence studio, but it was closed until 6:00 pm. What I found outside the studio was an Art-o-Mat machine. If you've never heard of it, they are cigarette machines that have been converted to dispense packages of art. I've never seen one in person and got pretty excited. I cracked up when I saw the no smoking sign above it, dug through my purse and found (2) $5.00 bills. I chose one artist I already knew of, Nikki Wheeler, and one random choice based on the material used (titanium).
Here are the boxes as they came out, and the contents. Nikki's box had an ATC, a nice note and card inside. The titanium pieces came with a note that said it was a work in progress. Hmmm . . . honestly, I wasn't impressed with their titanium scraps.
Here's the Vegas Strip from the roof of the Rio Hotel. The view from 52 floors up was stunning!