I Wish Every Day Was Thursday!

These days Thursdays are my favorite days! Why? Because of the television show, Project Runway. I love it! I started watching it a few seasons ago and got hooked. This year's another great season. Why do I love that show? Many reasons. I love Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum. Heidi Klum is by far, one of the most beautiful women in the world.And I love the show because it's so inspiring. Every time I finish an episode I feel like I need to go sew a dress or something. Now of course I don't really have much time for anything other than machine quilting. Certainly I could never make dresses like those designers, but it's fun to dream!

Do you watch Project Runway? If so, tell me why...I'd love to know.

Speaking of dresses...Check out this cute little quilt I did the machine quilting on. The pattern is called "All Dressed Up."

I love the detail this quilter put on each and every dress! Isn't it cute?

Each dress was beautifully hand-appliqued with fabrics that belonged to the quilter's late mother.

Now, get back to work, Vivian! Is it Thursday yet?

Let There Be Light...Let There Be Shadow!

Sometimes it's hard to see what I'm machine quilting. Because of the light. Especially when I'm working on a light colored quilt and I'm quilting in light colored thread!

Let's discuss light...just for a moment.

Below you see the lights my dear husband had installed in my quilt studio. Now, don't get me wrong. They are great. They are nice and bright for sewing and doing all kinds of projects in my quilt studio. When my kids were younger, they would come in here and work on their homework. But this is what happens when I'm trying to quilt with light thread on light fabric.

Now, let's see what happens when using the lights installed on my quilting machine table. They are great, but not for light thread on light fabric.

This is what I see below with those lights. Or rather, what I don't see. I still can't see!

And how about the smaller light attached to the machine. It's the small fluorescent bulb that came with the machine.

It's a little too bright for light thread on light fabric. I still can't see!

Oh my! What's this?

It's a different light! Let there be light! No! Let there be shadow! Now I can see! Why? Because this light creates shadows!

It's my Flexible Display Light from YLighting you see below! I bought it a couple of years ago and it has been the best investment! I set it at the best angle (not too close to the quilt, of course) and it creates enough shadow so I can see what I'm quilting...especially when quilting with light thread on light fabric!

You see, I do all my quilting freehand. Therefore I must see what I'm quilting!

I attached it to my quilting machine with the optional 4-inch clamp, sold separately. It's just the right width so it can fit on my Gammill Longarm.

Below is another shot of the clamp.

I also purchased an extra light bulb too. Nothing worse than working on a quilt and not have an extra light bulb!

Hey, what's on TV? Oh, it's Seinfeld...the Soup Nazi episode! One of my favorites!

Ok, besides my Flexible Display Light, my favorite light is natural sunlight. The perfect time for this natural light is in the morning.

But of course, that means that is the only time I can quilt to get this great visiblity.

But I don't always quilt in the morning though. So I depend on my Flexible Display Light, because I quilt all hours of the day and night!

Now get back to work, Vivian! And no more Seinfeld Nazi episode for you!

New Years Eve Memories

What did you do for New Year's Eve? Me, I just stayed home and watched the Twilight Zone Marathon.

I had a touch of the flu. That's me peaking in the window at William Shatner! (my favorite Twilight Zone episode!) Actually, I felt as bad as that guy looks! So my New Year's Eve was pretty uneventful...but relaxing.

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I recalled past New Year's Eve celebrations. One of my favorites was when I was 20. I was all alone for New Year's at BYU. My roommates were still home in California. I had to get back to Utah to work right after Christmas because I had a job at the University Mall...selling shoes at Thom McAn. (do they even exist anymore?) Just before closing an old friend came by and invited me to go with him to Park City for New Years Eve. He worked at one of the ski lodges there. I said "Sure!" I was grateful not to have to spend the evening alone.

I stayed in the employee dorms of the ski lodge and had a blast! Skiing, riding the tram, goofing around. Such fun! At midnight a trail of skiiers holding torches skiied down one of the slopes. It was an awesome sight.

(this isn't a picture of the night I was there...but I found a picture that looked just like it!)

I'll never forget that. Those were the days I didn't have a care in the world. Oh, to be that young again!

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Another New Year's Eve memory. I was 21 living in Spain, serving an LDS mission.

In Spain they have a tradition at New Year's Eve (or Nochevieja) as the countdown to midnight begins, you eat 12 grapes, one on each chime of the clock. I was with a favorite family celebrating New Years in Jaen. The family gave us all 12 grapes to follow tradition.

Eating the grapes was very funny because it's impossible to finish eating the grapes by the time the clock finishes chiming. We all laughed at each other with our cheeks full of grapes. Pretty soon we had a big mess of grape juice all over us! I remember they told us that this tradition started in Spain because one year there was huge grape harvest and the king of Spain decided to give grapes to everyone to eat on New Year's Eve. Ingenious!

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And now my least favorite New Year's Eve memory. It was 1987. Daughter #2 was 9 months old. She was sick with a stomach virus and bronchitis and was in the hospital for 5 days. It was a very stressful time for our family as you can imagine. She had to be kept in a mist tent the entire time for the bronchitis and had an IV to replenish her fluids. She was terribly dehydrated and the only place the doctors could find a good vein for the IV in her in her foot! Poor little thing. The nurses set up a bed for me in her hospital room. The only bed available at that time was a small juvenile size bed. But I didn't care. I slept there next to my little baby each night she was in the hospital. The first night there in the hospital was New Year's Eve. I stayed up to watch Dick Clark's countdown. As the New Year began I turned to my little girl--asleep in the mist tent, contected to machines and tubes--and said outloud, "Happy New Year Stacy!" I'll never forget that.

A few weeks later, she was back to her old self. As you can see in the picture above, she was once again healthy and happy!

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And in closing...I hope your New Year's Eve memories were good ones.

Perhaps you saw...

wait for it...

Pink Elephants!

This darling baby quilt is similar to another elephant quilt I did for a lady back in Oct. I lightly quilted it with a medium meander throughout. I used a pantograph pattern in the border called, "Sydney."

The back was a lovely minkie fabric. It was soft and cuddly. I know the little girl who received this for Christmas loved it!

I'm On The Mend!

Here I am on the left circa 1960's with my big sister Vickie. I don't think I was really hurt as it might look. I think I was just playing with the bandaids...always trying to get attention!

Anyway, I am finally feeling like my 'ol self.


What I learned from being sick with "The Super Bug" ...


1. Never dab your lipstick with Kleenex Anti-Viral tissues. Yuck!


2. Movies can pass the time. (Movie: Daughter #2 recommended "Across The Universe."
I give it 2 thumbs up! I enjoyed it very much since I was raised on The Beatles and it includes many of my favorite tunes! I also loved it because it reminded me of The Who's "Tommy"...reality, fantasy, and great music.)

3. BravoTV can help pass the time. (I watched shows like Project Runway, Real Housewives of NYC, and Tim Gunn's Guide to Style...I'm hooked!)

4. Don't get sick when it's Girl Scout Cookie time. (You don't want to know how many I ate!)

5. Quilt a little to make yourself feel better. (I only made this little fleece baby quilt all week.)

6. Take your antibiotics as instructed! (that should be #1!)

7. Rest.

8. Have a napping friend like The Purse Dog.

9. Be patient.

10. Remember "this too shall pass." And it did. Now, it's time to get back to work!

Here's one I finished just before I got sick:

I did some "faux" McTavishing. I really don't know how to do it, so I just wing it! It's my version of it.

This was a 'Saturday Sampler' from Leah's Fabric Gallery in Orange, CA. I like the fabric colors the customer picked.


Sorry, it didn't get a full-view shot of the quilt. It was huge. Here it is all folded up ready to take to my customer. Hey, wait a minute! Who got in the photo again? My silly Purse Dog!

Audition the Actor or Audition the Fabric?

Audition the Actor or Audition the Fabric...

The other day while quilting with my friends, (I call them "The Master Quilters"--I am such a rookie around them!) one of them pulled out some fabric to check and see if it would look good as a border on the quilt they were currently working on. She said, "I'm just auditioning the fabric."

Auditioning? ...how that reminded me of Daughter #2, who is getting married in Dec. She is a super talented actor and screenwriter who has had her 'foot in the door' in Hollywood for quite a few years now. I used to drive her around to auditions and acting jobs before she was 18. Then they considered her and 'adult' and said mom couldn't hang out with her on the sets. I miss those days. Such adventures we had! Such great food on all the movie sets, too!

Here's a story about my daughter I thought you might enjoy:

A few years ago her agency called and told her she had been picked to work on "24" to portray a 'Dead CTU.' She answered "Yes, of course." But then she asks me "Mom, what's a Dead CTU?"

Yes, I will admit, we are one of the only families in America who never watches "24." I got on the Internet and had to do a GoogleSearch to figure out what a CTU was. I'm sure you all know it stands for Counter Terrorist Unit. Apparently the scene they were shooting would show these CTU's all gassed and laying dead on the floor. She looked like one of the actresses who's character was going to die. You see, a higher paid actress doesn't have to lay on the floor 'dead' all day as they film. Their doubles do it. And here's some Hollywood magic for you... to make them look like they've been gassed the actors have Alka-Seltzer with a little food coloring in the their mouths. Foams up quite well! Yuck!

So there was my daughter laying there all day with no clue about the show. But she did her job well and she did her best to look dead. If you blinked, you missed seeing her on that episode. She's on for just a split second but I thought she looked the most dead of all the Dead CTU's. Of course, I am her biggest fan!

Pictured right: Keifer Sutherland with a "Dead CTU"...sorry this was not my daughter, but it was the same scene. She was dead somewhere else in the room.

And I am sorry to report that we are still one of the only families in America who doesn't watch "24"...although we did watch the episode my daughter was in a few seasons or "Days" ago...isn't that what they call it on that show?

And by the way...

Here is a quilt I'm working on where I auditioned the fabric...

My latest project is a baby quilt for a young mom at my church. It's a random collection of some of Anna Maria Horner's Chocolate Lollipop fabrics. I was trying to decide which fabric to use for the border.

Fabric #1 was too bright.

Fabric #2 was too dull.

Fabric #3 got the part!