Tag: Tea and Ephemera

  • My last workshop in New Zealand

    My last workshop in New Zealand

    What a pleasure it was to teach my final workshop in Whangarei, where I taught my last workshop in New Zealand 2 1/2 years ago, after NZ Quilt Symposium. There was an arts festival happening in the park outside, on the morning of class, and we got to enjoy some live music from a guy…

  • Ngaruawahia, say that three times fast

    Ngaruawahia, say that three times fast

    When you look at the word Ngaruawahia it looks very intimidating. The ‘Ng’ is pronounced like ‘ng’ in song, and the ‘r’ has a bit of a trill like the r’s are pronounced in Spanish, and each vowel is pronounced separately like you do when you say Hawaii [huh-WAH-ee]. So after you break the word…

  • Teaching at the foot of Mount Taranaki

    Teaching at the foot of Mount Taranaki

    After our two restful days at Lake Rotoiti, we hit the road on a drizzling Wednesday morning to drive 5 hours to the Taranaki peninsula on the west coast of New Zealand. We drove on narrow twisty turning roads over steeply rolling hills and farmland, best suited for grazing animals that can climb steep hills.…

  • Beautiful Tauranga

    Beautiful Tauranga

    On Tuesday, Phil and I drove three hours southeast from Auckland to the city of Tauranga. Because this was Phil’s first day driving on the other side of the road after a 2 year gap, we made sure to take plenty of breaks. We pulled over at the Karangahake gorge and thought it looked like…

  • Next stop Napier

    Next stop Napier

    On the 4th of February, I flew north from Christchurch to Napier, where I had a wonderful stay with a newer guild member named Maggie, who has an airbnb in the lovely town of Havelock North about a 20 minute drive south of Napier. It was much warmer there than it had been in Christchurch,…

  • Come along on a virtual tour of New Zealand with me

    Come along on a virtual tour of New Zealand with me

    Now that we’re all house bound, I can’t think of a better time to do some armchair traveling, so follow along with me over the next couple months while I share weekly posts on each location I visited on my trip to New Zealand. I left Sacramento on January 27th, after 2 years of planning…

  • Teaching at International Quilt Festival

    Teaching at International Quilt Festival

    I’m a bit late getting this blogpost written, but my life has become a lot busier now that I’m working in the makerspace 4 days a week. I’m also furiously prepping for my upcoming trip to New Zealand, organizing a teaching trip to Australia next July, getting things ready for a full exhibit of my…

  • Painting and A Spot of Tea in Sonoma County

    Painting and A Spot of Tea in Sonoma County

    I had a lovely diversion teaching two workshops in Santa Rosa last weekend, oblivious to the horrors unfolding in other parts of our country until I returned home. On Thursday, I drove to beautiful Santa Rosa, a small city in Sonoma county about 2 hours from Sacramento, that I lived in for 3 years in…

  • My weekend with Tea and Llamas

    My weekend with Tea and Llamas

    Last weekend I flew to Colorado to give a lecture and teach a workshop. My trip did not get off to a good start because my flight was delayed 6 times since the night before LAX had a 3 hour power outage which screwed up the schedule for any plane flying threw LAX, which is…

  • Peace, love and happiness in the heart of bourbon country

    Peace, love and happiness in the heart of bourbon country

    Last week I had the privilege to teach at Ephemera Paducah, and what a great time I had at this wonderful art and mixed-media supply store, workshop space and retreat facility. Besides being the home of the National Quilt Museum, Paducah also has a thriving arts community which could be one of the leading factors…

  • Tea and Ephemera in Santa Clara

    Tea and Ephemera in Santa Clara

    I had a great time with the ladies in the Santa Clara Valley Quilt Association last week. I drove down on Sunday to give a Monday morning lecture followed up with a private viewing at the San Jose Quilt and Textile museum and Tea and Ephemera Workshop on Tuesday. I love how these two pieces…

  • Judy’s European adventure- part 2, Nadelweldt

    Judy’s European adventure- part 2, Nadelweldt

    We returned from Strasbourg to the lovely village of Ettlingen, where our hotel was located for the duration of the Nadelweldt convention to began organizing for my exhibit and teaching. I have to give a huge thank you to my friend Birgit Schueller, who recommended me to the organizers of this show, and I can’t…

  • What a great way to start 2018: part 1

    What a great way to start 2018: part 1

    It was so great starting my teaching year at Craft Napa. Hands down, it has to be my favorite venue to teach at. Napa is only an hour away from Sacramento, so it was easy for me, my daughter Indigo, and friend and fellow teacher Melanie Testa to pack up the car and head over to…

  • Exploring new directions with a variety of media

    Exploring new directions with a variety of media

    Recently I used acrylic inks to bring new life to a couple ‘finished’ pieces that, to put it simply, felt unfinished. I really love the way they look after adding a larger, more colorful, image. Each piece now has a dominant focal point painted with acrylic inks on top of a subtle, mainly monochromatic, background that was created with a variety…

  • Oh Canada! Your quilters put on a great show

    Oh Canada! Your quilters put on a great show

    Jan Krentz and I welcome you to the city of Niagara Falls This was my first trip to the Toronto area of Canada, I’ve been to the east and west sides of Canada, but that was many years ago, back when the border was less daunting. I had a relatively easy crossing, but after talking…

  • Tea and Ephemera and Heavy Metal at Road to CA

    Tea and Ephemera and Heavy Metal at Road to CA

    So what is ephemera? Well, here is the definition from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary EPHEMERA 1: something of no lasting significance  2: ephemera plural : paper items (as posters, broadsides, and tickets) that were originally meant to be discarded after use but have since become collectibles   Tea & Ephemera is a class that’s all about expanding ones view of…

  • A Spot of Tea in Springfield, Missouri

    I had a lovely time in Springfield with the Ozark Piecemakers at their annual guild show. My trip began with seeing a fabulous textile exhibit at the new Springfield Branson airport including the humorous work of Pam RuBert and beautiful organza work of Rosemary Claus-Gray, if you live in that part of the country I…

  • Charting a Course in Color

    I teach color theory very much like you would learn it in art school, because I think the way to really understand color is by mixing paint and seeing what happens when you physically add one color to another. As an educator I believe experiential learning like this creates the deepest level of learning for most people. In the…