MARY LOU RETREAT another Great Success! Wish you could see the tiaras closer-stay tuned for more photos

Above are the eleven ladies and myself who came long distances to do story quilts and get out of their boxes. Great fun and it was lovely for me to see some people stretch so much that they won't ever go back into their boxes or use their old fabrics or color palettes. One lady is going home and packaging some of her fabrics in a lovely packets to sell to guild members so she can buy more color! Yippee.

People who take my retreats are kind people too. Below is Sara from the Seattle area where she will take the new cat called "Stitch" home to live. That cat got more attention than Ricky Timms does! Pretty fun. There was a huge yoga group upstairs and they carried around the stray kitty but no one wanted it. It stuck around the JACC for two days meowing. The guy who manages the JACC part time came downstairs and asked Linda from Minnesota if she wanted a nice cat. She laughed and said "we are from Texas, Minnesota, Florida and everywhere else and no one lives here"-then everyone looked at me and both myself and my husband (him VERY are allergic to cats. So after about ten minutes Sara came up and announced she was going to Walmart to get a carrier, food and a cat box. Everyone clapped and the cat was then the "Offical" mascot. Sara made the cat a bandana of Tiara fabric I had and we all laughed....very fun.

We have a good Barbque place here in Spokane. I bought a 22 pound turkey and had it smoked while Nancy made fresh green beans with pecans and the other summer fixings to go along with it. The next day we had a cobb salad with the turkey also. Very fun.

Fairy gifts are a big part of my retreats and that is fun. This year someone brought buttons for everyone, Charlotte and Laura brought this amazing bumper sticker that will be my new saying from now on, I provided real "metal) tiaras this time, socks, dish towels, cute napkins, we had someone give fabric packs, darling book marks, lip cream, suckers and I can't remember what else. I did give out the bags with my girl logo that I will offer as soon as the website it up. That was fun too. Two of the ladies went to Home Depot to order design boards and they wore their large beautiful tiaras....they got great service and we all enjoyed their story!


Dishing up a meal for a nice break in thinking, designing and planning along with sewing of coarse. The meals were a lovely destraction and relief and we ate outside on a cool patio with teak chairs. Alot of laughter and enjoyment of friends and nice food.

Below are cookie made fresh by our chef Nancy Nelson...they were delicious in every way.

lovely dinner prepared by Nancy Nelson who was the cook with the mostest....we put her over the edge I think as she made fresh cookies and brownies each day along with many other delicious treats. The meals were wholesome and delicious.

Just wanted to mention how great plaids work with polka dots! Very fun. By the way, if you are taking my plaid class at John C.Campbell please bring three yards background instead of a yard and a half-piecing takes alot of background but is well worth it!

By the way Lorriane and Linda, what were YOUR secrets? I want to talk about this and we guessed alot of everyone else's secrets as Lorraines....please write and share so I can talk about it here.

Ella's Recipe for Whoopie Pies-A Sweet Treat from Maine

I got a nice Email from Ella from Maine after I got home with the recipe for Whoopie pies-they are delicious and they say easy to make! Here is her recipe....
My Family Whoopie Pie Recipe - Many Different ones all over New England. It Really amazes me how different the fillings can be. My husbands favorites are really the molasses ones, but most traditional ones seem to be chocolate.
6 Tablespoons shortening
1 Cup sugar
1 egg
2 Cups flour
5 Tablespoons cocoa
1 1/2 teapooon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 Cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Cream shortening, sugar, and egg until light colored. Mix dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, soda, salt) together in a separate bowl and add alternately to shortening mixture with the milk and vanilla. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. cook about 7 minutes at 425 degrees. Cool.

Whoopie Pie Filling
3/4 Cup Shortening
3/4 Cup Powdered Sugar
6 heaping Tablespoons Marshmallow Fluff (Creme)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon milk
Mix all with electric mixer until creamy. I sometimes add a teaspoon more off milk or vanilla and maybe a bit of salt. (just a few grains) to taste. Once cookies are fully cool. Spread filling on one cookie and put together with like shaped cookie. Enjoy.
Hope you are enjoying some summer weather. we have had more beautiful weather here, except for the cold, cold, days we went camping .... nothing like waking up in the open outdoors in a tent at 36 degrees... (I am not a true camper... ;-)
Ella

Two Cupcakes Make Darling Purses-not me, I don't know how-Laurie and Susan got nuts with Selvages

Laurie and Susan work on darling purses made of selvages from fabric....very cool!

I am a sucker for glorious vegetables and Lopez has them at their Saturday Market-they are fabulous looking and tasting!




A truck from Lopez-haven't seen anything like it before (maybe when I was in college) and look at the image below-who paints this kind of stuff? It has to be someone who lived through the 60's....

Lopez Island in the San Juans a slice of heaven with my angel friends!

I had to share this photo of my summer gazpacho which I have shared often here and also on my newsletter-sign up on the right hand column for recipes (scroll down until you see "newsletter"-it is easy-SEAGLASS Seaglass is found on the beach's in the Sound or the Ocean close to Seattle or Oregon-it comes in all colors. It is found along the beach when you beach comb and many pieces of jewelry are made of it and it can be glued on candle holders (glass) and other pretty things. See Laurie's sea glass below held in a lovely container in her window.
This trip was so different from my trip to Maine right before. Laurie's husband brought us delicious fresh crab and she made blackberry/raspberry cobbler- in Maine we had lovely lobster, scallops and blueberry desserts along with Moon pies (the recipe will be in my next newsletter). So close alike and yet so far- in any case the people were both lovely and I had a great time, and isn't this what counts?

Here we are! The cupcakes sitting on the boat with the captain and his first mate a quilter named Barbara (above)-lovely time and we stopped for a nice snack, cold drinks, wine and comparing our thoughts on God's beauty-the weather was wonderful and so many things to be thankful for....I was glad to be there and relaxing...

Below is Susan the cupcake who is making a purse from selvages....


I think this is all selvages from Mary Lou fabric that my friend Susan and also Laurie collected over the years...what would I do without friends who buy my fabrics???

A view of me relaxing on the boat with the tennies I bought in Hollywood...love them and also relaxing on the boat too....

Ice tea with some kind of libation and mint...it was delicious and relaxed me, that is all I know....since I don't embibe ever at home, I am subject to feeling like falling asleep anytime I drink, I am not really a fun person to drink with....

I am on a boat with my friends and this is what I see at Friday Harbour...lovely ocean!

Layered sea glass in Laurie's window at Lopez

Now, I am getting ready for my retreat tomorrow (field trip of Spokane first) then back to Idaho for the four days of demos on color, composition, drawings, getting out of the box and other fun things....Nancy is preparing great fabric.
Then next month I go to JohnC,Campbell Folk art school in North Carolina-if you would love to get out of the box using plaids and want to know more about them, light in artwork and composition, drawing people and enjoying the meals (fabulous) in Brasstown North Carolina, sign up! You will love the gals who have signed up as well as the other students. We all eat family style and you meet poet lauriets (hope I spelled that right), professors, farmers, educators, artists and loads of interesting people- I make little money and spend it at the art room but it fills my soul like no place else. Look at the right column to get their email address.

Good eats at the cupcake reunion!

Well, if you didn't already figure this out and how could you, my computer crashed as I was loading these fun photos in here. I may have lost all my handouts, photos and who knows what else....arghhhh. Anyway, you can see we had good eats at the cupcake reunion. NOw the Mary Lou retreat opens tomorrow and hopefully I can load photos on my husband's computer.....
Hot berry cobler served with ice cream...a Pacific Northwest treat!

We did eat some things good for us too

The Cupcakes Meet for Their tenth year at the Lattas of Lopez-Wonderful again

This was a quilt that Laurie made for her husband Kit about the Island they live on. Fabulous place....like a dream.
Cupcake wine, who knew?

Laurie has the cupcake table ready to serve from as we arrive-we sat outside with lovely drinks, and all the makings of a fabulous dinner and dessert too. Laurie makes Marco Polo drinks that are tasty and make you feel relaxed...but then maybe it is the island where Laurie lives and the view of the ocean.

Here Mel and Eilene bask in the sun with Mel wearing my hat and looking much cuter. The weather at Lopez Island in the San Juans was glorious.

Mel gets some sun with her "cupcake" hat on. I would wear one too if I didn't look like an old woman wanting to be a cupcake. :0)

Here Mel and Eilene discuss quilt projects, cooking and life in general on the ferry to Lopez...Susan and I watch and learn....

Candy ready for when we need energy and note it is in a "cupcake" container. :0)

This is a nice photo of one of the great projects for the book that Mel was doing at my house. We worked alot and she worked more. I cannot believe what all we got done! Lots of great stuff for the book. I think you will love what is in there. It will be out either next sept or Oct.

"There are NO bad Grandma's! says Charlotte's Grandson

This darling quilt was done by Charlotte Lorenzo who is coming for my retreat all the way from Florida in two weeks. :0) She did a story quilt about her Grandson and how she had forgotten his birthday or something like that and she said to him "am I a bad Grandma?" And he said "there are no bad Grandma's." Isn't this the perfect idea for a story quilt and since Charlotte has made many story quilts and has such fun stories along with her Sister Laura (the Webb sisters) she will have ideas for many more. If you haven't done a story quilt, perhaps you want to plan one.
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I designed a stork quilt for my book Quilted Memories and many people have done their own stork quilt, just like this darling one. Great job! Charlotte took this idea one step gurther and designed her own ideas for her own kids,Grandkids and Great Grand daughter. It is hard to believe she is so young and can have a great Grandchild. What fun and smiles this quilt evokes and it is a memory her Great Granddaughter will own for years to come.

IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN TO MAINE, PUT IT ON YOUR BUCKET LIST

I hope this Portland Light house shows just how beautiful this place is....


Below is where you could sit to eat lobster and enjoy the sun and the seagulls who want your food....we ate indoors.

My dinner at the lobster shack



Here is one of the guys we ate on our lobster sandwiches-he was tasty alright-Maine lobster is wonderful.

A darling shop that jeanne took Sue and I to-right on the Atlantic Ocean.

This sign was where we went to order McDonalds Cokes-they could not answer you back because of a noise ordinance- so basically you pulled up to the window and the guy said he couldn't hear you but it was against the law to talk on the order box-this is in Portland Maine. Weird.

I got permission to take this photo and look at this little kids spelling-isn't this the cutest and sweetest message?

Here I had my chance to draw on the wall at LLBean along with the kids...fun

Huge huge boot at LLBean- very fun for everyone

Door handles at LLBean where the store is open 24 hours a day every day of the year-no locks on any door. Cool place!

This Indian was huge and it reminded me of childhood trips in the car to South Dakota when I prayed that God would turn me into an Indian_I loved the colors, the symbols and the beauty of their culture-I am still Irish and Norweigen/Swedish-my prayers did work.

I have a whole new appreciation for light houses now

How is this for a cool business name???

I love the imagery of this and wanted it in a future quilt...isn't this neat?