I’m showing more quilts that might not be as exciting as some, but are in the tradition of using what we have to create something special. In this instance, for kids who need to feel special in their challenging lives. Children in hospitals who need to stay for a long time, or when they are going home after a long illness, children going to a new foster home, youth who are transitioning out of foster care at 18.

Here are kits that people pick up at a number of times and places, including at New Pieces store in Berkeley, as well as the EBHQ meetings last Monday evening of the month except July and December, drop-in sewing times at the Albany Methodist Church on Stannage at Marin Ave on 2nd Tuesdays and 3rd Saturdays. You do not have to be a member for any of this, but are asked to pay $5 for the meetings since we pay professional quilters for their time and travel.

People come to sort fabric into piles for others to design into quilts, or pick up a kit to piece everything together into a quilt top, or put all the layers together and make the whole quilt, or pick up a quilt that just needs to have the binding sewn on.

http://www.ebhq.org/drop-in-meet-up

http://newpieces.com

Next will be reporting on the SF quilt show, or perhaps from my own library in between.

Have a great day all!!

Good Wednesday afternoon to you all.

Quiltcon is new to me, but many of you have followed it for years! I know you can go to the website to see some of the quilts, but thought I would highlight my favorites and the local to Bay Area quilters. https://www.quiltcon.com

Local winners: in the Youth category, from Social Justice Sewing Academy

1st Place: Activist ABC’s
20” x 83”
By Bianca Mercado
Individual Member
Antioch, California
Quilted by Nancy Williams

The photo on the Quiltcon website doesn’t do it justice, and the measurements are for each panel, 20″ wide, and some longer than others as you can see in their photo.

I took videos of these panels and don’t yet know how to bring in videos. Sorry, still learning!! But please go to SJSAcademy website, the icon is the top one above Hello Stitch on the home page of the Portico, and you can click on that, go to their gallery. Activist ABC’s is at the top, you can see the whole thing and each block by clicking on the photos below the large photo. The volunteer embroiderers and quilters do an amazing job on the youth’s designs! It’s beautiful and inclusive of many people’s needs for justice.

The 2nd place youth winner is just as beautiful and meaningful, again by Social Justice Sewing Academy youth artist.

2nd Place: Exit Wound
55” x 60”
By Audrey Bernier
Individual Member
Antioch, California
Quilted by Nancy Williams

I’m sure it will come into their gallery soon, I don’t seem to be able to copy it, but you can go to quilt con’s website to see it. Since I can’t bring in the photo here, I trust that you’ll go looking for it!

Sherri Lynn Wood of Oakland, CA had a special exhibit. An artist who shares my values of recycle, upcycle, reuse of fabrics, etc. Check out her website https://sherrilynnwood.com

Next post will have photos I promise!!

Also, I’m working on bringing the pages back on this site. I want to highlight links to videos I have used in my sewing/quilting. Another page for entrepreneurs. Any requests?

Have a great day! Lisa

Good Morning Creative People,

I attended, and worked at, my quilt guild’s monthly meeting on Monday night. Because I was coming back from my vacation, spending the day working at creating a home for my future art studio, and single handedly working the raffle we have before our meeting, I completely spaced on preparing for a fantastic blog post!! Please forgive my newby faux pas!!

I could have taken photos of Sue Fox and Julia McLeod’s wonderful inspiring talk and trunk show. Beautiful, modern and traditional mixed silk and other fabrics quilts collaboratively created together. Please check out their website to see photos that should be right here!! I’m learning, thank you for your patience and support as I learn this business of reporting and sharing of the creations we all love to see and get inspired by for our own innovations.

Please check out their website to see what photos I didn’t take! https://silkandsalvage.com

Sue Fox is also a member of the SF Quilters Guild. Here’s a link to get yourselves to the San Francisco Quilters Guild quilt show coming on March 22-23, 2019

www.sfquiltersguild.org through February 28 it’s $10 for both days of the quilt show   $15 for the 2 days after that. I’ll be there, hope to see you!

In the meantime, I will be posting what strikes my fancy!! May your day be what you want it to be.   Lisa

Good afternoon from the Sierra Mountains in California.

I come up here every year at this time to Bass Lake. I like the winter because I don’t have to hear any motorboats or jet skis. I like the quiet for a change from being in the city. I do enjoy the children and teens playing in the snow. Lots of sledding down a little hill and snowball throwing! Since I haven’t lived in snow for about 35 years, I thrill at the sight of snowflakes falling silently. It’s magic! And waking up to every leaf, needle and branch glistening in the rising sunshine, takes my breath away. Of course I had to run out and take photos!!

My favorite is to hike up onto a mountain with a waterfall cascading down to the lake, icicles dripping from rocks above the water. Granite rocks at the top of a path with educational signs telling of the Mono Indigenous peoples who lived here, and still do in the area. Next time I come, I will visit the Sierra Mono Museum in North Fork, a nonprofit run by Mono native peoples depicting the history of their land, way of life, art, and what’s happening now.

I also bring sewing, and projects. never just one, right?! I can spread out on the kitchen/dining table, living room floor, and design, piece and sew. This year some of what I am working on are projects inspired by Karen Eckmeier aka The Quilted Lizard. Karen came to our guild, EBHQ, did workshops and an educational meeting. A delightful person!

I love lizards, have had unusual and beautiful experiences with them (just learned that they immunize ticks!!) Here are some photos of her and her creations, her books, and my inspired art.

Happy Saturday! My daughter yelled out the car window to people on the street, much to my son’s chagrin when they were 8 and 13!!

Hope you’re having a great weekend. What projects are you working on in between weekend-goings-on? Lisa

Hello Creative People,

I’m happy to say that I am resuming The Plaid Portico from the wonderful Carol Van Zandt. She is graciously teaching me how to take over her job of networking, reporting on events, sharing many of your beautiful quilts, and more.

I am thrilled to start this endeavor, as I have wanted to be blogging. She has shown me how many of you come to this site. Seeing each other’s quilts are very inspiring. And I find that other forms of art inform mine.

Sometimes in the face of what’s happening in this country, I wonder if my art is really contributing to making the world a better place. Then I look on the many forms of creativity, including the sounds of beautiful soothing or exciting music, the smells of artful cooking, beautifully pruned trees and landscaped gardens, the hard work of small farmers who grace the farmer’s market tables with the beauty of their labors and I know that whatever each one of us chooses to do with their own creativity (many more ways than I have listed), I know that because we are creative creatures, it’s what we must do!!!

Here in northern central California, we are having another so needed rainy day!! I look forward to walking in my beloved Nature, hearing the water rushing, breathing in the smells, viewing the sites, listening to the birds in Nature brought to us by the greatest creator of all!!!

May you enjoy this new day. In immense gratitude, Lisa Carey

Redwood Park in Oakland California is a favorite place of mine, the soaring redwood trees, the quiet sounds of the forest, the bright green of our rainy season. Here’s a photo I took of the creative way that the regional park workers have shored up the bank of the now rushing stream to protect the trail from slipping down. Remember Lincoln Logs?

It’s now time to pass the reins. I enjoyed creating this blog and photographing quilt exhibitions and highlighting the work of quilters I met along the way. Now I’m more interested in actually creating quilts than reporting on it and while I am retiring from the Plaid Portico, I am thrilled that the Plaid Portico still lives on–and images of all the quilts that are on it too. Lisa Carey has generously offered to take over the blog, and it will still be about quilts, though curated through a new lens.  Thank you Lisa, and thank you all for tuning in, and happy creating!

Carol Van Zandt

Sharing a few of the last things I’ve work on as my final sign-out! Enjoy!

by Carol Van Zandt. quilting by Hello Stitch

By Carol Van Zandt, quilting by Hello Stitch

Quilt back by Carol Van Zandt, quilting by Hello Stitch

Shirt quilt by Carol Van Zandt. Quilting by Hello Stitch

Tux Shirt by Carol Van Zandt. Quilting by Hello Stitch

Curtains by Carol Van Zandt

Happy Trails!