Hey…I just got a quick note, which I’m sharing here.  If you want anything from Interweave, click through with the link on the left and use this information:

The Quilting Daily shop is offering an additional 10% off purchases and free U.S. shipping, plus 50% off many items throughout the store. Some exclusions apply, but most of our digital products such as eBooks, QA Workshops, downloads and even some of our kits are included.

Among other things my video workshop is on sale, along with a bazillion other really good video workshops and books!   Use

CYBER10 to get an additional ten percent off.

And yeah, my road to the hot place is better paved.  Obviously I didn’t get that post up before Thanksgiving.  More good stuff IS coming, I promise!

Banners in the Quilt Museum, York, England. Other than these banners, photography was not allowed.  Glad I could snap there–they are lovely!

Saturday was our day to meet Hanneke W., an internet friend who lives near York.  Eli needed a sleep-in day, so I arranged to meet Hanneke at the Quilt Museum in York and then Eli would join us about lunch time.  As you might gather by our jackets, the weather turned a tad nippy and blustery that Saturday.

With online friend, and now in person friend, Hanneke!

We had a wonderful visit at the Quilt Museum, where we saw costumes from Downton Abbey including garments worn by the wonderful Maggie Smith as The Dowager Countess Grantham, aka Aunt Violet.   I want her wit, but being in the presence of her costume, alas, did not impart that skill!

The hostel was about a mile and a half from the old medieval walls of York, so Eli and I walked in each day

Our walk from the hostel to the old part of the city went down this road.  You can see the Minster (Cathedral) in the distance.

and then “home” in the evening.

Approaching one of the gates to the old city of York.

Entering the old city at Petersgate, which was founded in AD 71 by the Romans (or more likely, by them on top of a village already there).

Recently learned a fun saying:  The difference between an American and a Brit?  The Brit thinks 100 miles is a long way to travel.  The American thinks 100 years is a long time.  TOO true!

Just a short way down the street into town I found a stitchery shop with a quilt in the window commemorating the recent “stage” of the Tour de France that had come through in July.

One of the blocks from the Tour de France stitchery quilt.

Another of the blocks from the Tour de France stitchery quilt.

It was so much fun to meet Hanneke!  We have known each other for years through the QuiltArt list and more recently Facebook.  We met her daughter and husband for lunch, where they urged Eli and me to have dessert, so we decided to try Sticky Toffee Pudding.  In England, a pudding isn’t the same as the US custard-ish dessert.  Instead, it is a dessert, a sort of moist cake.  OH MY.  I recently ordered the dates and Black Treacle (sort of like molasses but without the bitter edge to it) needed for the cake and made it.  EVERYONE loved it!  YUM!  Good thing, as the recipe makes 7-8 servings, each (literally) about 800 calories.  This way if everyone eats it, I won’t eat all of it and weigh 800 pounds.  THANK YOU Hanneke and family for coming down to York for lunch!

Wandering about the pedestrian zone of old York. This city is absolutely stunning, picturesque, loaded with history, and not a hustle-bustle kind of frenetic place but one where you can walk, savor, enjoy.

Eli got up late morning and made his way into town.  On the way, he passed the York Museum.  Outside was a stand with wild birds:  hawks and owls.  So I promised after lunch we could go see them.  The owls ended up being one of the highlights of the trip for Eli.

If you paid a modest sum to help support the wildlife and rehab group, you could hold the owls. This one is an Asian Wood Owl.  Did you see that, a HAPPY teen.  Yes, methinks working with animals is a good future for him!

The owl is getting acquainted with Eli (wearing a gauntlet), his handler helping.

Petting the owl. SO soft!

There were many hawks and owls, about 8 total.  I must’ve taken 100+ photos–resource imagery.

A little owl.

Barn owl.

LOOK at those stunning feathers on the barn owl!

Great horned owl. I realized later that I can spot myself reflected in his eye…I’m just to the left of the sky, holding up the camera!

That Asian owl. Glorious!

Then we went to the York Museum.  There is a place called Jorvik that is described by some guide books as a bucket list place for Brits to visit, by others as “Disney version of Viking  York.”  It looks to be a great interactive, history-based place for families.  We opted for the greater range of real artifacts at the Museum.

This  urn is of an African Style said to have been introduced by Emperor Septimius Severus circa 300 AD; this may resemble his wife. WOW!

Not the best photo, but actual leather shoes from Vikings, circa 1000 AD.

Embroidered woman’s cap, 16th century.

And LOOKIT these massive antlers!  Horns of a Gian Red Deer, which went extinct about 7000 years ago.

Standing underneath the horns, looking up.  They are probably 10 feet wide?

Nose piece from the York Helmet, an Anglian warriors helmet circa 1000 AD.  I love the design work.  Probably an inch wide.

The Middleham Jewel. Described as “the finest piece of medieval fold-working ever found in England” discovered near Middleham Castle, dates to 1450-1500 AD.

What a day! My only frustration is that I didn’t take the time to sketch then (can you imagine a teen waiting an hour for mom to sketch?  I couldn’t either.)  And I haven’t made time since I got back, either…..I MUST SKETCH!  So much esign inspiration!

We trekked back to the Hostel, had a remarkably good dinner there and I had another Pimm’s.    The next day, Anna!  Another internet friend, another day in the old city.

At the Snowy Owl Inn, Waterville Valley, NH, in the heart of the White Mountains at peak leaf season

Most quilt teaching jobs are in the standard Grange or church basement, a basic rectangular box, often in a basement.  You reach it by going to an airport (ugh), flying to another airport (ugh), connecting to a third (or heaven forefend a fourth) airport.  Frequently with long layovers in loud seating areas with expensive coffee and stale food.   The quilters are always fun, but the getting there, not so much.  This time was GLORIOUSLY different!   I drove 5 hours from my home in Maine to the White Mountains in NH where Terri Sontra, of Purple Moose Designs, held her first (hopefully annual and then semi-annual) retreat.  Terri has been looking for the right venue for several years and finally found the Snowy Owl Inn nestled in the heart of the mountains.

The Snowy Owl Inn, Waterville Valley, NH

I can tell you right now, I want to go back as a participant and just sew and play at a retreat–been far too long since I’ve been on one, Terri wants to do things RIGHT, the lodge owners were incredibly wonderful…well, anyone wanna come play?

Balinese Garden table runner (c) Sarah Ann Smith  (Pattern available here)

Terri selected my Balinese Garden pattern for the Saturday teaching portion of the retreat.  We all arrived Friday afternoon in time for dinner.  Class, which was optional for the participants, was Saturday, but pretty much everyone ended up doing a bit of something I was teaching–FUN!  Saturday evening Alison Bolt came  and gave a humorous talk.  Sunday was more sewing–Terri invited me to stay the weekend (which happened to be the long holiday weekend AND peak color in New England for the leaf-peepers) but I needed to return home (fooey!), then folks went home Monday.  Like I said, I wanna come back as the not-teacher, too!  Several of the ladies went for walks in the woods nearby, and one took a free guided hour-long hike Sunday morning (put on by the town/center).

The students did fabulous work with my pattern–I love it when folks cut loose!  So I’ll salt in photos of what they did throughout this post.

Love the soft, spring colors in this.

What’s awesome is how she did it…

Ann wasn’t feeling well and packed in a hurry to head to the retreat after work. She tossed in this multicolored batik and made all her leaves and flowers from it!  That’s called making your fabric work for you!

Terri had some laudable (and achieved) goals for the retreat:  beautiful location, reasonable lodging fees, good and plentiful food on site (the Inn doesn’t normally run a restaurant full time, but they fixed meals for us and we snarfed), a FULL table per person, and the lighting in the room was REALLY good–no one needed to bring the usual array of extra lamps.  We had participants from Massachusetts, Maine, NH and Vermont.

As you can see, we had lots of room. Terri had her booth stuff (she vends at quilt shows) set up at the entry with all sorts of useful goodies (including a great selection of needles and batiks, yes I bought some!). I had the other end for my samples etc. Each student had an entire table to use, and there were elevated cutting stations and ironing boards in the center.  And in the lower left, the table with the drawings/prizes.  The swag bags for participants were to die for wonderful, too!  Even Alison (the lecture) and I got our own name tags and mugs!  Thank you, Terri!

Didn’t this table runner turn out amazing? When class broke for dinner on Saturday, she had maybe three flowers put together. Came in the next morning and she had this DONE plus (see next photo).   She even got some sleep, but she stayed up WELL past my bedtime!

She had these extra leaves to practice on as I suggested, since you play with thread colors and stitches on your machine With a “spare to practice” you don’t have to pick stuff out!

Here’s a cheerful sample.  What I love is seeing students take fabrics I’d never think to use and come up with something they love!  Very cottage-y!

Love her blues. Starr worked on several projects on Saturday, so glad she got so much done.

The female half of the Snowy Owl Inn owners got to take the class, and I’m so annoyed I didn’t get a photo of the finished top–I thought I had. It turned out GREAT!  Here it is in progress.

I love for how this student brought fabric that echoes my pattern and is using my process to enhance the fabric.  She is relatively new to sewing, but has a great eye and good design sense.

This student has a quilt/bedspread she made and wants to make a wall hanging to go in the bedroom. She brought the fabric used in the quilt, so we figured out how to use some of that fabric in the top.

She brought out the fabric to show her neighbor-table-mate, and we both said BORDERS! Make it bigger, use it as a border. Isn’t this FAN-flippin’-TASTIC?!!!! I so want pics when it is quilted. She bought some gold thread to use. Swoon!

Next year, Terri has Ami Simms booked.   I may not do the project/class, but I want to go and laugh!  If Eli’s cross-country season runs the same, I could leave after the meet on Friday, be in NH by bedtime, and spend the weekend…..hmmmmm……..

Anyway, if you are looking for a great getaway retreat, I can say hands-down Terri’s was great.  Now, can I really escape for a play weekend?  Since I began teaching a decade ago (a DECADE?  Already?!!!!!????) I haven’t gone away to play at quilting, feeling that I am gone enough.  But I’m taking next year off of teaching to be home for Eli’s senior year and sports.  So…..if I wait until after that week’s meet is over…….Terri, when do you start taking deposits?

Looking back on it, this has been an exceptionally good year for getting published!   It has also been a bit of a challenge as I’ve had to keep three quilts and one watercolor unpublished for an extended time while jurying of exhibits was done or waiting for books to be published.  The first of the quilts was the one of Eli running during Cross Country season, which I wrote about here.   This is the second:  Two of Us,

Two of Us, (c) Sarah Ann Smith 2014. Part of the Inspired by the Beatles challenge and an anniversary gift for my husband of 33+ years.  Of course, as soon as I gave it to him (late) I then told him he had to give it back for two years because it was going in an exhibit and book!

part of the art quilt challenge organized by Donna Marcinkowski DeSoto.  The recently released book is Inspired by the Beatles:  An Art Quilt Challenge.   You can read more about the challenge here and order the book or read more about it here.  Even better, if you are lucky enough to be going to International Quilt Festival in Houston this year, selected works from the exhibit will be on display there, including mine!

Donna asked participants to choose a Beatles song title, then make a quilt with that same title, inspired by the song perhaps, but careful NOT to use any copyrighted lyrics, images, etc.   I had been wanting to make a quilt like this for Paul as an anniversary gift for a couple years–he is notoriously hard to get gifts as he always says he doesn’t want anything.  I wanted a scrapbook feel to this quilt, similar in some ways to the kimono quilt (you can see it here) that is pictured in one of the photos on the bottom right which I gave to Mother for her 80th birthday.

Detail of Two of Us, by Sarah Ann Smith (c) 2014.  These photos include the only two grandparents who were alive for  the boys to know, Paul’s dad and my mom.

I went through our photo albums and boxes of photos, picking pictures of us from the time we met until just recently.  Beginning in the top left corner, you can see photos of Bissau, in the west African nation of Guinea-Bissau, where I met Paul.  A bit of our wedding invitation, a wedding photo, our home on Capitol Hill in DC, from Canada, Bolivia, Machu Picchu, Gabon and our first generation of cats run across the top.  Moving clockwise down the right you can see our home in Arlington, Virginia (I still love this architecture more than any other home we’ve had), me preggers with Joshua, with the boys when they were little, pregnant with Eli, in the hospital when Eli was just a day old then the first ferry ride home, to our home on San Juan island in the bottom right corner.

Moving right to left on the bottom, pictures of the boys when little and life at home.  And up the left side, the boys as they grew,  moving to Maine, Joshua with his beloved guitar (and boy is he GOOD) and Eli, honor student and exceptional athlete.  Can I just say, Life is GOOD!

Here’s to book, a 176 page hard-bound whopper. Each quilt gets its own page (some get two), with a fun and extensive commentary written by Donna from our replies to her questionnaire that tell about our lives, inspiration and methods. Click on the links in the first paragraph to learn more.

The quilt is made with fused collage.  For the house, Paul, the pug and me, I sketched us on white cloth with colored pencils.  I hate to admit but since I made this over a year ago, I don’t recall for use WHICH pencils I used–either Prismacolor or Inktense.  I have since learned that some of the Inktense colors are not colorfast, so I HOPE it was prismacolor!  Total finished size, as required for all quilts in this exhibit, is 24×24 inches.

This is a typical two-page spread. The book is organized alphabetically by title.

And a shot of “my” page! Artwork (c) Sarah Ann Smith.

And since we are quilters, I must show you the back.  I did the threadwork at the top stage and did simple outlining around the photos.  But it is the letter and photo I want you to notice:

Paul and me on our wedding day outside the church, and a photocopy of the very first letter Paul ever wrote me. Yes, we wrote snail mail.

You see, Paul was working in West Africa and I was in grad school at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy near Boston when we met.  The letter is hilariously “State Department-ish.”  Paul was acting Ambassador (Charge d’Affairs, ad interim) for the first time, so for his first letter to me, he wrote to thank the American (me)  for her part in improving morale at post, in particular that of the admin officer (that would be Paul).  Then he added a note saying this would probably be suitably framed in something tacky and hung in the bathroom.  I vowed upon receipt to do just that–in his first apartment when he was back in the US.  Little did I know that in less than 10 months, his first apartment would be OUR condo as newlyweds.  The original letter still hangs in a tacky metal frame from the drug store (which is sorta falling apart, appropriately), over the toilet in our bathroom.  The signature on the letter has faded to near invisibility.

So that’s the “Two of Us.”  Plus kids, cats, pug, and assorted stuff from all over the world.

Just a very quick note:  Interweave is having a 25 percent off sale on its top 25 products, and mine is among the top Quilting 25!   Check it out here.  The sale ends tonight, so move quickly.  If you do the download, I highly recommend the High Def version–it is really sharp and crisp. Will be back soon with some pics of teaching at Terri Sontra’s Purple Moose Designs inaugural retreat in the White Mountains of New Hampshire…so much fun!

The cover (back and front) of my DVD, Art Quilt Design From Photo to Threadwork, with Fabric Collage and Machine Quilting. Order the DVD from me here, or the download and DVD from Quilting Arts/Interweave here.  Click to see larger.