fiberhart

California- Day 2

This day was fabric/fiber/quilts day! One of my friends, Bonnie, shares my love of fabric and sewing. She teaches quilting at a couple of the quilt shops near her home. Like me, she thinks creating, whether it be art or traditional quilts, should be fun and relaxing. She picked me up at Elaine's- and Elaine got our picture together before we left.



First we hit Soft Expressions, a store that caters to art quilters in Orange County. I thought I'd walked into a candy store- inks, paints, paint stiks, charms, beads, every supply you could want, all under one roof. And, they had a display of some of Rose Hughes' quilts upstairs. I'd seen her work in Quilting Arts, and even looked at her recently published book- but nothing compared to seeing them up close. She uses non-traditional fabrics, and incorporates hand stitching and beading into her designs. Her lines are simple and graphic, and her colors zing!! If you have the chance to see her work, do!

The best part of the day was next. I'd asked on the Quiltart list about any fiber happenings in Southern Cal, and Jamie Fingal responded with a gracious invitation to visit her studio in Anaheim. She has 'office' space in a complex that looked like it catered mostly to medical and business types. Her three rooms were filled with fabric, embellishments, and piles of her work. The best part? We got to see the apron that was on the last issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors. It was such fun looking at all the embellishments close up, and hearing about how she came up with this idea. I loved every minute of it, and Jamie even posed with me for a picture.



I needed a silk screen to take with me to Rayna's workshop in a couple of weeks- Jamie recommended the Art Supply Warehouse, so Bonnie and I hit the freeway for Westminster. We got turned around, had some laughs, and finally figured out where it was. That was another candy store, aisles and aisles of art supplies, reasonably priced, and lots of nooks and crannies with goodies. Their homemade paper was awesome. I found my silk screen, and also got some steel wool pads for rust dyeing, and a zero center ruler for making circles.

Then we headed back to Fullerton, where Bonnie lives and I spent my teen years. She drove through our old neighborhood- we only lived a block apart in high school. I couldn't believe our old house. The front landscaping is awesome, and the trees on the street- well, they've grown up and now they're big!



My bedroom was on the far right on the upstairs, with French doors out to the balcony. Elaine tells me once I snuck out through the balcony- for the life of me, I don't remember!

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Bonnie's house. I got the tour of her two rooms of fabric and quilts (her stash definitely outdoes mine!!), and gave her a copy of the Kemshall's Painted Quilt book- an art quilt addition for her library. We enjoyed wine and conversation with her husband Mirko (another high school classmate) while we waited to hear from Elaine about the arrival of our friend Judy from Phoenix. Unfortunately, Judy had car trouble outside Indio, and didn't made it to Fullerton Friday night for our planned dinner date. So Elaine, Bonnie, Mirko and I trekked off to my very favorite California restaurant, Rutabegorz. I love the funky interior, and the eclectic menu. It's a hippie joint that has been going strong since 1970, and the place was packed when we got there at 8 pm!



The food was as good as I remembered. After much consideration of the menu, which is actually a book about the size of a comic book, I decided on Chicken Green Chili Enchiladas. They were wonderful!



Over food and wine, we laughed and caught up on everyone. Our waiter was kind enough to snap a photo of all of us, after we'd eaten our fill.



It was a fitting end to a fantastic day!

And, to end it all, here's a photo I took the first day while I was at the beach with Elaine. I have no clue what these flowers are, but they caught my eye- bright, intense colors. Can you tell I was loving all that spring color??



More tomorrow!!