Cloudline Pinot Noir is by far my favorite wine. I first tasted it almost ten years ago when I was working for a restaurant as a bartender in downtown Los Angeles. We sold it for $13.00 per glass. One day after work the other bartender let me try it. It was delicious! Light and fruity. So it became my favorite and I was on the hunt to purchase bottles for my home. This was not easy at all! The only store I could find it at was a Whole Foods in North Hollywood, CA for $24.00 per bottle (and the restaurant was selling it for $13.00 per glass! Sheesh!). But soon they stopped selling it and I couldn't find it anywhere. Not even BevMo! In fact, they had never even heard of it.
I was very disappointed and other than going to Willamette Valley, Oregon myself there was no way for me to get it. But I never gave up. Every time I went grocery shopping I would search the wine aisle for it only to come away empty handed.
Until one day a couple years ago I found it in a Vons in Simi Valley! I literally said out loud "NO WAY!!!" I bought three bottles that day just to have stock on hand. Now I can buy it at my local Ralphs in Burbank so I am a happy girl. I just hope they don't decided to stop selling it again.
I can't tell you what the bouquet is or anything about the tannins or whatever else real wine tasters can talk about. I'm the kind of wine drinker that if it tastes good I drink it and that's it.
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Friday, January 2, 2015
Sports Fan Quilt - Anaheim Ducks
My boyfriend is an Anaheim Ducks fan so for his birthday I made him a Ducks quilt. I was walking through Joanne's one day and saw the Ducks fabric on sale and couldn't resist. I did a simple Irish Chain quilt and made a lap quilt for him. He loved it.
A unique gift for sure.
My first T-Shirt Quilt - aka "The Beast"
I post pictures of my completed projects on Facebook to show my family and friends what I have been working on. My cousin sent me a message through Facebook asking if I could make her a T-Shirt quilt for her boyfriend. She said he had a box full of old football T-shirts that were taking up too much room in the closet and she needed new shoes. Well, I can certainly understand the need for more space for shoes so naturally I agreed to help a fellow shoe fan. :)
This was the first time I had ever done a T-shirt quilt so I did a lot of research on it to find out what I needed to do. The key thing to any T-shirt quilt that I learned about: stabilizer, stabilizer, stabilizer. Which was incredibly challenging to find! I went to three different Joanne stores just to find exactly what I needed and still didn't find an exact match but got the next best thing. My cousin sent the shirts to me and there were a ton of T-Shirts in the box, yikes! A little intimidating for someone who hadn't done this type of quilt yet. Only one shirt didn't make it in the quilt because it was a basketball shirt and not a football one so it didn't match the theme and was sent back in one piece.
Stabilizing a shirt takes a LONG time, especially with so many shirts to do. The instructions for the stabilizer I bought said to press the iron into the shirt for 15 seconds. It took me an entire day just to do the stabilizing for all the squares.
I sized all the shirts based on the logos which was difficult because some of the logos were smaller (about 12x12 inch squares) and the others were larger (15.5x15.5 inch squares). Without a specific pattern to us it was daunting and I didn't know what to do with different size squares so to fix the problem I decided to add sashing and bordering to the smaller squares so that everything was a 15.5 inch square.
Since my cousins boyfriend is a fellow 49ers fan I decided to use 49ers fabric for the borders and backing with niners colors for the sashing on the smaller squares.
This was the first time I had ever done a T-shirt quilt so I did a lot of research on it to find out what I needed to do. The key thing to any T-shirt quilt that I learned about: stabilizer, stabilizer, stabilizer. Which was incredibly challenging to find! I went to three different Joanne stores just to find exactly what I needed and still didn't find an exact match but got the next best thing. My cousin sent the shirts to me and there were a ton of T-Shirts in the box, yikes! A little intimidating for someone who hadn't done this type of quilt yet. Only one shirt didn't make it in the quilt because it was a basketball shirt and not a football one so it didn't match the theme and was sent back in one piece.
Stabilizing a shirt takes a LONG time, especially with so many shirts to do. The instructions for the stabilizer I bought said to press the iron into the shirt for 15 seconds. It took me an entire day just to do the stabilizing for all the squares.
I sized all the shirts based on the logos which was difficult because some of the logos were smaller (about 12x12 inch squares) and the others were larger (15.5x15.5 inch squares). Without a specific pattern to us it was daunting and I didn't know what to do with different size squares so to fix the problem I decided to add sashing and bordering to the smaller squares so that everything was a 15.5 inch square.
Since my cousins boyfriend is a fellow 49ers fan I decided to use 49ers fabric for the borders and backing with niners colors for the sashing on the smaller squares.
This thing turned out to be HUGE! 81 inches by 55.5 inches! Because there was a lot going on in the squares already with the logos, I only quilted in the sashing and borders. Turned out quite well if I do say so myself. My cousin gave it to her boyfriend (who is now her fiancé, yay!!!) on Christmas and he loved it! Happy once again to provide someone with a great gift and bring a smile to their face. After all, that's what quilters do, right? Bring happiness and smiles to those we love.
Wedding Guest Book Quilt
In October of 2012 a good friend of mine was getting married. For their wedding gift I offered to make them a guest book quilt. They graciously accepted and so I began to work on it.
They were getting married outside on a Texas ranch and had a rustic theme to it so I went with a country themed fabric for the squares. I made all the squares with the themed fabric and the off white centers for the signatures and then ironed wax paper on to the backs to provide stability for the quests to write on them.
We set up a cute antique table with a bucket for blank squares and a bucket for signed squares, provided fabric pens and instructions for the guests to sign each square. I made the frame that was used for the instructions by gluing pieces of the scraps to a wooden frame and used a few scrapbook stickers as well.
Piecing it all together took some time and effort. I wanted it to have a scrappy feel to it without having lumps of the same color close to each other. So there was a lot of square moving and adjusting. At first I wasn't going to do an inner border but in the end I am soooo glad I did and the yellow really compliments the entire quilt. The border is just pieces of the same fabric I used on the blocks. For the backing I used a Texas print from Michael Miller fabrics to commemorate their wedding in Texas.
On the couples one year anniversary, which also happened to be the shower for their first baby together, I gave them their quilt. They were very happy to see it and read what all the guests wrote. It was so much fun to make this for them.
Piecing it all together took some time and effort. I wanted it to have a scrappy feel to it without having lumps of the same color close to each other. So there was a lot of square moving and adjusting. At first I wasn't going to do an inner border but in the end I am soooo glad I did and the yellow really compliments the entire quilt. The border is just pieces of the same fabric I used on the blocks. For the backing I used a Texas print from Michael Miller fabrics to commemorate their wedding in Texas.
On the couples one year anniversary, which also happened to be the shower for their first baby together, I gave them their quilt. They were very happy to see it and read what all the guests wrote. It was so much fun to make this for them.
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