Spring Quilt Market Part 2

Happy Saturday to you! I'm thinking today will be a great day home with my sweetie and my pooch. Days off are few and far between, but for some lucky reason we have a few days off in a row. Hooray! Now don't get me wrong I love my job but the first 5 months of this year have flown by and I need to bond with home, my juki, and my longarm. So on to more Market pictures.

We were very impressed with two particular designers: Tula Pink and Tim Holtz.






This butterfly quilt is fabulous. It is designed using multiple blocks that are sewn together in sections. Very creative and gorgeous. It was quilted by Angela Walters. The quilting is phenomenal. We will be offering this quilt as a block of the month sew along in the fall.





Tula Pink's new book "100 Modern Quilt Blocks." This book is fabulous, definitely a must buy and make. We all bought her book and had her autograph our books.


So I must say this is one very talented girl. Thank you Tula for your creative spirit.



Tim Holtz is well known in the scrapbooking industry, altered book designs using his "eclectic elements". Tim has now ventured into the textile industry.
The new fabric line is called "eclectic elements" and it is fabulous. It will be arriving at Morning Star Quilts in the near future.






More Market posts to follow. Have a great Memorial weekend!
Marsha

Spring Quilt Market - Portland - Part 1

Quilt Market is always a highlight of the year for me. What inspires me at Market? The excitement of all the people, the laughter from two aisles over, the bright bright colors, new patterns, fabric fabric fabric, quilts, meeting new people, chatting with other shop owners, meeting designers and realizing they are just normal people with a life very similar to mine, and most of all spending quality time with my room mates. It's so fun to get back to your room at the end of an exhausting day put on your jammies, pour a glass of wine, and start organizing everything you looked at that day. Then there is the YES pile, the maybe pile, and the no pile. Every store has there own certain personality and you definitely buy accordingly, it's what makes us unique. It's so awesome that quilt stores take on their own style and each one can be so different. They say variety is the spice of life so lets be different and unique!

The first set of pictures I will share with you are "Quilt Show" quilts. I will posting a couple more times with pictures from Market.































Nice quilts!

"Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos."

April?

So we all know I'm a horrible blogger, but it is high time to move from a January post to almost April. Morning Star Quilts AKA The Happy Place has been one busy spot so far in the year 2013. And I happily say "thank you Lord" for watching over us.

Mark and I were recently fortunate enough to take a quick trip to Tempe Arizona to visit our son and daughter-in-law (or daughter-in-love). We enjoyed a couple of spring training games (go GIANTS), had some great meals, saw some family, and most of all talked incessantly with our kiddos. So of course since we've been home I miss them horribly and so wish they lived back here in Paradise. They are so fun to be with and such kind people. Maybe the state will some day get back on the right road regarding education and they will be able to come home!

The reason I started rambling about our trip is, as we were traveling I was overwhelmed by the displays of color so I stared taking some pictures of these colorful displays. Textile artists are so fortunate to be surrounded by color but look at these retail pictures. Very inspiring for me.


























So you put all this color on a piece of fabric and you create. Have fun quilting on all the bright wonderful fabrics that are designed just for us!

Cheers!
Marsha

Onboard for 2013!

An update from Morning Star Quilts. I've noticed on a lot of other posts that New Years resolutions haven't been very abundant. I like the idea of picking a word and trying to strive to attain that quality in my life. So this year when I get low or discouraged I will meditate and concentrate on all the things in my life that I have to be thankful for. And trust me we all have so much to be thankful for. So my word for 2013 is "Thankful."

Every year at Christmas we give our employees a small gift and a weekend retreat. We close the store at 1pm on Friday and reopen Monday morning. My husband cooks all our meals and we sew for hours. So much fun and we get so much quilting done. And need I say we laugh a lot. Here's a few pictures of our weekend.











A fabulous breakfast made by Mark including a Swedish tea ring made from scratch. Yummy!

So a couple more items to show you. We will be starting another Block of the month in June. It is a 6 month program. I need an approximate number of people interested so I can order fabric. I saw the quilt and it is beautiful.
Here's a picture. Give us a call if your interested.


There is a small amount of applique and embroidery. The blocks aren't hard but fun to make. Size is 65 x 65.

Marsha

Location:Paradise, California

Deck the Halls!

Happy Holidays to you all,

I absolutely love Christmas decorations. I mean I love love love
Christmas time. Every year I tell Mark "don't let me buy anymore decorations!" So now I have enough to do the store and our home. Crazy, right?

I woke up Monday with a nasty cold, enough to put me in bed. Now I have to tell you I don't have time to be sick! Who does, it's the holiday season. I used this down time to get our home ready for Christmas, in between all my naps. I thought I would share some pictures of our decorations. But first I would like to invite you to an Open House at Morning Star quilts. On Tuesday December 11 from 4 - 7 pm we will be serving snacks, wine, nonalcoholic beverages, presents, surprises and more. We would love to see you all. The store will be closed on December 11 until 4 pm so we can prepare for you. So come on by for some holiday cheer and live music, just our way of saying Thank You to the best customers ever.
























Happy Holidays,
Marsha

Pioneer Quilt Guild

Mark and I are on the road again this weekend. We are at the Pioneer Quilt Guild quilt show, the quilts are beautiful! Good job ladies. If you ever have a chance to make this show you'll have a great time.

We've been on the road a lot since August, throw in two shop hops, a couple mysteries at the shop, educational quilting week in Portland, and 5 vendor gigs and now we are TIRED. No more shows till March.

Mark and Kelly (son and his wife) from Tempe are flying home for Thanksgiving. Of course we love having them, hello we sent the tickets. lol This was our year to go to Tempe but I can't leave my parents alone on a holiday, so bring the kids to us. It will be a real joy to have both kids, grand kids, Mom and Dad, and hopefully my brother and his family for a great feast of food and thankfulness.

Pictures of Pioneer Quilt Show















Quilts from the show














Our booth.

Hugs,
Marsha

We have a guest blogger today! My mom doesn't generally let me write our blogs, but I thought it would be fun to share with you what part of our staff did this weekend.

I heard about a 5k marathon in Chico and if you know me I am not one for exercise but I have been doing a lot of walking. So when I started reading about this 5k I knew we could do it. Ronda, Laurie, my dad, myself, and three of my closest friends all participated in the Gnarly Neon 5k, where it doesn't matter who crosses the finish line first. You can hop, skip, jump, run, or walk your way through Bidwell Park.

We started the race in our white clothes and began our walk. Well some of us are very competitive and some aren't! So my Dad, Laurie, Ronda, and Shyanne had a battle amongst themselves for who could get there the fastest, and the rest of us took our time and enjoyed the park. Just so the girls (Laurie and Ronda) know, my dad was the fastest. Our whole group actually crossed the finish line together. The fun part of the race was as we were walking we went through color stations where we were hit with neon colored chalk. We came out of the race as human Easter eggs!

The race was a lot of fun. We are already planning what we will do next year. The Gnarly Neon proceeds benefit The Little Red Hen in Chico. The Little Red Hen is a great charity for children and adults with developmental disabilities. It's a great charity and a great day! Can't wait till next year.

Here's some before and after pictures,










So long for now,
Jen

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