Betty Blais

Newport Aquarium

2011-05-04T09:34:00.000-07:00

After Quilt Festival in Cincinnati, we went to the Newport Aquarium with Ron and Vivian Spreadborough of Heirloom Stitches. It's a very nice Aquarium with a very good penguin display. In the Rainforest display, we learned of a new tree in the Pacific Northwest.

Elvis is in the building!

2011-05-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

While in Elizabethtown, we went to breakfast at Jerry's J-Boy and had the worst meal we've ever had. Greg said it was worse than Army food! But Elvis was there!

Tornado party

2011-05-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

The weather in Paducah the week before the quilt show was terrible. Thunderstorms and torrential rain and multiple tornado warnings. As always, we stayed in an RV park, Cypress Lakes RV Park. We were monitoring the weather channel and NOAA weather site when a tornado warning was issued for the county we were in as well as surrounding counties. Everybody gathered outside the laundry room, it being the safest place in the park. We all waited outside until really heavy winds started then a number of us decided to go inside. The men, of course, stayed out. I'm sure they'd have joined us if anybody saw a funnel!

Waiting for the siren. Tarjais, aka Butthead, is in the mesh bag, Cayenne in the cooler.

Kitty transportation. We were the only ones that brought cats to the shelter.

Food

2011-05-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

After Quilt Festival in Cincinnati, we headed to Paducah for the AQS show. We decided to stay a few days in Elizabethtown, KY. From there we visited Bardstown and went to the The Old Kentucky Home. Driving around Bardstown we found a butcher shop and decided to shop, hoping to find some lamb. No lamb to be found, but we did find some unusual items that we would never find in Oregon, or anywhere else on the west coast!

Laptop help

2011-05-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

This is what I have to do to work on my laptop in the truck because I can't see the screen in daylight. Anybody know a better way?

Leaking Paint Truck

2011-05-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

We followed this paint truck leak in Oklahoma on our way to the International Quilt Festival in Cincinnati. It went on for about 30 miles then leaked off an exit.

Houston prize winners

2010-11-27T15:02:00.000-08:00

We recently vended at the Houston International Quilt Festival, November 3rd through 7th. Friend and designer Diane Carter came up with an idea to have a party on Friday night, the 5th. She made up 200 adorable "Angel-Ina" pins that we handed out to party-goers along with a free pattern on how to make her. We also handed out LOTS of chocolate.

The participants were told to wear their pins proudly for the next two days and we would wander around the festival handing out $25 gift certificates to the first eight people we found wearing them. Here are pictures of the winners. Congratulations to them all -- and look for our party in Cincinnati!!

Susan Rutter Knapp and me

Marga Tegtmeyer


Denise Lassiter-Vachon


Starr Nielsen, member Sarasota Surface Design Group

Barbara Jones

Diane Carter and Maida Hoffman

Mandy Downes (left) and Catherine Dewar (right), mother and daughter from the UK

Lunch at Embellishment Village

2010-07-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

We're babysitting Joanne's dogs, Annie and Chappie. Marliss always brings extra lunch for our dog, Aniu, but this week she was feeding three.

From left to right there is Annie, a Shelty, Chappie, a Golden and Aniu, our Alaskan Husky.

Woodford Reserve tour

2010-07-11T12:55:00.000-07:00

We took a tour of the Woodford Reserve Bourbon Distillery. We had never heard of it before, but it was a good tour and good bourbon. By the parking lot was a lovely horse sculpture made with bourbon barrels.

Kentucky horse country

2010-07-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

We had two and a half weeks to kill between the AQS show in Paducah and Quilt Market in Minneapolis so we decided to tour around Kentucky. It will be added to our list of favorite states. We had some incredible weather for a few days. We had 9" of rain in ONE day while we were in Berea. The truck and trailer were sitting in a 4" deep puddle for a day.

We visited horse country, during the Kentucky derby, no less. It is absolutely gorgeous. I expected a lot of white picket fences, but they're all black. Easier to maintain, I'm told. Since it was in the spring, there were lots of babies around.

At one spot, I spied a mare and her colt close to the road, so had to stop and say Hi. There were two mares and they were both guarding the young one at first.

But the little guy was curious and peeked under his momma's belly to get a look at me.

The mares finally decided I didn't seem dangerous and I got a good look at him.

We actually felt compelled to watch the Derby!

2009-08-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

My brother, Ski, belongs to the Tri County Gun Club in Sherwood, Oregon. He bought a 22 rifle for both Greg and I and we went to the range with him. I never thought "killing paper" could be so much fun. We own a 9mm luger that we took to the range a few weeks ago. I definitely prefer the rifle.

Greg with his rifle:

Ski helping Greg sight in his rifle:

Greg with our pistol:

Here is my target at 25 yards. Annie Oakley, eat your heart out!

Here's the target that was at 50 yards. Three of those bulls eyes were mine.

Our yard is full of goldfinches. One thing they particularly enjoy is the water feature and pond. They line up in the hydrangea to the left of it. One or two will jump on the water feature, take a few drinks and a bath and fly off. Then the next one or two will hop on and repeat the procedure. Most of the time they are quite polite, but every now and then a bully comes along.

These little gluttons are eating me out of house and home. I'm going through 10 pounds of thistle a week. We have two tube feeders and two sock feeders and they are constantly covered with finches.

Our raccoons, a mom and three babies, are back living under the deck. Now I know why I have no ripe tomatoes, zucchini or beans. More gluttons!

I went out Friday morning to feed the fish and the pond was almost empty. It's about an 800 gallon pond, so couldn't have leaked that much through the bottom. Greg was sure that Aniu had gotten back by the pump and bumped a hose loose or something, but, after investigating, cut her some slack. The pump had turned itself off when the water level got too low for it to function properly. When he filled the pond halfway full and turned the pump on, he discovered that the racoons had chewed holes in the hose. He said it looked like those ribbon hoses we used to use to water the garden. Water was squirting out of the holes. Joanne said the babies were probably teething. He bought a new hose and threaded it through pvc pipe to protect it. The next morning I got up and they had pushed the water feature over. Fortunately, they pushed it towards the pond or it would have been emptied again.

We jumped up and down on the deck, Aniu barked and scratched at the deck and the racoons finally moved on again.

2009-08-08T15:53:00.000-07:00

We just got home on Tuesday from our trip to International Quilt Festival in Long Beach, CA. It was a great show, but all of the Quilt Festivals are great. They had a lot more quilts than last year and it seemed like more vendors as well.

It was a delight to meet Carol Ireland of San Diego, who modeled the denim shirt that she had embellished using Pippa Moore's pattern JOY. She painted the clouds using Lumiere paints. After seeing our Angelina demos, she said she would use that from now on. She teaches a class in this so watch your quilt shops in San Diego and sign up!

She embellished it to the nines. All kinds of bugs, bead and baubles.

We had our usual great team helping in the booth.

Here is my cousin Dorothy Hammell demoing our foiling supplies and Paintstiks.

Here is Allyson Volkman demoing Angelina. She worked for us last year, too.

Also demoing Angelina were Marion Shimoda and Lisa Coulombe. They all did a terrific job!

We took a small detour home via Sonoma to do a little (or a lot!) wine tasting. On the way to Sonoma, we caught site of a tire flying across the freeway. It missed our windshield by about 3" and left skid marks on the side of the trailer. Whew!

When we got home, we discovered that a family of racoons had moved in under our deck. Once the dog got home, they decided to move out, fortunately.

Portland had experienced a week long heat wave of 100 degrees and higher while we were gone and my poor garden is fried!

The trip from hell

2009-08-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

We headed out for two new shows, Minneapolis Quilters in Duluth, MN and NQA in Columbus, OH on 6/1/9. We thought it would be our normal uneventful trip. Boy, were we wrong!

It started with Greg blowing a hole in the black tank. We dripped sewage through Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota. The insulation in the underbelly was soaked and the bottom cover is destroyed. The good news is that our insurance (Safeco) will cover the repairs with only a $250 deductible. Our Safeco policy evidently has a "stupid" clause in it.

The Duluth show was downright AWFUL!! I heard they only had an attendance of 5,500 this year, as opposed to the 10-15,000 they claim to draw.

We got to Columbus, OH after skirting a few "thunderstorms that could turn into tornadoes". When we got here, Greg noticed a problem with our axle. The tires on one side were separated by 1 1/2", on the other 5 1/2". $760 later we had an axle that worked. The guy that repaired it said the axle on one side had totally separated from the trailer. An L-bracket had torn in two. The only thing holding the tires on the pavement was the weight of the trailer.

While it was in the shop, we decided to do a little sightseeing. There's a district called Short North that's filled with all kinds of highly rated restaurants and art galleries. Unfortunately, all closed on Monday. So, we went to the Franklin Conservatory which boasts 27 species of butterflies flying around freely. Closed Monday.

We did find the best Greek restaurant we've ever eaten at. The Happy Greek

During setup at Columbus, the end of the booth fell over on me! It's six steel slat grid racks. I hung one too many stencils and down she came.

Sales were disappointing in Columbus, as well, but not nearly as bad as Duluth. We had a 20' booth and had two demo stations running, demoing Angelina, foiling supplies and Paintstiks. Three Quiltart list members, Bobbie Vance, Lisa Quintana and Brenda Jennings did great jobs with the demos.

When we left Columbus, the air conditioning on the truck started acting up. It was in the 90's with godawful high humidity. We had to turn the air off 15 minutes every hour to let the fan "rest" or we got no cooling at all. Greg got it recharged. It was then blowing colder air for 45 minutes of every hour.

The next day we were cruising down I80. There is LOTS of construction going on on the interstates. On a stretch in Iowa, it was a signle lane with barrels partially in our lane, forcing Greg to have the right tires on the freeway and the left tires on the shoulder. He saw a GREAT BIG pothole coming up on the shoulder. Having just spent $760 on repairing a busted axle, he swerved to the right to miss the pothole. He caught one of the barrels with the bottom of the canopy support. Fortunately ???, our air conditioner had stopped working and we had to roll the windows down and heard it whacking the side of the trailer. Also, fortunately, there was no duct tape to be found in truck or trailer. (I would have posted a picture, but it always loads the picture at the top of the post.)

When the axle went wonky, the tires started wearing very unevenly. One tire was REALLY bad, another pretty bad. The guy who repaired the axle in Columbus replaced the REALLY bad with the spare tire. We were hoping the pretty bad would get us home. Wrong again! We blew the pretty bad tire just west of Mountain Home, Id. Good thing we have roadside assistance because Greg couldn't get the lug nuts off. He had to put the REALLY bad back on and we knew we'd never make it home with that one so we had to buy a new set of tires in Idaho. And pay sales tax on the darn things.

The next morning we went to Les Schwab Tires to buy our new set. The guy who was going to put the tires on was directing Greg backing into the bay. He didn't see the air conditioner on top. They will pay to have it replaced, of course.

We spent that night in Pendleton, OR. I woke up the next morning and saw that the vent hood over the stove had fallen off. It was STAPLED to the bottom of the microwave shelf.

We managed to drive the last 200 miles home without incident.

Whew!

2009-01-25T15:20:00.000-08:00

From San Diego we headed to Ajo, AZ on our way to the Quilt, Craft and Sewing Festival in Phoenix.

I "collect" what I consider to be very clever business names. There are two here - Belly Acres RV Park and Ajo in the Wall Grill. (Ajo is pronounced Aho).

We spent one day at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

It's hard to believe it's winter here. It's been in the 70's every day. Back home in Oregon, it's probably in the 40's or 50's.

I'm glad I'm here!

San Diego zoo

2009-01-22T14:48:00.000-08:00

After running errands for a day, we headed to San Diego where we went to the zoo. It is absolutely THE BEST zoo.

There were lots of babies and we got there right after lunch, so there was a lot of napping going on.

This little baby monkey had been playing with another baby, got tired of that and went to his mom and just draped his body on the branches so she would start grooming him. He certainly looked like he was enjoying it!

A baby panda sleeping in a tree.

Road to California

2009-01-20T15:05:00.000-08:00

We decided to vend at Road to California this year. The owner, Carolyn, e-mailed me in mid December and said they had had a last minute cancelation and did we want their booth space. And who would say no?

I posted e-mails on the Quiltart list and also contacted the Night Owl Quilt guild asking for folks to help in the booth. Jennifer Brown and Lisa Coulombe joined us in the fun! They both did a terrific job demoing and said they had a great time.

Jennifer Brown demoed our foiling supplies and Shiva Paintstiks for four days.

Lisa Coulombe of San Diego demoed Angelina all day Saturday. She is a wearable designer and has been in the Bernina Fashion Show at International Quilt Festival multiple times.

On the road again

2008-06-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

We're home from our spring trip, after driving through a blizzard in Wyoming -- in May, for heaven's sake! I asked a gal at a truck stop what the deal was having blizzards in May and she said, "Welcome to Wyoming!"

We had two great shows - International Quilt Festival in Chicago and American Quilters Society in Paducah, KY. We changed our booth layout a bit and had two demo stations going all day, every day. We demoed Angelina, our new foiling supplies and Paintstiks.

On the way out, I worked on my Grabbag 2008 challenge quilt. Here's a picture of my traveling design wall. It's a cardboard tri-fold and sits on the kitchen counter in the fifth wheel.

Across the aisle is the dining table, which serves as my cutting station. When cutting is done, it's my sewing station. I have a Bernina 1630 and it has been hauled and bounced around for over 30,000 miles and is still a workhorse.

In the aisle is my ironing station - a chair with a June Tailor Cut n Press. Cayenne, as with all kitties, likes to help.

While mom is sewing, the other babies are napping. Aniu is the dog, an Alaskan husky, and the kitty is Tarjais, aka Butthead.

I can't show you any more pictures of the Grabbag quilt because it's going to be on a CD and sold through Fiberart for a Cause. Tomme Fent organized and managed it. She did a terrific job!

The day after we arrived in Paducah, a pair of birds started building a nest on the fifth wheel tongue. Note the fishing line. We cleaned it off because we were afraid the babies would hatch about the time we had to leave. They started another one. We cleaned that one off as well and they stopped building.

Here's a photo of friend and talented designer, Cathy Arnett, demoing Angelina. Check out her Fabrications Retreat.

And here's Dawn Stapinski of Pittsburgh, also demoing Angelina.

And her husband, Walter, running the cash register.

All of them great folks!

Angelina Portfolio Class

2008-04-05T14:49:00.000-07:00

I took an online class called "Artful Creations with Angelina" at Quilters Keep Learning taught by Bente Nysaether Malm, a Norwegian designer. I'm always interested in seeing how others are using Angelina, and need some more samples in the booth. I managed to finish it while on "weather hold" in Brigham City, UT. It was a lot of fun and uses Angelina, wool roving and tulle.

This is the front:

This is the back:

This is the inside. Her class called for making a bunch of pockets on the right hand side. I chose to make a holder for a note pad instead.

IQF in Rosemont, IL

2008-04-05T14:37:00.001-07:00

We're on our way to our next two shows of the year, International Quilt Festival in Rosemont, IL (Chicago) and American Quilters Society in Paducah, KY. I calculate our travel time averaging 300 miles per day then add 2 to 3 days for weather and/or breakdown time. Good thing I added 3 days this year . We got stuck in Pendleton, OR because it was "chains required" in the Blue Mountains, then had to stay an extra day in Brigham City, UT due to "chains required" in the Wasatch pass and I80 in Wyoming was closed due to bad weather in three spots. We finally got to Rawlins, WY and here's what it looked like.

Aniu is doing her snow dance.

This is about a 2' deep snow drift.

Sewing and Stitchery Expo

2008-04-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

Our first show of the year is in Puyallup, WA. It's the Sewing and Stitchery Expo and draws about 30,000 creative people. Here's Greg hanging Angelina. He's know as the company pack mule and booth eye candy.

My new blog

2008-01-01T15:46:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!!

I've decided I need to get going on this blog thing. Seems these days that you don't really exist unless you have a blog! Be patient with me, please, until I get this software figured out!!

My husband and I own Embellishment Village, a company that sells supplies to the fiber art, scrapbooking and crafting communities. You can see what we do at http://www.embellishmentvillage.com/.

To market our wares, we attend a number of shows every year. We drive, pulling a fifth wheel full of booth display, product and pets. Here's a picture of what we travel in. It was taken at an RV park near Capitol Reef National Park, on our way to International Quilt Market and Festival in Houston last fall.

It's a 35 foot fifth wheel with 3 slideouts. One slideout is the kithen and entertainment center, one is the sofa and dinette and one is the bed. It is really quite comfy for the two of us, the dog and the two cats we travel with. It has a huge storage space in what we refer to as "the basement", which is where we carry all of our booth displays and goods.

Sorry, I can't seem to get the photo to load here, so the picture is at the top.