Women on a Mission

This week Mary Ann, Marybeth and I drove up to Asheville, NC to visit the Fiber Arts Alliance and to visit some other Asheville destinations. It takes over 6.5 hours of driving when we make it a day trip, so we had our events lined up. It was wonderful to see the ladies at the FAA again. Sadly we couldn't stay for the program.

We visited Waechter's Fine Fabrics (pronounced Wockters) twice that day, once for "recon" and the second time to purchase. We all had projects in mind for garment sewing. Here's what I'll be working on...


The tunic on the left and the slacks on the right are the first order of business.

I found this wonderful batik rayon to match the green linen I hand dyed recently. Linen is for the slacks.


This lovely piece, designed by Valorie Wells, is for this tunic, I think...

I've been looking for laminated cotton ever since I heard about it, and finally found it at Waechter's. Laminated cotton is wonderful for lunch bags, baby items, aprons, table cloths, etc. Here's the piece I bought...


We visited several other places including Mr. K's Used Bookstore where we turned in books for credit. I found this jem...


The downtown shops were closing soon, but we did walk through the Grove Arcade, a beautifully restored historic building in downtown Asheville. The first floor houses retail shops including a yarn store, NC crafts store, vegetable stand and more.

There were many more places we wanted to visit, but time ran out. Our last stop was at a delicious Thai restaurant just outside the Grove Arcade.

We love you Asheville, and we'll be back soon!

Fiber Arts Alliance, Asheville, NC

While I was in Asheville with my friend enjoying the Fiber Arts Alliance meeting, my husband was hard at work in the yard with his buddy. They were digging holes, planting things, ...and cutting the telephone line. ha ha He spliced it for a temporary fix while waiting for the phone company to fix it, but today it's raining and the phone line is already nearly out. I'm rushing to get this online before the computer connection goes too!

Patsy Thompson, a member of the FAA, gave a wonderful program on machine quilting yesterday. Patsy has wonderful DVD's that show you how to machine quilt without pulling out your hair. I can't explain why, but my confidence level with machine quilting went way up after watching her first DVD. On her website, http://www.patsythompsondesigns.com/, she offers sneak peaks at her new DVD's, free downloads of ALL of her quilt designs on the DVD's, wonderful tutorials and more!

She also offers other wonderful tips; in her first DVD, she shows you how to successfully spray baste a quilt. The second DVD has wonderful directions from her husband on how to make a Plexiglass extension table for your sewing machine at a fraction of the cost.

Thanks, Patsy!