My life has been bereft of adventure lately, but tonight that is going to change. I ain't afraid of no swine flu, so it's off to Mexico on a three-legged flight. SFO to Guadalajara to Mexico City to Tuxtla, which is somewhere way south of the Yucatan. My daughter, Kelsey, is taking me with her [...]
When she's not jetting off to an exotic locale, anthropologist Paddy Moore spends her spare moments sewing quilt blocks with her mini-group. Called the Yorkville Ladies Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society, the Mendocino quilting group meets every month to work on auction quilts to raise money for scholarships and for their local volunteer fire department. [...]
By their very nature, quilts seem to be environmentally friendly items, made from recycled fabrics. That is not necessarily true, though, as Sue Roberts of Santa Rosa learned. Sue, an avid quilter who is married and has grown children, returned to college recently and is now a senior at Sonoma State University. For her final [...]
This is the conclusion to my previous post, "Channeling Marge," in which a Petaluma mother, Lori Boinski, surprised her daughter, Amy, by finishing a quilt that Amy and her grandmother Marge had begun 12 years ago. When Amy came home to visit her parents last weekend, Lori lead her into her bedroom, then stood aside [...]
Novice quilters beware! If you see these two words -- "quick easy" -- do not believe it. No such thing exists in the quilting universe. Any seasoned quilter will tell you that she has numerous UFO's -- unfinished objects, in quiltspeak -- that originated from patterns called quick & easy. So begins the saga of [...]
Meet Linda Speel, west coast organizer of the PeaceRoots Alliance. Through that organization, she and her husband, Richard Speel, are working towards a peaceful, just and sustainable world. The PeaceRoots Alliance represents Farms Not Arms, More Than Warmth, and Conscientious Objectors, programs that aim to promote peace to war veterans, children, and young adults. Farms [...]
City dwellers Jane Guillory and Valerie Lopez don't let a little thing like not owning a car slow them down. The sisters, natives of Louisiana but long-time residents of San Francisco, each have a brood of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and all kinds of extended family members. They spend their days riding the buses [...]
"Soldiers who have returned from the wars overseas might not say anything, they may never talk about their experiences, but believe me, they are all hurting," says Gail Belmont. As an army veteran herself, Gail knows that thousands of soldiers who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan have been wounded not just physically, but psychologically [...]
Kerstin Stauffer, who works as a computer technician for the Petaluma School District, found a way to use her quiltmaking to encourage teenage moms to finish high school. As a member of the Petaluma Quilt Guild, Kerstin coordinated a project to make quilts for children at the Valley of the Moon Children's Home, and that [...]
"Every child in a Habitat for Humanity home receives a quilt." That is the goal of the Welcome Home Quilters, a group of volunteers that sews quilts for Habitat families. The group, coordinated by Pam Ponting, meets on the first Tuesday of every month from 10 am to 3 pm at the Quilted Angel shop [...]