Have you ever been to Skopelos?

Every so often (ok, more like every week) beautiful new fabrics pop up on Instagram and designers or manufacturers hunt down people who sew to help spread the good news about that fabric's existence.  I was very lucky to get tapped to help promote Katarina Roccella's new Greek Island inspired Skopelos line for Art Gallery Fabrics.  Check this out..

(Image borrowed from Katarina's blog)

Skopelos is a beautiful island in the Aegean Sea. I haven't been there (yet) but Katarina's fabric collection really captures so much of the peace, relaxation and vibrant beauty found on so many of the Greek islands.  I wanted to work with these fabrics and promote this line because Greece is really underrepresented in the quilting world.. I hope you'll get inspired to make something with these fabrics and/or go to Greece yourself.  I can almost feel myself walking in a breeze down a flower-lined path in a sun dress made from any of these.. can't you?

For my stop on the tour, I decided to make a Dresden Table Runner, one of the projects in my NEW BOOK (yes, more on that news later in the week!).

It is made of five 9" Dresden blocks on point.. first I machine pieced the Dresdens...

Then hand appliqued them to the background fabric (ok, I was pressed for time and machine appliqued a few).

And I cut setting triangles from the luscious Paparounes stripe..

And that's as far as I got.. I made binding, cut backing and batting even, but I haven't quilted it yet..

With any luck, I'll get it done before the blog hop is over.. make sure to check back and see.

Now it's time to visit all the other stops on the Skopelos blog hop!  So many beautiful things have been made with these fabrics already.  I hope you get a chance to play with some too..

1. LYNNE GOLDSWORTHY - April 20th
2. ALLEGORY LANHAM – April 21st
3. ERICA TOOLE - April 22nd
4. RACHAEL GANDER - April 23th
5. AMY FRIEND - April 24th
6. MARIJA VUJČIĆ - April 25th
7. DANA BOLYARD - April 26th
8. ERICA JACKMAN - April 27th
9. JESSICA ALEXANDRAKIS - April 28th
10. SVETLANA SOTAK - April 29th
11. KATHLEEN RIGGINS - April 30th
12. APRIL RHODES - May 1st
13. PAUL HALLINGER - May 2nd
14. SHARON MCCONNELL - May 3rd
15. CAROLINE HULSE – May 4th
16. JANE DAVIDSON – May 5th

Blogger's Quilt Festival (and Quilt Retreat Invitation)

I was racking my brain (and sewing room) for something to enter in this fall's Bloggers' Quilt Festival.  My Lime String quilt isn't finished yet and I haven't had time to work on much else.  Then it occurred to me that I never did a real blog post on Travel Quilt #3, the one that is featured in my book.  So, here it is:

I started this quilt in July 2010, stitched the last diamonds by hand in February 2012, and had the entire thing finished in October 2012.  I took a few detail shots of my own, but then it went straight on to my publisher for photography for the book.  (And I wasn't supposed to blog about it til the book was released!) It ended up on the back cover, which I was really pleased about.  This is the third in my Travel Quilt series and the first time I actually wrote on the stars as I pieced them.  The full pattern and instructions, including step-by-step photography, is available in the book. 

Long arm quilted by the brilliant Shannon Couvillion in Georgia, this is a very personal quilt, a fabric scrap book of where I went and how I spent my  time. 
Of course this isn't the first time many of you are seeing this quilt.  I heavily blogged my progress as I carried my EPP sewing kit back and forth across the globe, completing a few stars at a time.  Here's a quick recap of my favorite in-progress photos:

Have you ever quilted on the beach?  Would you like to?
I'm organizing an English paper piecing retreat that will be held on the Greek island of Paros in June, 2014.  Come enjoy amazing food, perfect weather, relaxing atmosphere and good company as we stitch together in the middle of the Aegean.  Check out my "Greek Island Retreat" tab above, or just click here.  Registration is open through February 1st, but space is limited.  I'd love to have you join me and start a Travel Quilt of your own~

(almost) Wordless Wednesday

I really wanted to be all removed and post just a photo today (which I already posted a few hours ago on Instagram), but then I read this really awesome post, and had to stay true to myself..

I brought my quilting to the beach today and stitched 4 hexies together.  That was enough, then I put it away and ate an entire piece of saganaki with a nice big horiatiki ("greek salad").  I even had some beer.  It was a good day.  I hope to have more of these in the future. 
(and hope that you have some too).

Posting from Paros~

I'm super happy the blog tour has been going so well.  Thank you so much for visiting my blog and all the others on the tour, and for talking about or buying my book!
I know it's crazy, but I'm not even at home to enjoy all this book tour madness this week, we're actually in Paros and this is how I'll be blogging for the next few days..

baby on my lap and everything.

I know I posted a picture of the ferry boat this morning,  but this is Paros:

 It is a small-ish island in the Aegean sea and it's really quite lovely.  We have been coming to the same resort (Anezina Village) for the past 3 years and not only does it have excellent food and beautiful beaches, but I always manage to get a lot of quilting done when I'm here.  A large part of the Travel Quilt was stitched here..

(We are lucky enough to be staying in the same bungalow again this year, which makes me very sentimental about the quilt and book and everything..)

Anyway, with the baby it has been harder to find sewing time this trip, but I'm determined.  He's gotta nap sometime, right?
Wishing you all lots of hand stitching time this summer~
Love from Paros,
Jess

Travel inspiration and Laura of Quokka Quilts

Last fall, Laura did this great blog hop where you took color inspiration from photographs and then made EPP projects from them. (you can see my post here)

I played around with a lot of photos to try to get colors I wanted to work with before cutting into my fabric (I think that's not what she intended, but it was fun anyway).. here is one from our trip to Paros last year:

  

 Greece has really great color inspiration, don't you think?  If only I had time to stitch all the quilts I'm inspired to make..

The blog tour continues over at Quokka Quilts today.  Hop over there to read more about how Laura travels with her EPP.

Summer



Our last week in Greece was spent here:

Santa Maria Beach, Paros.



 And not surprisingly, I didn't get a lot of quilting done. 

Adjusting to life back in NY took a lot longer than I was expecting, jetlag was harsh (almost 10 days to get over it) and our new summer "routine" kinda hit me like a ton of bricks.  For weeks I've felt like I've been trying to dig myself out from a constant avalanche. 
I am very very happy to be home though, and happy to be working again.  My summer job rocks and I get to spend my mornings busy and surrounded by fun people.  I've also had the chance to meet up with many many quilting friends who have been coming over to help me finish a big project, like a good old fashioned IRL quilting bee.  I keep meaning to take pictures, but we're usually too busy stitching and gossiping to remember to take any. 
When they come over again, I'll put my camera (or I should say my phone) on the table so I don't forget.
My sewing room is a bit of a mess and I'm quite behind on virtual Bee obligations, which I hope to get to soon.  There are only so many hours in the day though, and you can't spend all of them inside, right?  Here's to hoping summer's intensity wears off soon..

change of scenery

Since we got back from London I had been in a bit of a quilty rut-- I just couldn't find a comfortable place in the house to sew while George was at school.  Yes, we've been in the house for weeks on end (with no car.. I've felt "trapped" on more than one occasion) and I've tried to sew in a bunch of different places (thankfully, the house is quite big), but something was up with my subconcious comfort level and I just couldn't take it anymore..
so I left.
I took George to school and then walked to Starbucks, got a coffee, and sat and stitched there for 2 hours. 

Much better.  Much more "me".
Have you been stitching in public lately?

Got my hopes up..

This week seemed to get off to a great start.  George went back to school after 2 weeks of Easter break and I had the kitchenette and the morning to myself.  I turned on the radio and went about rearranging furniture to make a good sewing set-up..

 I moved the table over so I could plug in the sewing machine (finally!),

 (a view from the opposite angle)

And I set up a cutting area and the ironing board.  It was working out really well.  I even sewed a belated bee block for Mary~

I played on line, caught up on blogs, and even got inspired to sew something totally not on my sewing to-do list (more on that later), but then.. it all came to a screeching halt.
George got sick again (2nd time in 3 weeks) and has been home from school for the past 2 days.  I moved all the furniture back and put the sewing machine away.  Yesterday we played playdoh on the table and the little sofa is again covered in laundry to be folded/ironed.  I am back to hand stitching in front of the tv while I try to feed him and keep him from getting cabin fever.  
My big quilting projects are crawling along at a snails pace.  Maybe I'll have better luck next week?

Easter

 So Easter (which seems to last forever here) has come and gone..
It brought with it lots of church, lots of candles, and way too much food (though not enough chocolate, and absolutely NO marshmallow peeps!)
A good time was had by all, but somewhere in the middle both George and Costas got sick, and now we're just hoping for a quick recovery for both. 
Unfortunately with only one "briza" (plug converter), I can only charge one device at a time, and it's usually the cell phone or the laptop that wins, leaving the poor camera battery to never see a full charge, and hence, not enough photos of any of the Easter festivities.  I did manage to get the above shot of Geoge before he got too dirty, but we missed out on a family shot of the 3 of us.  It's really cute, I think he's looking more and more like Costas every day. 

Once everyone is healthy again we'll try for another photo.. maybe this weekend at George's name-day party?  We'll see..

Tuesday Laiki

One of the simple pleasures of life in Athens is the local "Laiki" which is somehow a cross between a flea market and a farmer's market.  You can buy everything from toilet paper to underwear to fresh fish..
Within walking distance from our house there are two weekly street markets-- to the east on Mondays and to the north on Tuesdays.  Today I strolled through on my way to pick up George from school (which he loves, btw)..

Most of the women come with small hand carts to carry their purchases home, but I wasn't planning on buying much so I didn't think to bring anything like that.  I learned a valuable lesson today though-- don't go to Laiki hungry..
I ended up spending all the cash in my pocket and had to carry home a few kilos-worth of produce.  but it was worth it.

Tuesday's Laiki doesn't have a lot of "stuff," mostly food.  I did buy two t-shirts for 2euros each, and I was tempted to get some cotton scarves, but I held out this week.  Let's wait and see when I cave into the temptation..
I did come home with half a kilo of strawberries which George promptly ate when we got back to the house.  I also picked up a bag of shelled pistachios and guiltily ate those myself..

I have a feeling by the end of our trip I will have tried everything they have at least once.  Do it while you can, right?

Sewing in the kitchenette

As promised, here's a pic of where I'll be sewing for the next few months:

I am comfortable in my new sewing space, but I look around and it really isn't that cute yet.  Like, not cute enough to show off on my blog, you know?  But it's just temporary and I'm lucky to have any space at all.  When I first started coming to this house, oh, 11 years ago, this was the family's main kitchen.  It was crowded, cluttered, and HOT.  It feels so strange to have it all to myself now..

I still don't have my transformer yet so I've been passing the time with lots and lots of hand stitching.  I decided I'm going to collect all my stray threads and tails and see how big the pile gets by the end of our trip.  Random, but if you're a hand piecer, you know how fast they accumulate. 

Thanks for the free internet entertainment tips you sent in, there really is a lot available out there.  I thought I should clarify for a minute though-- I don't plan on sitting inside all spring and watching TV.. believe me, we definietly get out a lot!  Our social life here is quite busy, and we're close enough to the sea that we've been twice already in less than a week.   

But at night, after George goes to bed, I've got some time to spend just stitching and relaxing, and no TV to do it in front of.  This morning while he was at school I listened to greek radio streaming online, but it's comforting to have familiar stuff to listen to in English too. 

I've also had some time to catch up with what's going on in the online quilting world, which I'll admit I largely neglected for the past 2 months while I was teaching.  Seems like I jumped right from the rose star block party to the sprocket qal.  Man it's nice to know there are other EPPers out there like me.  So many beautiful stitches being taken,  so many pretty items being made.  I'm sure there's more out in blogland that I've been missing, but to me it just seems like everyone is hand stitching right now.  I'm in good company..



Athens in early spring

I've never been to Greece this time of year before, so many things are new to me..like lemons and oranges still on the trees in our garden:

Enjoying a sea-side playground in sweaters and jackets:

Spring fashion: (knee high boots in late March?  and I only brought flats!)  plus everyone is still bundled up in warm jackets-- this 60~70 degree weather is still really cold for them.
It's cold for us too-- concrete construction keeps the houses much cooler inside than it is outside-- something I've always been grateful for in the summer (75 inside is better when it's 95 outside), but the heaters are off already and we're pretty chilly inside now-- thank god I thought to bring slippers and my fleece hoodie!

Many thanks to all your good packing suggestions, I managed to get all our stuff in 4 suitcases and 2 carry-ons that clocked in just at or under the weight limit.  My sewing machine made it fine, but I haven't bought a transformer yet so I can't plug it in.  Thankfully, Theodora has offered to take me to the electronics shop, so I should call her this week and arrange to do that. Today we went to the local public nursery school to check it out and introduce ourselves.  George will start to phase in later this week and will go 5 mornings a week from next month.  Then we'll find our balance and routine here.

Already I'm finding lots of time to sew, especially at night after George goes to bed.  We don't have a tv in our "apartment" upstairs and there's not much else to do besides laundry and playing on line.. I realized quickly what a Netflix addict I am-- it's killing me that we can't get access here.  Also terrible that the American tv network websites will not show full episodes (hate to say it, but I miss fox.com!  i miss Glee and House!) when you're out of the country.  I've resorted to enriching myself through Ted.com and browsing the complex world of quilting podcasts.  Btw, if you have any free online entertainment to suggest, I'd love to hear it~  which are your favorite quilting podcasts?  What about streaming live radio?  My94x.com was good for a while, but you can only quilt to the Cure for so long..
Need to charge the camera battery and then I can take some pictures of my new sewing space.  So far I've been a bit too distracted by the perfect backdrop and multiple photo ops like this one: