Mermaid Road Trip

Last Sunday we closed the shop & took a road trip to Ontario!

We had a blast at the Road to California Quilt Conference & Show.

After hours of walking, looking, searching, & shopping, they were still all smiles. 

 

One of the big highlights was finding the entries of our own Becky Haley.

What an honor to be accepted into the show! I wish these pics were better so you could see the intricate bead work.

She's amazing.

The next big event was our dinner. Yes. We ate it all! 

We don't get many chances to be together or just relax together, so we had a great time.

Notice there are more photos of our meal than anything else!

 Some of our teachers spent the weekend taking classes & learning lots of new techniques to come back & teach! Watch out for some cool new ideas at the shop this spring.

Lots of new stuff at the Mermaid!

I've been slacking in my blogging duties - but the shop has been crazy busy this month!

 This is the Tulip Festival Block of the Month. Isn't the first block gorgeous?

 These Art to Heart books keep flying out of the shop! 

Look at the springy tea towels I found to go with the beautiful patterns.

 We're excited about the True Sharp rotary blade sharpener.

 Are you working on your Iris Festival Challenge? It's due in April, right after Best of the Valley. We have lots of patterns & ideas for you. You'll love the batik fabric this year.

 I'm always a sucker for ABCs.

 Honey Honey by Moda.

 I love this table runner Darlene made. I may just snag it for my table at home. ;)

How adorable is this?! Darlene made this little cutie, too.

Downtown Porterville Art Walk

Candy Boulton was the featured artist at Calico Mermaid for the 

January Art Walk in Downtown Porterville.

 Candy, a retired teacher, is an award winning fabric artist. 

She enjoys the work of designer & author Karen Eckmeier, traveling great distances to study with her.

 Some of her amazing work is inspired from photographs taken while traveling.

Her quilted landscapes are incredible.

Join us downtown the first Friday night each month, 5-8 p.m. for the Art Walk. There are all kinds of artists showing their work in all kinds of venues. It's a great time to get together, go for a short walk, & enjoy the creativity of our locals. No charge, family friendly, what more could you ask?

Mermaid's FINtastic Winter Mini Retreat

We had a great time at the mini retreat this weekend! We spent Saturday, Sunday, & Monday at the shop with our retreaty friends - eating - laughing - sewing - quilting.

Everyone is starting off the new year with a lot fewer unfinished projects & a bunch more friends!

Here are some of the projects they completed. Everyone is so talented.
I tried to take a lot of pictures, but everything was going so quickly & I messed up a lot of the shots....here are a few to show what a good time we had.

We even played some games & won some prizes. Guess who won the word search?

The Handi Quilter Avante stayed pretty busy all weekend. Rae Lynne quilted tops, Jenny quilted table runners, & Vicki quilted her beautiful jelly roll quilt.

Here's Shirley working hard!