A year ago today, Yvonne Porcella paid me a great honor by coming to my art barn groundbreaking party on Valentine’s Day.

She had every excuse in the book to not make the two-hour drive from Modesto to Napa and back, and frankly, I was not expecting her. After all, she was deep in her fight against stage 4 cancer, but add to that, she had just fractured a couple of ribs by coughing a bit too hard during a recent chemo treatment. She was in a lot of discomfort, but she hid it very well behind her signature bright smile and her whacky sense of humor. Case in point: she gave me a housewarming gift that sits on my kitchen table today. Meet the “Thing:”

Yvonne has been one of my greatest mentors, and I had fun with her every time I was with her. She brought color, style, humor, and love wherever she went. When I didn’t know many people early on, she was the first to introduce me to important folks. She had numerous articles in Quilting Arts dating back to 2001. When I didn’t know a particular quilting technique, she would gently show me. My favorite tip to this day is that if the thread color on a satin-stitched binding isn’t perfect… heck, just take a Sharpie to it and color it in! She was practical without sacrificing her art. She committed herself to everything she did, wholeheartedly, and  I think we can all agree, she lived a very bright life.

I spoke to Yvonne a couple of weeks ago and proposed an idea to her. Months ago Alex Anderson had invited me to be a participant in Quilting in the Garden at Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore this next September. It is a beautiful setting. Here’s a picture of Freddy Moran’s quilts hanging in the oak trees from last fall’s edition:

There is a greenhouse towards the back of the nursery, protected from the outside elements that I told Cindy, the owner would be perfect for a small art quilt exhibit. Last month I spoke to Yvonne and offered up an idea to her: What about I host an exhibit at Quilting in the Garden and call it “Live Your BRIGHTEST Life: Yvonne Porcella style.” She agreed.

So on this Valentine’s Day, I invite you to think about a small quilt (more details later) to pay tribute to someone who has been so influential to so many. I love that this tribute to her will be housed in a greenhouse: a place where beautiful things first blossom and take shape.

As it’s Valentine’s Day, I am going to drive to the ocean, bring my “Thing” with me, and think about our special friend and mentor.

With love and gratitude for having known such a special person,

Pokey

The CRAFT NAPA Blog Hop is now completed, and the winner of the $500 gift certificate to eQuilter.com is Janet Avery from Jenny Lyon’s blog post!

Congratulations, Janet! Please email me at pokeyATcraftingalifellc.com to redeem your gift certificate.

In other news, there are just three days left to register for workshops and events at CRAFT NAPA!

The full catalog can be found here:

NEW!

And here is a new addition to the Crafting a Life website: a shortlist of some of my favorite places to wine, dine, and shop while in Napa:

I want to thank all of the teachers for participating in the hop, and to Cheryl Sleboda for organizing it:

Jane LaFazio – http://janeville.blogspot.com/
Lynn Krawczyk – http://smudgeddesignstudio.com/blog/
Judy Coates Perez – http://www.judycoatesperez.com/
Jenny K. Lyon – http://quiltskipper.com/blog/
Jamie Fingal – http://JamieFingalDesigns.blogspot.com/
Melanie Testa – http://melanietesta.com/blog/
Elizabeth St. Hilaire – http://www.paperpaintings.com/
Leslie Jenison – http://leslietuckerjenison.blogspot.com/
Carrie Bloomston – http://www.carriebloomston.com/blog/
Cheryl Sleboda – http://blog.muppin.com

Hope everyone enjoys a creative weekend!

~Pokey

We’re here! The final stop on the Craft Napa blog hop for the $500 eQuilter gift certificate! (Who doesn’t want to win $500 worth of fabric around the holidays?!)

I invite all to share a response below, and I will collect the comments from all the Craft Napa blog posts, including this one, and announce the randomly selected winner tomorrow.

I am incredibly honored by everyone who has faith in me and is joining this inaugural Craft Napa event next month!

To that end, I am working as best I can to make it a success. It has meant a lot of out-of-the-box thinking, taking into consideration what is currently available in the market, including online instruction.

It means I am constantly asking the question: What do people yearn for out of a live, in-person gathering in the year 2016?

Getting personal…

Moving back to Northern CA, specifically Napa, has been nothing less than a stunning decision to me. And I mean that in the truest sense–a deer-in-the-headlights kind of stunning. I moved away a long time ago. I was 17 years old when I went to college in Boston. I am now 44. Chronologically speaking, I have been away more than I have been home.

Life events have ultimately brought me back.

Now that I think of it, Napa had left an indelible imprint just before I left the Bay Area in 1989. I grew up about 25 miles from Napa, and my high school offered a small weekend retreat in Napa County chaperoned by our class dean and a few other teachers. The house where we stayed was an old, drafty Victorian-style home painted lemon yellow with white trim, situated in a hilly countryside adorned with rows and rows of dormant grapevines. It was the stark of winter, but it was lush and green, frosty and cold.

It was invigorating.

I remember long talks with a trusted teacher at the retreat, discussing life’s possibilities. On the final morning, just before boarding the van to go home,  I thought: this is it. This is the most beautiful place on earth. And I asked myself: What is possible?

And now, I ask myself that question again in my mid-40’s. Given life’s opportunities, given disappointments and loss, given mistakes and triumphs, given everything that has led me here– to Napa–what is possible?

I pose the question to you:

For you in 2016: What is possible?

Comment away!

And for those coming to Napa next month, I cannot wait to share this magical place with you…

We are  in the final stages of preparing for the inaugural CRAFT NAPA event in January, and I have to say…we are having an absolute blast putting this together!

Check out the CRAFT NAPA apron:

A closer look:

This apron was designed specifically for coloring. Every CRAFT NAPA participant will got a complimentary apron so we can color with fabric markers and add some stitching in the BERNINA sewing room or in the wine bar after hours.

Indigo with the help of Larissa Davis also designed a slick catalog for the workshops:

I really can’t be happier with how this inaugural event is coming together, and while we are in the final stretch until registration closes, a CRAFT NAPA teacher blog hop has commenced where one lucky person will win a $500 gift certificate to eQuilter!

Just comment on the following blogs (look for their CRAFT NAPA posts), and you could be in the running to win this $500 gift certificate. I will be announcing the winner after December 10th on this blog and also on the Crafting a Life website.

The CRAFT NAPA Blog Hop Schedule

Nov 30 – Jane LaFazio – http://janeville.blogspot.com/
Dec 1 – Lynn Krawczyk – http://smudgeddesignstudio.com/blog/
Dec 2 – Judy Coates Perez – http://www.judycoatesperez.com/
Dec 3 – Jenny K. Lyon – http://quiltskipper.com/blog/
Dec 4 – Jamie Fingal – http://JamieFingalDesigns.blogspot.com/
Dec 5 – Melanie Testa – http://melanietesta.com/blog/
Dec 6 – Elizabeth St. Hilaire – http://www.paperpaintings.com/
Dec 7 – Leslie Jenison – http://leslietuckerjenison.blogspot.com/
Dec 8 – Carrie Bloomston – http://www.carriebloomston.com/blog/
Dec 9 – Cheryl Sleboda – http://blog.muppin.com
Dec 10 – Pokey Bolton – http://pokeysponderings.com/

Thanks to our CRAFT NAPA sponsors!

I am so excited. BERNINA of America and Meissner  Sewing have come on board to help sponsor CRAFT NAPA 2016 in January!

Meissner Sewing is providing sewing machines for student use, and also generously donating a brand new sewing machine for our premiere wine blending event: Blend Your Own Vintage Night!  At this event that promises a lot of laughs, participants will be put into teams, and a sommelier will help guide the teams to create a unique blend. Judges will then select the favorite blend, which will be bottled overnight, and all participants will take home a bottle of CRAFT NAPA wine! (And one lucky participant will win a new BERNINA sewing machine!)

Meissner will also have sewing machines for sale at CRAFT NAPA at a very reasonable price,  so if you’ve been thinking about getting a new machine, here’s your chance! They will also have  the  BERNINA Q 24 long arm on hand to play on during the entire retreat and during open sewing times.

I am really excited with how this retreat is coming together! For more information on CRAFT NAPA, mosey over to the Craft Napa site to learn more!

I recently started to see a trainer again; heck, these old bones aren’t getting any younger, and as I get up in age, it’s important to keep these bones from breaking, so I am making this investment in myself.

I have different fitness goals than my trainer, though; I want to be able to drink wine and eat fries without gaining weight…whereas she is a competitive body builder. She works very, very hard at what she does, and we have had some quality discussions about our career paths, what it means to follow your passions, and the hard work it requires to see them through.

Years ago, my trainer,  armed with her law degree, worked in family law for a length of time, and also did some contractual work in the wine industry. But she knew that a sit-down job at a desk all day was not where she wanted to be; she longed to be somewhere else, to do something else, to be someone else. So she went back and got highly schooled in fitness, and nowadays helps people (like me) beleive in our strength.

I am fueled by passionate people. I want to surround myself with folks who get very animated talking about what they do and how they spend their days…whether it be a trainer,  a longarm quilter, or someone who runs a non-profit to help homeless youth. I am inspired by people who not only have a passion for what they do, but are willing themselves to do the hard, non-glamorous, often gut-wrenching, worrisome work to see that vision through.

Like many dreamers, I watch a lot of Shark Tank– you know…the show filled with a panel of hosts with fat pockets and listen to the pitches of regular Joe Schmo’s with Big Ideas, to see if these dreams are worth investing in.

Some of the pitches on Shark Tank are hilariously bad…but I give my hats off to them for trying! Check out this top 10 list of the worst pitches. (My favorite that makes me cry with laughter every time is the Wake N’ Bacon Alarm Clock!)

An alarm clock that alerts you when it’s time to get up AND cooks bacon. What a way to wake up!

It made me think…wouldn’t it be hilarious to have a showing of “Scratch-n-Sniff” quilts? You know…like scratch a quilt patch and you would get the aroma of BACON!?! I mean come ON! It’s bacon!!!

Well, maybe not. Some ideas–upon a couple seconds of reflection–are bad.

But if you think you have a hunch (and it is an educated hunch with a heaping spoon of prudence)… I say go for it. If it works GREAT. If it doesn’t, then learn from it and move on.

And that is what I am doing. I am going for it. I am investing in building my little art barn, my headquarters for several creative enterprises down the line, but also in case you had’t heard, going to launch a new creative, intimate retreat in Napa called CRAFT NAPA next year.

I was very honored when I asked some of my artist friends to come teach for this retreat, and they all said YES. It is going to be a fun few days of creating during “Cabernet Season” in Napa Valley. (Here, they don’t call it the Slow Season…it’s Cab season when you pour yourself a nice cabby and enjoy it fireside.)

I will definitely still be hanging out on this blog, sharing my thoughts, ideas, and others’ works, but I am spending a lot of time over on the new site, Craftingalifellc.com. I hope you will join me there, maybe even sign up for the e-newsletter if you want to hear the latest offerings.

Here’s to following your dreams,

Pokey

I have been thinking for a while now how I could promote my business, and one idea I had was to screen print cards with the rendering of my art barn. I have written a lot of blog posts over the years about Thermofax screen printing on fabric, but I have historically had minimal success on paper; I often end up with blurred imagery.  However, I was really glad I was able to watch Lynn Krawczyk’s brand new DVD,  Thermofax Screen Printing Essentials because she had some fantastic tips for screening on all types of substrates:

It’s easy to see why Lynn was asked to create a DVD on Thermofax screen printing. Just check out all of these luscious fabrics of hers (currently in my possession…I am hesitant to send any of them back because I can’t stop petting them)!

After watching her DVD, I thought about giving it a go to create greeting cards.  I first created a photocopy of the image in Photoshop that I then burned onto a screen.

And for the first time, per the DVD,  I used Jacquard’s Puff Additive, and mixed with Golden Fluid acrylics. The Puff Additive has just enough tooth to it to yield a very sharp image on paper, whether you later want to apply a heat gun to emboss it, or not.

I experimented with different colors, different amounts of pressure when pulling the paint down the screen to get a more organic result.

And now I have my first set of cards to send out to the greater world.

Lynn has a lot of wonderful tips in her DVD and she masterfully and easily explains the processes from start to finish. In celebration of her DVD launch, she is giving away two screens of choice to a randomly selected reader of this blog entry. A question I have is, if you could create a screen of an image, what subject matter or image would you choose?  Just leave a comment below and you’ll be in the running!

To check out other ideas for screen printing and surface design, have a look at these bloggers also participating in this blog hop:

Maddie Kertay

Lisa Chin

Briana Goetzen

Dawn DeVries Sokol

Pam Carriker (goes up tomorrow)

Lynn Krawczyk (Sunday)

Things starting to come together here in Napa!

The crew who are making this barn a reality.

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The barn has doors at last, and I am really happy I chose a transparent glass for the garage doors so that the views are intact and allow for a lot of natural light to flow inside.

The interior is being worked on now…it’s not completed but I am happy with the clean lines, the cement floor finish, and the white-washed ceilings and paneling (vs. painted)  so that the grain of the woods still show.

Just to get a sense of how art would look hanging inside, we temporarily hung a trio of Lynn Krawczyk’s fabric collages from the loft.

This space is coming together, but it’ll still be months before it’s completed.

In the meantime,  I recently announced on social media the first CRAFT NAPA retreat taking place next January 7-9, 2016 at the Embassy Suites! Workshops range from sewing and quilting, to fabric and paper collage, and surface design. Teachers include Carrie Bloomston, Jane LaFazio, Jamie Fingal, Leslie Jenison, Lynn Krawczyk, Jenny K. Lyon, Judy Coates Perez, Elizabeth St. Hilaire, and Melanie Testa. There are a few fun night events planned including a “Make Your Own Wine” competition with a BERNINA giveaway, an Artist Market, and late night sip-n-sews in the bar featuring some fun stitching projects. You can find out more about this retreat on this web page. The site and the schedule are close to completion, and registration goes live next Wednesday. If you want to get any e-newsletters relating to CRAFT NAPA, you can sign up for more news, stories, and information here.

What is my new favorite four-letter word in the English language?

SOLD!

After having my Houston house on the market for more than six months, and flying back a lot to tweak some things and getting this deal done, I can now cross this task off my list. Those who visited my Houston pad I hope would agree it was a great home, and my eyes smarted when I got this special bottle from my realtor at my closing:

I will miss many, many things about this house and ‘hood, including this outdoor community chalkboard at the end of my street, which just illustrates how cool my neighborhood truly was:

And bike riding along the bayou with my little man; I will miss our rides…and him, always.

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But thankfully the flight from San Francisco to Houston is an easy and fast one, and I have some very good reasons to go back rather frequently, including visiting friends like Leslie Jenison in San Antonio. It just so happens I caught my last visit this past week when Victoria Findley Wolfe was there, and we had a lot of fun experimenting with Leslie’s outdoor kitchen and pizza oven!

Leslie, Victoria, and Victoria’s daughter, Beatrice

Now just back to Napa, things are progressing at a good clip in my world. Some progress pix:

Waving from where my future office will be.

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Construction crew nailing down the porch roof.

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Interior ceiling completed.

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Upstairs loft/office is framed.

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Upstairs office with windows drywall, and most of the paneled ceiling.

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Structure before painting, glass garage doors, and metal roofing.

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Current status today with metal roof and first application of paint.

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Future view from my home office.

I have received a lot of inquiries asking when my studio/ art barn will be completed. The answer is…I don’t know. There is still quite a bit to be done, and I am dependent upon schedules and when items (like garage doors) arrive and can be installed. 

In the meantime,  I have been collaborating with some venues in Napa to coordinate retreats in the greater Napa Valley, and I have some pretty exciting news to announce soon. When I can spill, this blog will be migrating over to the new site, and I will have a lot more information for those who want to come visit Napa and create! 

So here’s where I would love some feedback.

Want to opine on a logo? 

View from Hartwell Vineyards

Cheers,

Pokey

Some SAQA friends, my first round of artists, stopped by my place this past Friday afternoon:

From left to right: Judy Perez, Lisa Walton, Cara Gulati, Jenny Lyon, Me, Martha Wolfe

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It was a lovely visit! We toasted with champagne, rifled through some discarded wood for mixed media projects from the art barn construction site, plucked lemons from lemon trees, and talked a long time about sewing machines.

Having these talented friends over was a total boost and affirmation of what I am trying to do here in Napa. And their visit inspired me to put together a short video of the progress made thus far for the art barn.

I hope you enjoy! The website reference on the final clip–craftingalifellc.com– it’s not live right now, but will be in less than three weeks!