New Directons

A late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to each and every one of you! God has blessed our family big time this Christmas - We finally have the opportunity to have our almost six-year old granddaughter with us in Washington. I won't go into details, but it is a blessing to have her here with her Daddy at last and with us for "day care" until she starts school after the 1st of January. I will put everything else on the back burner for now and of course continue teaching and lecturing for bookings already in place. This little girl needs love, structure, and support and we need to be there for her. I wish all of you the best. xxoo Joyce

Feeling totally exhausted? You may want to check your thyroid: Quilting columnist Joyce Becker shares real-life story

Feeling totally exhausted? You may want to check your thyroid: Quilting columnist Joyce Becker shares real-life story

Houston

I'm off to do my thing at International Quilt Festival in Houston on Wed. My schedule is jam packed with teaching, lecturing, appearances, the Sampler, Meet the Teachers, and so forth - but it will also be an amazing time to spend with my dear friends and "roomies" Rosy Carolan and Ginny Frame. For their own sake, I do hope they bring their ear-plugs as I snore like a truck driver. Rosy is in the photo above on the right side and Ginny is next to her. This photo was taken while I filmed a series of on-line classes for L-Quilt.
Although I don't get much time to actually see the show, I get to take a peek on preview night and also again on Saturday afternoon, so that's cool. I rarely make it to the vendors, although it would be fun to see all the new gismos and gadgets! If any of you come to Houston, I hope we have the chance to connect. I am staying at the Hilton so you can always leave me a message. I am anxious to see how my new book, Quick Little Landscape Quilts sells.....talk to you when I return.....Joyce

NEW BOOK

Alaskan Wilderness by Joyce R. Becker - featured in new book Quick Little Landscape Quilts


Yesterday, a gorgeous basket arrived from C&T Publishing congratulating me on the publication of my new book, Quick Little Landscape Quilts. Later on, Fed Ex delivered my advance copy of the book. It is such a happy little book, packed full of lovely images and information. I am thrilled with the layout and presentation. My editors at C&T did an amazing job working with me and we managed to impart an amazing amount of information in a 48 page book. My thanks to the contributing artists, Jane Moxey, Rosy Carolan, Sonia Grasvik, Ginny Frame, Vali Groening, Kari Justad, and Jo Banner. The book will be available in December but I will have advance copies to sell at International Quilt Festival in Houston, TX. You can order this book on my web site or on Amazon if you can't find it in a local quilt shop once it is available. Thanks to all my students for your continued support.
Fondly,
Joyce

Happy Birthday

My darling husband, Donald, my step-daughter Bev, and my dear friend Rosy, threw a whopper of a surprise birthday party for me on the day before my birthday. We were supposed to be going "out" for dinner with family and Rosy somewhere special. When we stopped to pick up Rosy, she invited us in for a glass of wine (which I never turn down) - and many of my friends and most of my WA based family was there to help celebrate. We had yummy food and everyone brought a story about me to tell.....some, I'd rather not share......A good time was had by all!

I'm 65!!!!!

I hit the big six five today.....Last night my incredible husband threw a huge surprise party for me with close friends and family. We ate, drank, told lots of jokes, and some guests shared a funny story about me - after a yummy chocolate cake for desert, every toasted me with some delicious champagne and a good time was had by all.....My dear friend Rosy, volunteered her home and my step-daughter, Bev, helped my husband get everything ready! I'll share a photo soon! xxoo Joyce

E-mail message

If you received an e-mail from me saying to view my photos and give your cell number please disregard - I did not generate this e-mail and I am afraid it is a virus or spam or whatever.....xxoo Joyce

p.s. My friend Winne Burt is visiting me from Alaska - Winnie in her "mini" - she drives a mini-motor home to get away from the harsh winter in Alaska. Winnie is a quilter and we have fun hanging out. Yesterday we went to the Innovations Quilt Show/Conference in Tacoma and had a fun day, followed by lunch out and a little window shopping!

Happenings with Joyce

Off to see Innovations 2010 in Tacoma tomorrow - My quilting pal, Winnie, from Alaska will pull into Kent tomorrow in her RV and spend a couple of nights here. I'm trying like mad to get my health back (bad reaction from cholesterol medication - i.e. painful and weak thigh muscles) and working on getting my thyroid levels back to a normal vs. normal level. Gotta get some mojo by Oct 11th when I fly to Little Rock and then for IQA Houston on November 2. I will be teaching and lecturing there so come by and say hi!!!! Here's a photo of one of the projects I'll be teaching in a kit form. xxoo Joyce

Joyce R. Becker Landscape Quilter blog: C&T Publishing

www.joycerbecker.com
www.ctpub.com
www.amazon.com

C&T Publishing

For those of you that don't know, I have authored four books - my latest one will be available on my web site (Pay Pal) or from C&T Publishing, Amazon.com and of course, at your local quilt shops. The name of my new book is: Quick Little Landscape Quilts and it about creating quick little matted and framed landscape quilts. Often, when I teach, students are looking for a project they can complete in one sitting and these little darlings are perfect for gifts for family and friends. You can make seasonable or themed little landscapes, or poignant memory quilts of beautiful places you've been, or be inspired by photos or greeting cards. Once you make a Quick Little Landscape quilt, you'll be hooked - I am!
My other books published by C&T are: Beautifully Embellished Landscapes and Luscious Landscapes. They are available on my web site: www.joycerbecker.com and through C&T Publishing, and Amazon.com. My book Nature's Patterns, The Quilt Digest Press, is out of print but you can find copies on Amazon sometimes.....

Link to Confessions of a Quiltaholic

You can find my humorous columns at the Kent Reporter at:


http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/search
Type in archives: Confessions of a Quiltaholic

Joyce

What a blast!

I adore teaching on cruises with Quilt Camp at Sea!!!! Here's a photo of my husband, Donald and I at formal night during our recent cruise to Alaska. Pat and Len Tobin run the best quilting cruises - They are major organized and the days speed by because you are having such a darn good time. Go to www.quiltcampatsea.com to see future quilting cruises and see an earlier post today for the photo! xxoo Joyce

Joyce and Don on recent Alaska Cruise

Red Rocks

Red Rocks

O.K. - I've bloody well tried getting this next photo to load for days - let's hope by some miracle, it will pop up today. This is a photo taken in at the Colorado National Monument of my silver fox hubbie, Donald and I. I do plan on making a Colorado landscape, possibly for the APWQ Invitational exhibit, Spirit of the West.....
Had a lovely day with my quilting chums today at our "Thursday Group" get together. I felt like poop all day but they managed to cheer me up - my blankety blank thyroid is obviously low ONCE AGAIN and this time, the muscle pain in my thighs is beyond anything I've ever experienced. I got a blood draw yesterday, so hopefully, when the results are in, we can up my dose once again......
I am busy making kits for teaching at International Quilt Festival in Houston for my Quick Little Landscape class. Talk to you all soon. xxoo Joyce

Fantasy Forest

Here's a recent quilt I've completed. I used a lovely hand-dyed Just Imagination fabric for the background sky and another amazing hand-painted Mickey Lawler fabric for the foreground. I didn't have enough of the redwood tree fabric for all the trees, so I created others with inks and wax pastels. It seems like it took forever to cut out all of the foliage both for the trees and the ferns, and even longer to stitch them using free-motion machine embroidery. This photo isn't the best but I'll take another shot soon and replace it.....Today I am "inking" areas on a whole-cloth quilt I hand quilted - it's looking pretty darn good! I love trying new stuff.....xxoo Joyce

Colorado Rocky Mt. High

Here is a photo of a gorgeous lake on top of a Mesa in Colorado. I am ready to go back and go camping and fishing. Oh, that's right......I haven't camped in a long long time....maybe there is a good B&B close by????? I would like to pull a couple of fish out of the lakes, though.....

I'm back again.......I just finished uploading 200 + photos from my digital camera to my computer and thought I'd share a couple from my recent trip to Colorado! It's already turning kinda cool in Seattle which is strange, since we only had one week of summer (and dag nab it, we were gone.....) Here I am on the set of the Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims - dam, my quilts look good in the back.....

The Quilt Show

I must say, I've been rather hesitant to join the millions of bloggers, mainly because of my time constraints, but I am bound and determined to integrate blogging into my daily activities and chat with more of my friends, both personal and professional!
My latest adventure was to the tape an episode of the Quilt Show in Boulder Colorado with Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson. I must say, it was a hoot and I enjoyed it very much. My "episode" will be shown next year sometime and focuses on my Quick Little Landscape techniques (my new book will be out this December with the same title)......
I hope some of you will follow my blog and give me suggestions of other blogs to follow. I like positive stuff, funny stuff, educational stuff and so on. I hope to post a photo from our trip to the Quilt Show and to the beautiful state of Colorado - we did a "road trip" and visited relatives and went for a very nice day of wine tasting in Palisade, Colorado. There are some mighty fine wines in Palisade - I know, I tasted quite a few and felt it the next day......talk to you later. xxoo Joyce

My first blog

Well, here goes - it's the first time I am "blogging" - I thought it might be fun - especially if I can connect with other quilt artists and professional in the quilting industry. If anyone has questions or wants to talk to me, here I am.
I just finished stitching the sample for a Mexico Cruise I am teaching on in 2011 for Quilt Camp at Sea....go to www.quiltcampatsea.com if you want more information......Here's the photo! I painted the backgrounds with Tsukineko inks (the inks are so much fun and easy to use....)
Signing out for tonight! Joyce