When I was 17, I spent two exciting weeks one summer visiting my cousins who lived in Orange County, California. It was my first time seeing the ocean and it was amazing for this girl raised in west Texas to behold the Pacific. Wow. I still have fond memories of that trip. Besides the requisite trip to Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm, we drove to the beach. There was an old bearded hippie standing on Pacific Coast Highway waving at everybody. My cousin called him the Laguna Beach Greeter. You can get more history on the Greeter from this web-site.
http://www.beachcalifornia.com/beach/laguna-beach-greeter.html
In addition to getting the sunburn of my life on the cloudy beach, I fell in love with the California beach community. The laid back lifestyle, all those palm trees and all those baggy-shorted long-haired surfer boys were just the coolest thing in the world in my innocnet eyes. I couldn't wait to get back to dusty old Texas and regale them with stories of what I saw and my new motto "Surf's Up Laguna Beach - 15 feet". Well, decades later, I moved to California and renewed my love affair with California Beaches. I love all things "beachy".
So when this surfboards quilt landed in the local quilt shop, it was my prize to quilt. Desiree, a San Diego peace officer (yes, cop) made it for her husband, a surfer dude. There were 5 surfboards appliqued on with 4 different colors of water. The back was batik blues and greens with some yellow.
I quilted tranquil water, wavy water and it here and there frothy water. 6 differnent colors of thread for the water and the surfboards. I used Laguna panto (by Jodi Beamish) for the border, appropriate, don't you think? And for the corner pieces, I used a piece of a tropical leaf from the Rotorua panto by one of my favorite designers, Hermione Agee. I SID'd the border. All in all, way too much work for what I was going to get paid but I was happy with it. I hope Desiree and more importantly, her surfer-boy husband, likes it.
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