Weekend Stuff…

well, most of this doesn’t have to do with quilting, but there are pictures involved!

Hubby and I made date night a traveling show!  We picked up my car, dropped off stuff to the mission, got both cars emissions done, then we window shopped at Bass Pro Shop, then Dicks and finally we ended up at the Howard County Fair!  Whew….just rethinking about it is crazy…we are nonstop!!

I took a few fun shots of the fair and only one quilt, mainly because all the quilts are covered with plastic and it’s really hard to get a good image.  The one I did capture was incredible!  It won a ribbon and was hand quilt, the design mimicked the bias work.  And to top it off it was done in Raven’s fabric!

Then driving home yesterday from picking up my girls, we got to enjoy a hot air balloon:

This weekend is a whirl wind…..whooshhhhhhhh….and we are off again today.  Spending morning/early afternoon at a Stitch and Bitch, then coming spending time with family, then off to hit golf balls with my new golf set…oh did I mention we purchase clubs at Dicks??

Saturday pictures….

this morning my hubby is taking my girls to meet his brother.  The girls are going away for a week with family in Tennessee!  So, I have this day to myself…WWeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

First thing I’m doing is ORGANIZING!!  I have tons of piles, time to put piles into plastic bins or “file 13″ (aka trash).

But did I mention I was sewing this week?  Of course I did, here’s some pictures of what I’ve been working on.  Ms. Cindy guess (easily, I’m sure—I’m a bit predictable) it’s Halloween related….it is.   I cut this out while on my retreat in June and it has kinda gone together quickly-the ironing is the longest part.

And just for humor sake and the fact I love Halloween….I use my coasters from Betsy year round:

mmmmm….coffee……even in a winter mug LOL

I’ll be posting a few times today, lots to share and to accomplish…it’s definitely a good dvd movie kinda day!

Day 7…

I’m impressed that I’ve kept up 7 daily posts.  I have been using the pre-posting option which really helps on those busy days!

Borders are on and I’m ready to thread baste my latest obsession.  I have Needle Pushers club tonight and think I’ll baste there.  I more tickled now seeing the borders on!

And I wanted to show you the various sizes of hexagons in our house right now.  Left to right, 3/4″ hex is mine, 2″ hex is my youngest, 3″ hex is my oldest….man my hexs are SOOOo small

Long work day and then off tomorrow…..I need to work more on that “other” project I mentioned a few days ago.

Hershey Recap….

what an exciting day!  I had a blast sharing the love of quilting, shopping, eating and laughing with 6 other friends!  It was a fully packed van!

I was on a set budget and did fairly well in keeping in that budget.  I purchase 2 items that I wanted to get and an extra bonus item I’m totally in love with.  I was good and didn’t purchase any fabric –though I came sooo close to purchasing a $150/kit, I did pick up a cheap little $12 kit instead.  I got my show pin and a group pin.

Here’s my newest booty (l-r: my second thread catcher for my travel hand work bag, a pattern for hanging my pin collection on, my new pins, and my bonus project bag with tons of zipper pockets directly from Pat Sloan—oh did I mention I talk to Pat? ) :

And Eva and Laura got me this cute t shirt (I don’t own a quilting t shirt):

We had a wonderful time and I think we all did well on our shopping budgets!  I think we are done with shows until next year.

We did see a lot of quilts that were shown at the Lancaster Show in April.  There was a nice selection of quilts and highly impressed with all the appliqued ones.  Here’s my gallery of all the pictures I took. I do have last year’s pictures still up, if you are interested here as well.

I think my favorite quilt was this one:

We did get our tradition group picture- this one was taken in front of our own guild quilt (Four County Quilt Guild) which we (as a guild) have entered the past two years’ raffle quilts for judging into Quilt Odyssey.  Eva got a better picture, poor Jane likes to look around when the camera is snapping   l-r: Donna, Cheryl, Me, Jane, Eva, Pam and Laura (trip virgin to our group) in front.

I’m beat as I’m typing this post up after our trip….Sunday will be recouping day

Unsure where to start…

I haven’t posted in a while and there’s so much going on can’t find the time to do it correctly.  Let me start now and see how long it takes for me to publish this….ok, I started this post on the 9th….let’s try again.

The past 2 months have been a whirled wind!  I’ve traveled to Texas – again, Pittsburgh, Deal Island, Maryland, lost over 60 hours of sleep, caught back up on sleep, lost track of 3 swaps, caught back up on swaps, ripped out very nasty carpet in sewing studio (15′ x 22′ area), totally rearranged my sewing studio, kids got out of school, and now trying to just find my stuff to sew something for myself!!

I have been going, going, going more so than normal I had an out of season depression spell and I think I’m finally over that.  But needless to say, I have lost track on the things that helped balance me on a daily basis.   I’m starting to find my sewing items and sew, in fact I’m quilting today the last stage of a round robin swap.  Then I’m going to sew some blocks for my Needle Nosh block of the month class.

I still have a HUGE pile of stuff in my sewing studio to go through, but I’m doing it in baby steps.  A little each day.  I hope to have it organized before we leave for the ocean next week.

I have only accomplished one completed top in 3 months—if that doesn’t speak volumes, then you are just getting to know me.  I finished it on my quilting retreat.  I also have done a bit of hand work with my hexagons.  I do have pictures!!!

I’ll finish making some albums of my pictures over the pass few months and share them this week.

I am planning on reconnecting with my blogland friends and you might see over the next few days some comments from me on older posts   Sorry for neglecting you all.  I do miss you.

I have soo much to share…

and have been trying to catch up on simple things around my house.  Seems like I haven’t found time for catching up.

Trying to do laundry now, trying to organize my sewing space at the same time, and sending out May birthday cards.

I had a wonderful birthday last week!  First my son surprised me with his girlfriend – we don’t get to see her too often, so it was such a nice surprise and she got me hooked on the Tudors!!

Then on Wednesday I had dinner at the Green Turtle in Mt. Airy and was joined by several friends throughout the duration.

(L-R: Eva, Sati, Jane, me, Linda, Jackie II, Cheryl)

Cheryl presented me with my own birthday cake (evil woman she is):

Needless to say, my kids helped me eat all those bad things!

Then I went to Bunco with Pam and her fun friends and won the Bunco pot of $36….sweet!!   Needless to say, it ended my birthday on a high note….but not to end the celebration too soon, my friend Stacie came up for Saturday night and we drank wine, watched the 2nd season of the Tudors (which she got me for my bday gift) and just talked.   What a week!!!!

I also received my Miniature Booty 3 Swap from Norway!  Laila has incredible craftsmanship!  I’m soo in love with all the items I received from her.  She is highly talented and I feel honored she agreed to be my partner!  I haven’t hung it up yet, still need to clean the wall it will hang on in my kitchen, but here’s the booty:

My booty will be on it’s way tomorrow to it’s new home.  I can’t show a picture because it’s so specific, it would give it away

I work today, but tomorrow and Thursday I plan to focus on my sewing space and get things packed for the deep reorganization that will happen.  It’s going to be crazy and awhile before I sew on my machine again, but I have all my prep work done on my latest hexagon piece and started basting the little suckers last night…so easy to do while I’m watching TV

Happy Earth Day….

of course, we should celebrate it everyday….and if that is the case, the celebrating my birthday everyday would be awsome

I received a pleasant surprise last night when my hubby arrived home with my son (hubby drove from TN to Philly to pick up son), my son’s girlfriend!  How cool is that!  So, for the next few days I have Fallon and Allen visiting!  Unsure how much sewing will get down, but I’m close to finishing my “to do” list for this week, so it might be ok!

I have meant to share my newest obsession, hand work…you say WHAT?  Well, I got a sample of hexagons from Paper Piecing (we had them at work and got some at guild). I took them along on my trip to Texas to “work on”….and I did it!!  My first flower!  Now I plan to do use two more packs to create a pin cushion, but I’m soo proud of myself and my stitching (in my opinion) is awsome!

I purchased a book called Quilts from Grandmother’s Garden and have gotten a few inspirations from it.  Also in the most currect AQS Magazine, they had a very cool hexagon pattern, that I’m actually going to “kit up” and use they suggestive tips for this portable project.

I blame Karol-Ann, Betsy and my co-worker, Carolyn, for this newest addition.  I even had to purchase reading glasses to do it successfully!

Unsure what today holds, but dinner with friends and an evening of BUNCO (I’m sooo excited about that).

Enjoy the day!

Oh, PS…I also Twitter now as quiltingpirate and facebook is my name.

Woot…

rolling, rolling, rolling….

I “had” to make binding to put on my latest quilts that came back from Penny.  I normally wait til I have at least 10 bindings in my binding bucket, but I made 7 and it’s off my “to do list”:

Now to apply 2 of those new binding to my quilts I got back from Ms. Penny yesterday.  I’m in love with my Kiwi Meltaway:

And my Blue Leaves is just as beautiful:

The Blue Leaves will be up for sale once the binding get on.

Off to work, hubby is on his way home!!

Almost forgot….

I have to pick a winner……mmmmm….so many creative folks out there and thank you for all playing along.   Be sure to revisit this post and check out all those folks who participated and look at how they display their quiltlets…..so the winner of my challenge is….drum roll please…….

Colene

Congrats Colene, email me with your snail address and I’ll put your winnings into the mail tomorrow!

I like doing giveaways….I still have a huge tub full of stuff to hand out, but need to space out giveaways so I can afford the shipping   So, I’ll ponder a new challenge to post in a week or so.

My wonderful husband hung my Portrait of Sunflowers up today in the dining room:

Isn’t it awsome…I’m soo tickled!!  Thanks again to Cheryl for finishing my binding…she rocks my socks!

So, now I’m trying to figure out what my next project will be….still kinda just numb, but I’m sure I’ll pull something out that I have started already.

I’m sneaking….

company has arrived safe and sound!  It’s a long drive from Tennessee, about 8 hours with rain.  House is cleaner, thanks to Cheryl who came over with 2 vacuums!!! YAH!!

I did sneak some sewing in and completed a few things.

This is a panel, called In My Garden–normally I wouldn’t do a panel for a gift, but this one is cute and really fits the new baby’s room theme.  I’m also going to make the fabric book that goes along with it:

Of course I ran out of the purple fabric and being we have our 25% off sale started yesterday….it’s allll gone…ugh…so I need to figure out another binding to match the flannel backing I’m going to use.  No clue how to quilt this, but I’ll figure it out.

Then I did complete all 12 blocks of my Bali Pops….it’s getting close to naming this….I have 2 rows together already as well:

I can’t wait to get these all together!

I think we are visiting Amish country today.  Haven’t done that in about 7 years!  So, need to look up some sight seeing stuff…..any suggestions….besides quilt shops, don’t think my sister in law would enjoy it as much as I would   We are heading to Lancaster area.