Sunday news

Well the fun is officially over ... on Friday I had a dermatologist appointment to remove the other basal cell they found a month and a half ago ... he told me the cut was about an inch long:

I do believe he needs to get his ruler out and remeasure!  Yikes!  I can only hope that it looks as good as the last time I had this done.  That scar you can't even see any more it's on the same side towards the middle of my nose.  You can't see it at all!  The problem is that no bandaid will cover so ...

I look a bit beat up!  That's okay ... it's only for a week ... I'm getting used to this.  Besides, the other day in Starbuck's I met a friend, and whenever I think of him, he makes me smile ...

Meet Hank, a miniature dachsund puppy who almost came home with me!  I got to hold him while his mom was in line ordering a coffee.  He was so tiny and very, very sweet!  How can you not be happy looking at Hank?

The last quilt I did before I left on vacation was a Christmas quilt.  It was a little busy, but I have a holly pantograph that I thought would work really well with it ... it's a little abstract, and I wasn't sure whether the customer would like it, but she loved it!

Glide thread in top and bobbin.

I got all turned around towards the end of the quilt and somehow got off of the line I was stitching on.  I had to rip out about 20 minutes worth of work which amounted to about 3 hours of ripping.  I just HATE that!  Someone should hire themselves out to rip out people's quilting ... they could make a lot of money.  I would hire them.

Teaching a class tomorrow ... going to go and finish watching game 4 of the World Series.  My son's sweetie's family are Tiger fans ... go Tigers!

Home at last

Well I actually slept in my bed last night for the first time in two and a half weeks.  It felt great ... so great, that I didn't get up until 10:00 a.m.!  Wow ... yesterday we left St. George, Utah in the a.m.  Before we left I had to visit my friends at Let's Quilt ... it was fun to talk to Teryl and I bought a few bobbins, a bobbin case, some bobbin washers and a ruler so I can try more ruler work.  I love Teryl ... she is just the best!

Before I visited Teryl I found a new quilt store to me ... Clover Patch ... they boasted 4,000 bolts of fabric.  There was quite a lot ... the lady there was very nice, and I think about 1/2 the fabric was something I would be interested in looking at.  Everything was only $7.99 a yard.  Wow!  Here's what I came home with ...

I think that makes about 10 stores I hit across the country.  Boy have I had a great time.  It's a good thing I came home though because my pocket book couldn't take much more of it! 

Our last stop before home was to see our sweet daughter at college.  We had dinner with her and it was so nice to spend some time with our sweetie.  We went to one of our favorites ... P.F. Changs and just sat and chatted and loved on her ... she is doing so well and doesn't realize how much she has grown.  What an amazing daughter we have!  Then it was off to home.

Now I have a little secret to tell you that I've been holding for some time now ... I'm going to be a grandmother!  This news was not originally met with excitement ... if you recall my son just graduated from college, and no I never did mention him getting married.  He is in love and his intended and he had talked about getting married and having babies ... they are just doing it out of order.  It seems to be the way things are often these days, and while my husband and I wish they were doing it in order, we are happy that they love each other and intend to marry after the baby is born.  So ... the baby is due on our 25th wedding anniversary, February 20!  That makes her just about 6 months along.  Life has been complicated by the fact that she decided to remain in Michigan (instead of moving back here in July), because she has had morning sickness horribly bad.  Combine that with the fact that she has lupus, and she felt like she needed to be with her family so they could help take care of her.  I understand that.  So we are anxiously awaiting the birth of that baby in February and then baby and mom will move here and they will live in our granny flat next door.  I am excited!  A little scared for my son, but they will do fine, and we're going to have a little one to love.  Life is strange, isn't it.  No matter what, babies are a blessing, and God does not hand out more than you can handle.  It has taken me several months to get to that conclusion and to believe it ... I know it in my heart, but knowing something and living it, are two different things!

So when we went on this trip I had a mission for my fabric shopping ... to make a quilt for our grandbaby ... actually, granddaughter to be specific!  They're wanting the room to have a wall that is purple for the baby, so a purple quilt it is.  I knew the pattern I was going to make ... JoAnn Mullaly's Sophie's Quilt ...

Oh, the picture got blurry when I blew it up ... but you kind of get the idea.  So much cuter in person!  I'll have to take a picture of my pattern to show you.  So you can see that it is a super scrappy pattern.  Embroidery with lots of fabrics!

 

So with that in mind I started my shopping knowing I wanted purple ...

 So as I was searching I just started adding colors I thought would compliment the purple ... blue ...

And how about some lights ...

Yellows ...

 

 Oranges ...

 Greens ...

 A few multi that I thought would work in ...

And some pinks . ..

Okay, so I got a little carried away ... I had so much fun!!!  Some stores I only bought a couple of pieces.  But here's what it all comes out to ...

I think I pretty much have everything, don't you??  Ha, ha ... I can't tell you how much fun it was to shop with a project in mind.  Usually when I'm out in a fabric store it's just with the idea that I buy something I like and will use.  But when you actually have a project in mind, it was so much more fun.  I only bought a 1/4 yard of everything.  Some of them were fat quarters.  I know I have entirely too much fabric, but I'm going to have so much fun creating several quilts, and who knows what else out of all this fabric!

Heading home ... Idaho Falls to St. George

What a fantastic trip we have had! Really, we couldn't have asked for a better trip. The dogs were very agreeable, and never complained once about jumping in and out of the car at every stop. They were funny! They had this routine when we were done at the end of the day they tore around the hotel room like wild kids! The only time they could run free without a leash, and they did their best to wear themselves out.

I'm going to go backward in my journey and give you a glimpse into our travels. Today we started in Idaho Falls and our destination was St. George, Utah. I knew we were going to stop in Salt Lake City and hit a couple of quilt stores.

The quilt store I found in Idaho Falls had turned into a dance studio ... What a bummer! Oh well, onto Salt Lake.

The first stop was Piper Quilts. I had been to this store before and remembered it to be really cute. It's in a small house. It also has knitting supplies. The fabrics are really sweet, and I had a good time finding a few that needed to come home with me.

They had some beautiful quilts hanging on the walls and I asked if I could take a picture of the quilting on this particular quilt ... I thought it looked really neat, and hope to try and see if I can use these designs.

Next stop was Rubio's for lunch that was conveniently located next to a pet store. The dogs had been out of cookies for a couple of days and needed their fix. Rubio's is one of our favorite haunts in San Diego and we were delighted several years ago to find out they had them in Salt Lake. Just as yummy!

Last stop on the quilt tour for the day was Elaine's Quilt Block. Oh if I had more time in that store ... What fun! Super nice ladies ... They have everything ... Civil war fabric, in fact a whole roomful. Kaffe Fassett, fun, bright, whimsical, bold, batiks. Several Christmas lines and a load of Halloween fabric. Then there was an entire upstairs full of juvenile fabric ... What fun!! They are one of the only stores I have seen besides the Country Loft that had a ton of homespuns. What a treat! The nice ladies even let me charge my hubby's cell phone while I was shopping. Of course they knew the longer it charged, the more time I had to shop!

I know you are wondering about all these different colors I'm picking ... it's a secret and I'll let you in on it soon!

Tomorrow I'll visit Let's Quilt where I bought my Innova, and say hello to my wonderful dealer and buy a few things. Then I might be able to sneak in one more quilt store before we head home!

　
 

Up For Air

Whew, popping in as fast as I can to let you know I'm still here!  We've been traveling since a week and a half ago, Tuesday.  Headed for the east coast ... do you remember?  So far we've been through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, D.C., Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan ... I think I've gotten them all!  Whew!!  Currently we are in Detroit, Michigan ... we made a little sidestep up here to meet my son's girlfriend's family.  They live in a small town between Detroit and Flint.  It was very nice to see them and we had a good dinner.  His sweetie is living back here with her parents for a few months, and so it was nice to see her too.  She looked wonderful!

From Detroit we are headed for Chicago for a few days.  It will be nice to plant ourselves in one area for a couple of nights.  It was a tough day of driving yesterday ....up at 6, in the car at 8:30 and except for quick bathroom stops and to grab food, we drove straight through until 6:30 last night.  Every day has almost been an exact duplicate of that!  My brother and his family live outside of Chicago, so it will be nice to see them for a couple of days.

I have managed to hit three quilt stores in my travels.  Nothing exciting so I haven't spent too much money!  One of the stores is called G Street fabrics and I went to the one located in Alexandria (or maybe Arlington), Virginia.  I knew it wasn't a quilt store, but it had fabric, and it was close, so for me that was good enough!  It was quite surprising ... they sold Berninas upstairs and downstairs was full of fabric.  Like how fabric stores used to be ... decorator fabrics, home fabrics, huge bolts of suit material, polyesters, and there in a corner of the place, a section with nice quilting fabric.  I spied Moda and Robert Kaufman among  others.  I managed to to find about 6 fabrics that I bought for my current project.  More pictures later.  I'll try and pop in tonight with some pics!

This is what I've been seeing outside my window the last few days.  The colors are beautiful.  Not quite as orange as in this picture, I think the best colors will be next week.

Hi ... I'm here

Even though it's 12:30 a.m. and I've had a long day of traveling, I had to check in with you all and let you know I'm still here and have been thinking of you!  I've been so busy quilting my heart out and getting all my projects done for customers so I could go on our big vacation!  My husband and I haven't been on a vacation without kids in 22 years ... well we figured since dear son has graduated college, and sweet daughter is in college, we are pretty much free!  So hubby has a two week break that the school district takes in October, and with a couple of more days added onto it, we are driving from San Diego to northern Virginia.  Hubby has a group of friends that gets together every October and this is the first time he'll be able to see them all in years. 

We left yesterday at about 4 and had to drive to Deming, New Mexico ... we had made reservations, husband planning so each day there is about 10 hours of driving to get there ... we have to hurry and be there by Friday night, but on our way home we are taking lots of time and stopping and seeing family members as well as some other highlights that are a secret for now!  We had to drive through Tucson yesterday to see a very dear, old friend of my husband's mother.  She is such a sweet lady, and let us show up at her door at 10 p.m.  She tried to twist our arms several times to get us to stay with her, but sadly we knew we couldn't and had to stick to our plan.  She sent us on our way with snacks and drinks ... 96 years old and sharp as can be ... such a dear!

We forgot about the time change, so by the time we checked into our hotel and got into bed, it was 4 a.m.  Ugh!!  We brought our two dogs with us ... they love to travel and if you have pets that are like your children, you'll understand.  And if you don't, well you'll just think we're crazy!  Charlie heard voice this a.m. and so woke me up at 8 so I didn't get much sleep ... that's ok because I needed to get up so we could get going.  We stopped in Dallas tonight and just had a late dinner ... we are all pooped.  I'm going to get up at 6 a.m. so we can get out of here early tomorrow and not have to be driving so late at night.  I drive in the a.m. while hubby gets the rest of the sleep he missed, and he's a night owl, and loves to drive, so he'll drive the rest of the time.  Of course I brought some stitching to do and books to read ... as well as my Nook so we can do crosswords together ... me reading the clues, and him helping while he's driving.

I have lots of quilts to show you that I finished before I left, but I'll break them up so you're not overwhelmed ...

Another beauty by one of my sweetest customers ...she really likes this pantograph I have that has flowers and birds on it ... it is a Christmas present for her daughter-in-law to be (she hopes).

Glide thread, top and bobbin ... cream color

You can really see the design here

Of course it looks so much cuter in person and she absolutely loved the design.  What she doesn't realize is the design is just the icing ... her quilt just accepts the design and the beauty is in her quilting.

 

While we were out at dinner the other night I saw this cool wallpaper treatment ...

That's a close up ... I thought that this would be a really cool pattern for texture in a block or sashing.  I try to remember to look everywhere I go for ideas for quilting designs.

Wouldn't that look great in a sashing or a block that needed something?  Love it!  More tomrrow from the road!!

Thursday work

Today was my work day ... I am fortunate enough to only work one full day a week at the Country Loft.  I also teach classes, and work several days a week at home on my longarm.  Right now Mindy and I are working on next year's block of the month so we are both working on Thursday's ... it is really nice to have a buddy while you're working to chat with ... and we work well together and get a lot done!  I think we give each great support and have good ideas.

Okay, while I was trying to figure out fabric today for a block, I had this idea ... I am not computer literate, so please someone tell me if this "app" exists ... I think it would be wonderful to have a program where you could draw a piece of fabric (the measurements), and then tell the computer what measurements you needed to get out of there ... then check and see whether that would work.  It would be a lot faster than doing it on paper!  Ha, ha ...

I've been a busy bee this week ... I have two quilts to show you:

This quilt I used a pantograph ... one of my new Glide colors (Sand) in top and bobbin

Hard to see the design, but it's a Golden Threads pantograph called Feather Me

 Isn't this a great quilt?  Another one by my friend, Judy!  She just pushes herself to do different things and her quilts are all different, and all amazing!  She has only been quilting for a year, can you believe it?  As always, I use Hobbs 80/20 batting.

Next up was this beauty that was made of batiks.

Hard to see the pattern on this, but I used the same pantograph ... I really liked the way is looked against these straight lines.

I just couldn't get a good picture so you could see the texture in this quilt ... I used Glide thread in top and bobbin ... it was one of my new colors ... that beautiful rust!  It was made for this quilt.

I was in a hurry to take this picture because I finished the quilt before I went to work this morning, so I didn't get a very good picture of the quilting.

Last Saturday I took a class at the Loft from my friend Jayne ... it was really fun.  There were only two of us in the class and we just had a great time.  I decided to make my quilt totally different ... it was a Christmas quilt ...



This is what my quilt looks like without the trees ...



Sorry, you have to turn your head to the side to see this quilt ... I forgot to adjust the picture before I loaded it onto Picasa.  I put a blue border around the outside ... it is really different and fun.  I used everything out of my stash and I am so psyched about that!  Making room for more fabric.  Speaking of which ... I am very excited because my two great friends are coming over tomorrow to help me get all my sewing stuff into one spot ... oh I cannot wait!  I am just so excited because everytime I look at everything all over the place in four different rooms, I just don't know where to start.

Sizzlin!!!

I'm sitting in my air conditioned bedroom at 7:30 at night ... it's 78 in here and it feels blessedly cool!  It was 102 degrees in the east part of San Diego today and the rest of my non-airconditioned house is still at least 85 degrees it feels like.  We have a whole house fan in the upstairs that is blowing on high to cool down the rest of the house, but I may keep my air on all night ... I never do that!  It always cools down in San Diego in the evening, so on the rare occasions when I run my air, it always goes off by dark.  I am ready for fall ... the last couple weeks here have been really hot for us.

I had high plans of quilting today ... I went to the Country Loft and bought some fabric to do the borders on my halloween quilt.  I decided instead of doing a scrappy border, it was just going to overpower the whole quilt.  But I never got as far as cutting it out because it was so hot ... I also had planned to put another quilt on my Innova, but that didn't get done either!  The dogs and I sat in the bedroom all day watching t.v., reading, and being cool!  I did run errands this morning for about 2 or 3 hours ... I had a blast shopping and spending money I probably shouldn't have ... ha, ha!

Here are the pillowcases I made for JJ last week ... I never saw him open the gifts, so I hope he likes them ... I almost kept them since they were so cute!!

Look how cute this fabric is up close.  And it was flannel so it was soft and fuzzy.  Why don't we all have cute pillowcases?  This is the absolute simplest thing to do ... you can make one in about 30 min.  I have plans to go back and buy some cute fabric for my daughter and make her a couple so she can rotate her pillowcases at college ... but shhh, don't tell her!  Hopefully she's too busy with her college life to read my ramblings!

I did a couple of quilts this week ... had Jason from Let's Quilt out last Friday to give my machine a once over.  He was in the area so I just wanted him to take a look at my machine and make sure I was taking care of it properly.  There also was a shudder in a part on the frame, and I suspected it was a leveling issue, but hadn't been able to get it to stop.  He showed me how to loosen the frame and let it all relax and tighten it back up if I have problems again.  If you are interested in an Innova Quilting Machine, I would highly, highly recommend Let's Quilt in St. George, Utah.  My dealers Teryl and John are just the best!  I have had my machine for a year now and I can't say enough about them ... the entire process from buying it, to taking classes, to maintaining the machine has been a breeze.  Their customer service is excellent.

I forgot to take a picture of a small quilt I quilted earlier in the week ... It had been a small block of the month (I think), and really was screaming for some custom quilting ... ruler work, etc.  So I started ... by the time I realized I did not really enjoy what I was doing, I was too far to turn back.  I am not comfortable with ruler work, and usually when I do custom, I don't use a ruler, but just free motion the movement.  In the end I think it looked really cute and matched the design ... I'm pretty sure I am overly critical of myself ... oh wait, I KNOW I am overly critical ... ha, ha, ha!

Here's a fun quilt I did for a customer ...

I used an Omni navy blue in the top and Glide in the bobbin, and just did a free motion stipple.  I did travel straight down and across the center line of the stars because I thought it needed some anchoring in that area.  It is a fringy star quilt, so when it's washed, the edges of the stars will fray.  I didn't want the whole star to be too puffy.

She used all fabric she had in her stash on this quilt ... that is an awesome feeling!

I also decided this week that I needed some bright orange thread for my halloween quilt; I was low on a couple of favorite colors, so a Glide order was needed!  Look what came ...

I know some of these colors look the same, but they're not!  I ordered a forest green, kind of thinking of Christmas, a pretty color called Penny which is a gold with a little copper in it, Sand, and my all-time favorite that I use the most of Vegas Gold.  I also ordered some prewound bobbins in Vegas Gold and Leather, which is a brown, another good color that I use a lot of.

I think my two favorite colors in the order were these in the front ... the orange I hope will go terrific in my quilt (and if it doesn't, I'll just have to find several fabrics that I can use this thread with!).  This other color is a rich rust, I can't remember the name of it, but I thought it looked like a beautiful fall color.  I think my thread stash is getting a little out of control as it won't fit in the big box I have all my thread in ... why shouldn't I have as much thread as I do fabric ... !!