Ewe's ready for this?

I thought this was so cute and I just knew some people would love these pictures of felting!

close up of the sheep/ewe's

Close up of the clouds

Have a lazy Sunday...

It's a Sunday and Sunday always reminded me of the day to be lazy.  Perhaps I should say be Lazier since Sundays usually meant doing laundry, cooking food for the week, and many other things a working person never got to during the week.  After that was the time to go visit some friends or get ready for them to come and visit you and cook for company.  Somewhere in there you were suppose to sit and relax. 

For my mother, relaxing meant cooking up a storm and telling my sister and I not to get dirty until AFTER the company arrives.  It didn't matter if the company said "you didn't have to do anything, we're family, not company", we got the "look" from mom that said you are listening to ME.  Then we'd have to sit down for a bit and "relax".

Today my relaxing is meeting up with friends from Our Time To Quilt via YouTube channel and talking about life and quilting.  They were with me when I went to the Quilt Festival because I would see something and think I must take a picture of this to show them.  Relaxing also means thinking of family and these next set of pictures fits both criteria for me to "relax". 

I hope everybody has time to relax today.

Enjoy the day!

Milla Malchow - Our Younger Brothers

Milla Malchow is quilting and thread art designer.  She had her business card at the show and it said that she is at Fort Laramie, WY .  I loved her work and was happy to discover that she was at the show and talking to anybody who had questions about her pieces.  I overheard part of a conversation and was happy to learn how helpful she was.  The quilter asking questions was just getting into more detailed thread painting and wondered if Milla's heavily quilted pieces needed pressing after travelling and if not how does she stop it from happening.  Milla's answer was she didn't do anything special.  She had to trust the people who were packing from one show and sending to another show.  Mostly they came out ok and only a couple needed a little help to hang a little better.  Nice to know.

Same here.  I think this one was hers but not sure.  I took over 100 pictures so can't remember them all.

I think this one was hers but now I'm not sure....Enjoy it anyway. 

Milla was also nice enough to let me take her picture.  She asked which piece I wanted her to stand by and I chose the two bears enjoying a good back scratch.    She also gave me permission to post up her pictures on the blog.

Patches of Blue by Edyta Sitar

One of the popular displays was sponsored by Martingale Publishing and Andover.  The popular artist?  Edyta Sitar.  It was crowded every time I went and only managed to take a couple of pictures.

She does do lovely work and was one of my inspirations for learning to quilt.  I just wished that I could have taken more pictures.  She had 24 pieces on display but I'm not sure they were showing all of them all the days.  It didn't seem like there were that many there but then I could have missed a row or something. 

I hope you enjoy the pictures and I apologize for not getting better shots.

The Start of the International Quilt Show - Chicago 2019

It was such a nice day.  I just wore my heavier sweater and didn't need to take it inside with me when we reached the show.  But before that I had to drive up to Quilter's General Store. 

http://www.quiltersgeneralstore.com/

The Quilter's General Store (QGS), according to their website, was founded in 1997 and is located in a stately 1875 farm house. 

They have barns on the property also so that we could park our vehicles behind them.  That way we would not be taking up their small parking area for the business.

It wasn't long before I was stepping on our chartered CoachUSA bus.  I love the plush fabric that decorates the bus.  Here is an example of it.  That is on the ceiling but it is carried out on the seats and walls of the bus also.  

I was the second to the last (but not last) to arrive so most of the seats were already taken.  I ended up sitting behind the driver, and to tell the truth, I found it very comfortable.  I told the ladies from QGS that they could put some of their things next to me so they weren't as crowded. They appreciated it and I didn't mind.  It was nice not to have to watch my elbows (grins) or carry on a conversation.  It gave me time to jot down some notes for the blog posts, etc.  

Sometime between one hour and an hour and a half, we arrived at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center.

We didn't have to wait in line for our tickets since it was part of the cost for the trip.  We had blue "bracelet's" that we had to wear.  It was a nylonish(?) material that was sturdy and made it through the entire show and time and had to be cut off at the end.  We also had a name badge in a plastic container that pinned on.  That was nice because you could identify who was on your bus or not and if we had any problems, they put the contact number for the rep from QGS on the back.  Never felt out of touch with them.  

Before we could get off the bus, a representative from the Convention Center gave us a briefing on where some things were in the Center (you know the important things like bathrooms and food vendors--the rest we could figure out ourselves) and when we were to be where in order to catch the bus back to Rockford. 

FINALLY we were ready to walk through and have our minds blown by beautiful artistry of color and to see our bank accounts dwindle.

The first thing I saw when we walked down the stairs to the exhibits was this quilt.  I think it was a great representation of color and that was my impression of this show.  Color everywhere and awe inspiring pieces of art for that is truly what they are...art.

Time for me to stop here and get my feet back into reality.  There is laundry to do, would you believe that my gremlins and fairies in my apartment didn't do any of it, and dishes and groceries to buy.  Not to mention ordering a motor for my car windows so eventually I can get the plastic off of the window .
I hope everybody has a great day.  Check back each day for some more pictures.  I'll probably do another post today since it is a weekend. 

Hugs.

The International Quilt Show purchases

Wow!  I am soooo tired.  I knew I would be and am not sorry I went to the International Quilt Show.  Actually even if I was on my death bed I would have wanted to go because this is the last year for the International Quilt Show in Chicago/Rosemont.  Not sure if they will bring it back for now it is cancelled.  They did that one other time and after a couple of years it was brought back.  Lower attendance and higher costs was quoted to me.  We'll see.

I am tickled with my purchases.  Want to see them?  Of course you do.  If you don't, then skip this post and the posts after this for awhile since I will be posting pictures.  I just haven't downloaded and shrunk all the pictures yet.

This is what I purchased.  Since it was the last year here I bought some souvenirs.  The pin might get turned into another needle minder.  I will use them then.  :)

Who doesn't need a cup and a blank notebook?  I am, in fact, drinking water out of my cup as I'm typing this.  Pretty good typing for one hand since the other hand is holding the cup.  :)

Since I am going to try free motion quilting (again), I decided to get some proper gloves to wear.  I was happy to get them at the show instead of ordering them because I wasn't sure what size I would need.  I got them from Handi-Quilter and they let me try them on before buying them so I would know they fit.  Great customer service.  Also in the picture are three kits that I bought from Connecting Threads and a jelly roll of white strips from Quilt Addicts Anonymous.  Stephanie from quilt Addicts Anonymous does their YouTube videos and she is the one who checked me out.  I had to tell her, of course, how much I loved her videos.  :)

I also managed to get to Aurifil and they had a good price on their little storage box.  It was $14 (rounded up the amount) and it came with the white thread in it already.  Since I wanted to get both white and black, I was happy to get the white for free.   The guy also put in a free seam ripper because "I was so nice and cheerful while I waited on the two people in front of me".  See?  It DOES pay to be nice.  Ok, it's a small cheapie seam ripper but it is new which means sharp which means I can now get rid of one of the "not sharp" seam rippers. 

I also picked up a couple of pieces of fabric from the Quilts of Valor display.  The fabric they had there was donated fabric that didn't meet their criteria and/or just donated.  They didn't put a price on it but the money that is taken in from the sales goes toward getting supplies for the Quilts.  It was for a good cause so I donated $30.  The cabins is a cheaters cloth..oops...I mean is pre printed.

The whole piece is about three times what you see.  I have to open it up and see low large it really is.

I have 12 of these Dresden's.  I put it on my cream bedspread so people can see the color well and I have to say a cream background for those pieced Dresden's would be nice.

That's it for this quick post.  I hope you enjoyed it.  I will write more and post up some of the picturs when I can.  Now it is crash time for me.

I learned a new block

I finally can check off an item from my sewing bucket list.  Most people have made this block before for it is both traditional and versatility.  That block is called the Log Cabin Block. 

Like a lot of blocks, the Log Cabin block is one I never thought I'd be able to do.  I'm not sure why I thought that but I did.  It proves, once again, that we are our own worse enemy.  I probably could have done this block before if I had ordered a precut kit before.  I'm bad at cutting so pre cuts seemed to be the way to go. 

I have to sew them together yet but I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.  It's part of a kit from Jordan Fabrics. 

Now for some more eye candy.  This is some of my latest fabric that I bought.  I might have shown you before but I'm not sure.

I hope everybody has a great day.  I will write more but I have a headache today.  The change in weather probably.  

Hugs

Oh my! Lots of things to talk about.

The mail today actually was unexpectedly exciting.  I was gifted with something and was certainly NOT expecting it.

I have mentioned before that I like to do journals.  Not the kind that is so step by step have to keep to this schedule type, but more of the type of just writing down quick notes (especially for what I want to cover here) for my games as well as quilting.  Then today I received from Brenda Sutter (thank you Brenda!) a beautiful composition journal cover!  I usually use free or low cost booklets and composition books certainly fall in that category.  I can get them for $1 at Dollar Tree but I can also usually get them cheaper at Walmart at certain times of the year.  Of course I stock up during those sale times.  But look at this beautiful journal cover!!!!

Front Cover

What I use this journal for

The back of the journal

I just love it!!!!!

I had recently bought two flat rate boxes of scraps off of Brenda and I just thought she had found some more.  Speaking of the scraps...oh my!  Look what was in two two boxes.  I thought I could cram a lot in a box but I am a novice compared to Brenda.  LOL.  She even had some HST and other blocks in there.  Some of them might have bled a bit but I'm not sure yet.  Either way I'll sort it out and check it out.

larger scraps

Scaps still that still need to be sorted.

BUT WAIT!  THERE'S MORE!!!!

On Sunday (echo - Sunday Sunday) I will get to have some time to work on this months UFO - Storm at Sea.

  I have three rows finished (paper pieced) but not sewn together.  

I hope I have enough fabric.  I was looking at my journal on this project (see?  I DO do journals) and noticed that I haven't worked on it for 2 years.  The last date listed was February 23, 2017.  TWO YEARS?!  I shouldn't be surprised.  That is why it is listed as a UFO.  I wonder how far I'll get on it this year.

And, with the danger of repeating myself, BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE!

:)

Yes there is more.  I get to toot my own horn again.  TOOT   TOOOT!

I tested a pattern for the Quilt Pattern Magazine (see the side pattern.  Click where it says I love TQPM - click here) and you too can find out information about this wonderful e-magazine.  They have not put the geese pattern in this months magazine so I can show you.  It is redwork. 

I also did another test pattern but I will wait a bit before showing you that one.  It is Christmas at Sea but the blocks I did won't be published until around November.  

I hope you have enjoyed my news.  I hope you have a wonderful day/weekend/night.