Countdown - day 6

Had a flare up of the cold or whatever it was I had and didn't get to post for a couple of days.  Let me see if I can catch up.

Picked out some fabric for my 3rd Adinkra BOM.

It took me a bit to find what thread I wanted to use with it but finally settled on a turquoise thread.  You should see it in a day or two.  I have been sick and stayed home yesterday from work which is why I am behind.

Now for some pictures of the 2013 International Quilt Festival to catch me up.

Have a great day.  Wouldn't you like to be in that last picture right now?  I know I would.  :)

Countdown - Day 7

The countdown continues and I'm  getting a little more excited about it.  On Friday I will be getting on the bus (assuming my car works and I can get to meet up with it).

I have had a busy weekend.  I have almost finished cleaning my sewing area.  Of course my other room needs cleaning now so that will get worked on next weekend.

Here is half of the sewing area.  I'll post the other half once I finish with it.

In between breaks, I managed to finish up my redwork stitching for the March Bucket List.

This is the one I had to finish up on.

And this is what the three redwork blocks will look together.  I still have to trim down the snowman.

This UFO is getting closer and closer to being finished.  I might actually get it done in time for Christmas at the office this year.  That would be good.  Something new to hang up.

I also managed to finish a fourth block for the Splendid Sampler..  It comes out twice a week so I am behind.  That's ok.  I might not make them all but I will make as many as I can and try those which appeal to me.  :)

Are you ready now for some more pictures from the 2013 International Quilt Festival?

This last one is posted because I can understand it.  I'm not a fan of a lot of the modern quilts but I can still apprecaite the work and effort that went into making them.

I hope that you have enjoyed the pix.  More is to come tomorrow.  :)

Countdown - Day 8

Hello everybody.

I hope you are having a great day/weekend.  It is super windy here today and we even had some snow a couple of times.  Nothing that stuck and, in fact, didn't even manage to survive after landing on something.  That's ok.  I don't have a problem with that.

Here is my update on March's Bucket List.  Little by little it is getting done.  I have way to many squirrel moments and keep getting sidetracked.  :)

I am not doing much sewing today.  I am, however, getting my sewing area cleaned up and part of it more organized or at least a couple of things labelled.

BUT....I haven't forgotten to pick out a couple of pictures from the International Quilt Show in 2013 for you to see.

I hope you have enjoyed these pictures.  More have been picked out for tomorro.  :)

Countdown - Day 9

Let's hear it for my student helper.  He helped me download Instagram and figured out how to use it so I can post directly to the internet while at the quilt show.  I will take most of my pictures with my regular camera but one or two with the cell phone.  They already have an Instagram account set up for the Quilt Festivals so it can be loaded up directly there.  If you're on Instagram and want to see what they had in Houston, go to #QuiltFestival.

So today's eye candy is from the 2013 International Quilt show.

I have been a good girl (well as good as I can get) and started my Bucket List Challenge for March which was redwork.  I know...I know.  Bonni, what are you doing STARTING the bucket list challenge with only a couple of days left in the month?  No wait....only ONE day left.  It just happened.  I had to wait for Bird Brain Designs to send me fabric since I lost what I needed to do the third panel in my redwork.  By the way, Bird Brain Designs...LOVE THEM!!!!!  They sent me more than enough to finish my project and sent it promptly and at no extra cost even though I volunteered to pay for it.  Here is the picture of the third section.  I will finish this up in a day or two (maybe over the weekend) and then start to put it together after my sewing area gets cleaned up.  It will be good to mark off another UFO.

That's about it today.  Break time is over and I have to get back to work.  We are to have rain on and off all day today.  While it's not April, it's pretty close though, the showers did bring May flowers.  This was taken as I walked across the parking lot on the way in to work today.

I hope everybody has a good day.

The Countdown - Day 10...

10 days from now I will be getting on a bus and headed to the International Quilt Show in Rosemont, IL.  :)   So, to keep me psyched up for it (like that would be hard), I am going to post/repost (since I posted them in 2013) at least one picture each day from when I last attended in 2013.

Today's picture is of a Yurt.

Wouldn't you love to spend some time in there with all that inspiration?

I also found a website that had posted the floor plans and who would be at the show.  I quickly printed it up, highlighted a couple of places I wanted to check out and highlighted them on my floor plan.

Ummm.  Ok. perhaps I highlighted more than a couple of places.  In true fashion, they are spread out over the whole area so I am guaranteed to be exhausted on the way back home.  Good thing I'm not driving.  I will be on a bus.  Of course once the bus brings me back to the quilt shop in Rockford, I'll still have to drive home but I will have rested up by then.

I'm making a list and checking it twice or would that be thrice.  Have to have extra batteries for the camera and phone and bluetooth chargers.  Maybe a snack and my knee wrap.  So much to do and always so little time to do it.

One last picture from 2013 for today.  More tomorrow as I count down to my fun one day vacation.

Yes, that's a quilt!

Happy Eater everybody!

Didn't work too much on crafting today since it was Easter.  I did get some cross stitch done and then I noticed that I might be using the wrong color so will try to figure it out tomorrow.  In the meantime, I cam home to my comcast cable (for tv) not working again.  Guess I will be calling them again.

Don't think that I am complaining.  I had a delightful day of relaxing and theng oing to my sister in laws for Easter dinner.

Here are some pix from her dinner.  I always love her tablescapes.

Off to one side she also had a little topairy.

Here is my lovely hostess.  My sister in law Mrs. Bobbie Bromeland.  :)

My oldest Nephew was hiding  but I caught him.

You can see the ham being cut up in the background.  It was VERY yumy.  Bobbie is holding cornbread croutens for our salad that had just come out of the oven (to crisp them up).

There is usually too many people to all hold at one table so four people were eating in the living room.  Don't feel sad for them...they got to go get their food first!

That's about it.  I hope everybody  had a great day.

Tahoe Tote Quilt Class Report

Yesterday was National Quilt Day but it was also my Tahoe Tote Quilt Class.  It went from 10-3 but actually the instructor was so good and everybody was helping each other so much we ended around 2.  That was good because it gave us time to look through Quilter's General Store.  They were giving everybody a 15% discount for National Quilt Day but since we had a class on that day we got 20% off whatever we bought.  Gotta love that.  I was busy doing my tote so I don't have a lot of pictures.

Here are some of the bags that the instructor and friends made to show the pattern

 Here is our wonderful instrutor.  She was so helpful.  She went around the class and helped pressed our seams or helped pin or cut out out what we needed.  It kept us all on track.

Some people didn't show up for class which was kind of nice because that meant more room for others.  Most of the tables had two people at them so we had plenty of room.

We cut out the material at home so we didn't have to cut much out (more trimming) in class so we could concentrate on sewing.  My friend Connie took the class also so here she is holding up my first part that I had sewn together.

Of course I made her hold her pattern up also.  Her fabrics are actually tan and light brown so it didn't come out very well.  Notice how she is covering up her face?  She hates pictures being taken of her.

She knew that I'd get a picture of her face sooner or later so this is her reaction to it.

I don't think she noticed I got her in this picture.  hehehe

What we did have to cut out was our Stabilizer.  The pattern called for three different fusible stabilizers.  It was recommended that we use Soft and Stable.  Some of the ladies used two layers of this but Connie and I decided to use only one layer of it.  Two layers would have been VERY hard to sew through and my machine wouldn't like it.

What was different to cut out the corners (so it boxes it) before you sewed the area.  In other patterns you sewed then cut it out.  Not sure which I like better.

Doesn't it look funky?!

It wasn't long before I had the stabilizer sewn to my fabric..  Yeah we were a little messy on the table but we were busy creating so that's ok right?  hehe.

As you can see, the fabric was doing some gymnastics while we tried to sew things togther.

While I was sewing my handles and pockets, my instructor pinned my lining in for me.  She was always looking for ways to help us out.

By 2 I had finished my tote.

The inside has six small pockets.  I have blue fish on the inside of my tote because never knew what to do with that fabric!  LOL.

Remember me saying we got 20% on whatever we bought?   Well this is what I bought (besides another blue water solable pen).  It was marked down 50% so it was only $5 per yard.  I'm not sure what I'll use it for so I only got 1 yard.  Wasn't that good of me?  I showed so much restraint!

But then here is what else I bought!  I don't know what I'll use this for but I couldn't resist it for $6.  There are two identical panels so I could use it for a lot of things.  Somebody said a pillow.  I might use it as a center for a wall hanging or even perhaps part of the back so if I wanted to turn the quilt/wall hanging around I could.  :)  It too is going into my stash until I figure it out.

I hope you enjoyed the pix.  I'll have a lot more to share after the International Quilt Show on April 8th.  :)

Have a wonderful day and....

HAPPY SPRING!

Making Progress - organization?

Don't get too excited...I'm not organized at home yet.  What I did, today, was get more organized for my Tahoe Tote bag class on Saturday.  I took my fabric to work and scanned it.  Then I printed it up in color and I think you get a better idea now on the colors.  Here they are.

The lining fabric

After that I printed up the diagram that came with the pattern and cut and pasted the fabric to the diagram so I knew which fabric went where.  THEN I cut up some extra off the pictures of the fabric and wrote on the back what I need to cut from that fabric.  Sound confusing?  It might be but I hope it will help.  So here are the results of that little organization project.

The hand will be the dark blue (like the blue making up the T in the picture)

What do you think?  Tonight I am going to try and cut out my fabric so it will be all ready to pack up on Friday.  The class is Saturday and I hope to leave the house around 8 a.m. to make the drive and arrive in plenty of time.

What are you working on?