Shop Hop!

This weekend is the annual Wild West Shop Hop for ten Houston area quilt shops. I hit three of them today before I ran out of steam. Each had little goodies to hand out, patterns for the shop hop quilt, kits, and tons of new stuff. My vote for Most Surprising Shop is KV Quilters on Main Street in Tomball, TX
They've given their shop a little makeover, and have tons more fabric than they used to, and lots more gadgets!Oops - I think she might be in the witness protection program!They've got batiks and orientals and lots of blenders. I was thoroughly impressed!Vintage quilt tops hang from the ceilingIda Anderson did a beautiful job quilting the shop hop quilt. I love that border fabric!
They had such an influx of hoppers that they had to cut more red, white, and blue fat quarters to give away. In the meantime, they handed out temporary tattoos that say "Born to Quilt" - really cute, and the staff were sporting them, too! They also gave away little brass stencils for well, stenciling...duh... or embossing paper. My daughter Gillian hopped with me today just like we did when she was little, so she got her own freebies. I also picked up some pink fqs for my pink and brown basket quilt, and a couple of reds. I'm finally making peace with that color after 50+ years. OMG that's half a century! Get over it already!!

Then we headed to Time Treasured Quilts & The Hen House
where we picked up some more red, white, and blue fq freebies, and pink fqs for that basket quilt. Gillian also picked up some funky yarn and a pattern book. She wants (me) to knit the poncho out of the turquoise and lime, and a little skull cap from the multi. Oh - and The Hen House wins the cutest bag prize. That's it on the left.And last but not least...more GREEN(ish) stuff!

Moodie Booty!

This is my older daughter's newest venture: Moodie Booty! She found the cutest, wildest, irreverent, and um...PG-13 gifty items. I sell some of the tamer ones to the groups at my retreat, and they are a hit! Magnets, gum, stickers, temporary tattoos, banks (I love the "Saving Up for Therapy" one!), lip gloss, bandaids like you've never seen - cute, funny, and perfect for members of the Sarcastic Society! Not that I know anyone like that!
Be sure to click on the pics at her site to enlarge them enough to read the packaging: it's hysterical!

Happy Birthday To Me!

My day is all planned. First, I'll have some pineapple for a pre-breakfast starter,
Followed by a lovely picnic breakfast!
For lunch, I think I'll have some fresh fruit,
And at cocktail hour, I'll have a nice, light, Sisho Martini.
And for dinner, I'll have cake!
Happy Birthday To Me!

June 2009 Desktop Calendar!

Click to expand image to full size, right-click and choose Set as Wallpaper or Background. To really jazz up your desktop, right-click on your background and choose a color that coordinates with the calendar - you'll love it! And you can make all your quilting friends jealous!

The Finish Line, part deux

Kat Skratch Fever
14.5" x 15.5"
Ok, I finally finished the Improv Workshop quilt from last month - the one with Mark Lipinski's Katmandu fabric. I ended up not embellishing it at all, since my daughter wasn't sure she wanted to hang it - she might use it as a coaster on her desk, and any beads or buttons could make her Iced White Mocha a little unstable. Just looking at this makes me a little unstable. But it's done, and I can cross it off my list.

The Finish Line!

I've decided to actually keep track of how many UFO's I finish this year, and with 48 UFO's in various stages of completion, I really need the encouragement to press on. I've finished four, but added another, so I still have 45 UFO's stage-whispering to me from my studio closet. Here's the first batch for the year:

Jackson's Star
48" x 48" for my grandbaby Jack.



Meganz Heartz
These blocks were the result of a class with Jan Mullins back in...I don't know...2001?
46" x 52"


Sugar & Spice

34" x 40" For my newest grandbaby Teaghan

The corner squares in the borders and the 'snowball' corners are cut from her daddy's shirts.

London Roads

50" x 50" This is a "throw down baby quilt" in the event I need an emergency gift. I have several ready and waiting to be gifted. The blocks were the result of an exchange with my favorite online swap group, Sew Many Swaps, using 1930's reproduction fabrics.

Crazy Chicken

Although I've owned many a crazy chicken in my life (especially the Polish Crested's) I've never owned one as crazy as this!


It was made for me by a very dear quilting friend as a Thank You gift. She gave it to me at our guild meeting last month, and I must say I was (and am still) floored! It's almost 12" tall and weighs almost 10 pounds, and is incredibly beautiful. I'd mentioned about 18 months ago that I'd seen one at a Crazy Quilting gathering at my retreat facility and she filed that info away and worked on it secretly for a year. I'm thoroughly humbled that Shirley would go through so much effort for me. She's also a very talented longarm quilter and you can see her work at Shirley's Machine Quilting

Airing of the Quilts

Saturday was the annual Airing of the Quilts in Huntsville, Texas. I went with three good friends on a typical Texas spring day - windy, sunny, and 85* - that would be summer in many parts of the country, but here, it's Semi-Spring. It comes right after Official Spring, which is one of the two days a year we can open our windows.
Anyway - Airing of the Quilts is put on by the Tall Pines Quilt Guild and it's a fabulous and fun outdoor show. All the quilts are hung from the 4 balconies of the courthouse, the storefronts surrounding the square, and in the streets. They use the old movie theatre for the mini quilt auction, the guild challenge quilts, and the featured quilter, who happened to be Carol Doak a very funny (and silly!) author, designer, and teacher.








Many of the stores had quilts displayed, some for sale, some not.

I just liked this window.
A cute little log cabin right on the square.





Thomas Ball's banner - the town I live in was named after him.
And look what I found!
More wooden spools for my collection!

Tyvek's Not Just For Envelopes!

I've been investigating quilt storage methods for our guild's StoryBook Quilts project Tri-County Quilt Guild and this morning, I was pointed to this system It's from Becky Campbell at Sewforever. She makes the hanging loops, quilt covers, and pole covers out of archivally-safe Tyvek. We've been rolling our quilts, but hadn't had the time to make covers for the heavy duty cardboard tubes they're stored on. I guess I don't have an excuse now. If you want to read more about Tyvek and its appropriateness for textile storage, take a look at this info from The Quilt Broker.

Hob-Knobbing

OMG - These are fabulous! I saw a mention of sewing hardware in the latest issue of Love of Quilting (Fons & Porter) and went straight to Sewing HardwareThey've got knobs and drawer pulls, and even though they're a little pricey, I want them all! We're building our new house, and I get to outfit a whole new studio. These are so going to be on all the cabinets, closets and drawers in there.