My good friend Deb is opening her own quilt shop in Tomball this summer! It's going to be called QUILTERS CROSSING, and will be located in the Old Town Tomball section of downtown, right across from Relics by the Railroad and The Whistle Stop Tea Room. It's the perfect spot, with several excellent restaurants within walking distance. She'll have 2 buildings: one for the quilt shop, longarm quilting and machine sales, and one for the classroom.
She and her friends are busy painting, ordering fixtures, and most importantly: ordering fabric!
Stay tuned for an update with more photos, and when they set a date for the opening, you'll be the 2nd to know!
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 I'll be back in a little while with the latest on my new studio!
So guess where I went for Mother's Day? Nowhere! We were planning on going to a little restaurant in Snook, Texas - but, after forgoing breakfast in bed, and getting the gang up and ready for travel, we discovered that they weren't even open on Sundays! So, on Monday, we did it all over again and drove the 70+ miles to Snook, population 568. If we'da blinked, we woulda missed it.
We arrived at Sodolak's Original Country Inn around lunchtime and found all the locals enjoying their giant steaks, Texas toothpicks, and what they're (in)famous for:
Chicken Fried Bacon!
I know. But I saw it featured on the Travel Channel a few months back during the same episode that they highlighted Goodson's Restaurant, 5 minutes from my house in Tomball. See for yourself in this clip from Texas Country Reporter - featuring our waitress, who didn't at all live up to her sign:
At first only Andy was willing to indulge my craving, but MJ decided to try it. Gillian resisted til I gave her a tiny piece to taste, and she was won over.
It was crisp, and not at all 'flubbery' - easy to chew - it practically melted in your mouth. And the country cream gravy was the perfect accompaniment. We definitely shoulda got 2 orders!
We are so going back!
Oh. I forgot. As if we hadn't already done enough to get to workin' on a heart attack, we spotted this on the way home and had to stop for a chocolate malt, a Heath Blizzard and an Oreo Brownie Earthquake.
So we bought the neighbor's 25 year old farmhouse 6 weeks ago, and we've been slo-o-o-wly moving out of the log cabin, less than 1/4 mile away. Probably about 20% of our stuff has made it over here in the past month and a half. Which makes it really hard to find anything. If it's in the new house, it's in a box. If it's in the cabin, it's in a pile waiting to be put in a box. But that won't happen any time soon for 2 reasons:
1) I'm wanting to re-use the boxes we've already packed/moved so far - but not unpacked yet
2) I'm too cheap to go buy new boxes
It's driving my older daughter and her family nuts. They're waiting to get their stuff unpacked, but can't, as our stuff is still in the rooms, closets, and cubby holes. They'd like to settle into the cabin before the new baby comes in July. I get that. And I want that for them. I just need 6 more arms and legs. (I don't want to be confused with Octomom, though.)
Ok, so where was I going with that?
Oh yeah. A shoehorn.
My temporary studio at the new house is the size of a closet - a nice-sized closet - and I can only get a fraction of my stuff in there. Just to illustrate, here's some shots of my studio at the cabin:
Ok. Now how do I get all that in here:
And the one, sad little closet
It is so not going to happen!
Since these pictures were taken about 2 weeks ago, I've gotten quite a bit in there, after adding a mess of Elfa shelving in the closet, and wrapping folded yardage on more of those Fabric Organizersby DeNiece. And I've gotten my sewing table in there, too. No to the giant cutting table, so I'm using my old Singer Model 42 sewing cabinet (with my 201 inside) as a cutting table. I just finished cutting 240 3.5" squares and I can't get back to vertical...I feel like Quasimoto.
I could squeeze a little more stuff in there, but I've decided to commandeer my husband's new garage instead. He's waited a quarter of a century for a garage (all this time, we've only had a barn with no floor), and I feel kind of bad about it, but really, honey...priorities.
We compromised and decided to split the garage: he gets 25% and I get 75%. That sounds fair to me. The contractor says it should be finished by the end of next week. Maybe.
They put in a new French door and knocked holes in the brick for 4 windows. I'll post some progress photos as they get further along.
And just for fun, this is what I've been working on in my temporary studio: my first feathered star - it'll end up being a little under 60" sq; and an autograph wallhanging with signatures from Paula Nadelstern, Nancy Zieman, Mark Lipinski, Ricky Tims, and 12 other quilting celebrities. I'll post when I get them both finished.
I'm taking a Jan Krentz Lonestar workshop through my guild in a few days, so I've got them on the brain. Hope my real one is as easy to make as this one! 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!
While I'm working on the May calendar, I thought I'd give you a heads up on the program I use to design them: Electric Quilt!
I've used EQ since the very first version, about 16 years ago, and since that time, I've only designed one quilt without it - a wholecloth painted quilt. 100+ quilts in the last 16 years - you decide if I like EQ or not!
Anyway - just got word this week that they're coming out with a new version in June, and for a limited time, they've got some killer pre-order pricing.
Check it out at Electric Quilt
My first spring in our new house has brought so much beauty, I don't think I can stand it. I really appreciate our old neighbors' (from whom we bought the house) efforts when they planted dozens of azaleas 25 years ago. They have literally exploded with blooms and color, and even fragrance. I had no idea they even had a scent since the 2 puny little azaleas back at my log cabin never had enough blooms to even take a picture of. So pathetic.
But now, we've got these:
and several dogwoods
Unfortunately, along with the beautiful weather, has come another harbinger of spring, the ever-hungry Blue Heron.
He ate my last blasted koi. So now we have a pond filled with algae, some unknown variety of vine, and little else. That koi was big enough to make a good-size serving of sushi. If it was going to be eaten, it should have been by us!
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 I'll be back in a few with more updates!
Several of Gillian's friends are going to be coming to the retreat for a couple of sewing days. I'm going to offer them a choice of 2 of these terrific patterns to work on, and I'll be supplying 3-4 of the sewing machines. It should be a fun couple of days. We were originally supposed to have it this week, but, as you can see by the previous post...we're moving this week. We have a small window of opportunity to get everything moved on Alex's (son-in-law) day off. Spring Break was perfect timing, but now it looks like it's going to have to be Memorial Day weekend. At any rate, these are the cutest patterns by Valori Wells and I think think the girls will have a good time.
After almost a year of trying to obtain a construction loan to build on our 8 acres, we've finally thrown in the towel. We've had permanent financing in place for the past 8 months, but no one is giving interim loans on naked real estate. Not even short term. I will say that the builder mentioned he knew a guy, who knew a guy, who was a "hard money lender" and he'd be happy to give us a short term loan at 15% interest. His name was Nick "Knuckles" Something-or-other. I'm not kidding. Except maybe for the 'knuckles' part.
Anyway. Our neighbors of 25 years put their house and land on the market 18 months ago, but haven't been able to sell it. The house has been empty for all that time, even though they lowered the price several times. I've been promoting it to the various retreaters that I've had at the retreat, but no takers.
During the night last Wednesday, it occurred to me that maybe we weren't supposed to build. Maybe we were supposed to buy. But we don't want to leave our little 1/2 mile stretch of dirt road in the woods. BUT there are two houses on our road that are for sale. One is on less than 3 acres, with a gorgeous 4 yr old Italianesque house on it, (for almost a mil!) and the other is our friends' 25 year old Texas farmhouse on 8 acres. It abuts the far end of our 8 acres, so the location is perfect. We went to look at it as buyers instead of neighbors and who'da thunk it - it's perfect for us! And they'll finance it at a very competitive rate, and to top it off - we can start moving in now - even before we close!
3200 sq.ft., 2 story, front and back wrap-around porches, a screen porch, an almost 800 sq ft living room (plenty of room for my grand piano), a huge game/media room, an extra bedroom (we've NEVER had that), and I'll have 2 sewing spaces: a small studio in the house along the back porch, with French doors, as well as a longarm studio in the garage.
This is the view from Gillian's window towards the pond and Spring Creek.
Anyway - from the time the thought popped into my head til we close at the title company will be a grand total of five (5) days. It was meant to be! So now, we'll have 16 acres with 3 houses, including the retreat. My oldest daughter and her family will be living in the log cabin for the next couple of years, and after that...who knows? Off to the hardware store to buy paint, and then to start moving!
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