October...Where Did It Go????

I'm not MIA really. I just seem to have lost an entire week and can't quite seem to figure out where it went.

So what have I accomplished? Doesn't seem like much of anything. I did manage to get the Cowgirl's Halloween outfit done. She got to wear it to her preschool party on Friday night. The pictures aren't very good, so hopefully I can take some more on Friday before the tricking and treating begins.

I made the jacket which has fringe on the yoke. There's a pink suede boot and cowboy hat on each side. Sheriff's stars on the top of the jacket on each side. The skirt is out of my head and turned out better than I thought it would. I put fringe down the sides and elastic for the waist. The cowgirl boots were a must. We just need to find the fancy hat before Friday.



Tonight I made the bag below for the Grace, pictured with my Grace above. Her birthday party is Saturday afternoon. I decided that I was NOT going to buy something for her, but would make something instead. Since she's having a Princess party, I thought it only appropriate to put a Princess on her purse. I think I will put some markers and paper in the bag and call it good. My Grace loves to take her purse in the car to outings so she has something to do.



The remainder of my missing days have been spent trying to get baby items together so I can start embroidering them. I have 2 baby showers to attend, so once again, it will be a home made gift. Hopefully I can get moving on those over the weekend.

The queen size quilt is still on the frame. Seems that time has been available to get going on it. UGH. Hopefully soon I can finish that and get it on a bed.

My ETSY site hasn't gone up either. I swear I'm the slowest and am agonizing over nothing. Jump in. I keep telling myself - Don't be afraid little chicken.

Well, if I don't post again this week, have a great Halloween.

Rally and Etsy

This weekend is almost over. Haven't gotten much sewing done. Oh well. I do need to get working on a cowgirl outfit or my name is going to be MUD.

This will be my first and probably last comments about politics. That is one of those subjects that I completely steer clear of. I don't like confrontation regarding politics or religion. Everyone has an opinion and I'm not one to argue about mine. So with that said, I will say I went to the Obama Rally held in KC last night. Great experience. It brought out all sorts of people and really got me thinking. Obama said a few things that hit me close to home, which was good. The Felps cronies from Topeka were out and spewing hatred as usual. The weather was absolutely beautiful. I realized that I really do love living here in Kansas City and it is definitely my home.

Here are a few pictures:

This is the all types guy

I'm trying to get an Etsy shop set up to sell some quilts and machine embroidery. I did take a lot of pictures this weekend. Hopefully I can get that all up and running this week.

Have a great week!!!

AQS

All I can say is OH WOW. I think that's all I did say. I'm sure my poor friend Christine was thinking if I hear her say that ONE MORE TIME....

After hitting Fons & Porter, we made a trip down to the Ben Franklin store. I LOVE Ben Franklin. Their flat fold tables were AMAZING. I managed to do the most damage there. $3.99/yard. How can you pass that up? Well, obviously I can't. The Ben Franklin's in Kansas City went out of business and I'm still very sad. I guess I will just have to save to make a road trip back up to Winterset.

The show was awesome. We bought the multi-day pass since we didn't make into Des Moines until 3:30 on Friday. We managed to do the big room that had all the quilts from Iowa. By then we were exhausted and ready to head out.

We finished the show and shopping on Saturday after a good nights sleep.

I can't even begin to show pictures, so here is the link of the 160+ pictures I took. The colors were amazing. The stitching was amazing. The whole show was AMAZING. The vendor mall was amazing. It was fun to be able to play on the quilting machines. I really think I'm ready to upgrade my machine. I'm glad I went.

Click HERE and enjoy.

I hope to get to the "cave" sometime this week. Have a great week!

Winterset Iowa

We made it to Iowa and got to visit Fons & Porter.

Port-a-potties - there weren't any bathrooms at the shop, so we had to use the potties out on the street.


Couldn't resist the photo with the celeb - Marianne.



Store front

The square:

We then headed to the show. More pictures to follow.

Excitement

I'm off to the AQS show in Des Moines in the morning. I can hardly wait. My friend Christine and I will be heading out around 9AM and plan to hit quilt shops all along the way. We are going to stay in Des Moines and head home Saturday afternoon.

Couple more circles to share. Not the easiest thing I've ever done, but definitely not the most difficult.

A couple people asked about the fabric. Its Opulence by Paul Nadelstern.

The block below is one of the stars from the fabric. I set it into the same 12 inch square. I'm not sure about it yet, but think I will make a few more and see if they grow on me. Otherwise they will become a table topper.

Have a GREAT weekend.

Bags, Circles & Emergency Room

What a weekend!!! I can say that I'm glad tomorrow is Monday. Back to sense of normal, what ever that really is.

So I've been working on bags again. I'm trying to finish up a batch that just doesn't want to get finished. Maybe I should say people just don't want me to finish that batch. My intention was to finish them Friday night, but then I was called to babysit for a friend who had to take their 3 year old to the hospital. Saturday was the plan that that was shot due to weather and family plans that I wasn't aware of. So I think OK I will finish them Sunday but instead spent the entire day in the Emergency Room.

The doctor and nurse in the Emergency Room were great. Both had a great sense of humor, so that made the ordeal a bit better. Husband decided to join a large (1000 people) group in Lawrence Kansas for an 80 mile bike ride. The last major ride of the season. 20 miles into the ride he hit a patch of gravel and down he went. Entire right side of his body is now covered in road rash. I'm sharing the clothes pictures and not the wound pictures. He tried to go to Urgent Care, but they sent him directly past GO and onto the emergency room. After an x-ray, gravel picking and stitches he was sent home. I'm so glad he wears his rusty trusty helmet. He hit his head hard enough that it left a mark where some of the padding sits on his head when in the helmet. I'm afraid he's going to be saving the bloody bike shorts as his badge of honor. YUCK.


I think I'm stalling on working on my UFO challenge that Finn put out. I keep finding everything to work on, but what I committed to. Below are some circles that I decided to set into 12" squares. It was a challenge, but I think I finally have it figured out. I have a bunch more circles and squares cut out. If I can get to the "girl cave" this week, I will be working on them. The circle is fabric I found that looked really cool. I cut out the circles and then couldn't decide what to do, so I just shoved it in a box.



I think when I set the blocks together, I'm going to do it on diagonal instead of the regular straight setting. There was some starts in between the circles on the fabric. I got the brilliant idea to cut those into smaller circles. Once I get one of those sewn together, I'll post a picture.

Have a great week!

Guilty...I Guess

I read Judy's blog daily. This morning was no exception. Her post from yesterday was about copyright and credit for designs. Based on the post, I would say Judy is/was a smidge miffed that she didn't get credit where she thought credit was due. I get the point she was trying to make. My guess is that Judy isn't the only person/designer that might feel slighted by not getting recognition. After all she is trying to make a living doing by quilting and selling patterns. I, on the other hand, am not so I do get it.

Her comments really got me to thinking though. I guess I'm guilty of not really giving credit where I probably should. Most of the time it's because I see something or read something and do nothing with that information. It then has time to sit and "stew" in my head and then eventually I might do something with that image or information. By then though, I can't remember where I found it or saw it (the picture or information). I do the same thing at quilt shows. I admire the beautiful quilts and take pictures. 98% of the time I don't even think to write down the person's name that made the quilt or the pattern they might have used. I guess some people would consider that not giving credit where credit is due.

The point that I'm trying to make is that I'm not trying to be rude by not giving credit. I just don't think about it. I'm in engrossed in the moment and then I move on. I guess I'm going to have to sift through the old blog now and see if I mentioned books, names, patterns.

Have a great weekend.

Slacker...

I can't believe it's October. Where the heck has the year gone? I'm really not ready for it to be October. That means that Christmas and the other holidays are that much closer.

Title to the post...Slacker. I thought that was better than LOOSER. Yesterday was my Dad's 84th birthday and I completely forgot to call him. I remembered at 11PM my time, which would have been midnight for him. I really hemmed and hawed trying to decide whether to call real quick. The decision was to wait until morning since he might think something was really wrong.

Grace and I tried to call him on the way to daycare/work, but no answer. I guess I'll keep trying through out the day today. No answer leads me to another dad story. I bought dad an answering machine in February. He has yet to figure out how to get it turned on. Who knew it could be so darn difficult. I told him not to worry about a message, just let the little lady that lives in the machine do the talking. Dad was OK with that. His thing is the instructions don't make sense. UGH!!! I told him not to read the instructions. Just plug it into the wall jack, plug the electric cord in and hit the button that might be flashing and WHA LA, good to go. Oh no, dad is an old engineer, so instructions are a big part of his mindset. I finally told him to return the machine/phone to Target and get something he would use. Oh no, he insists he will figure it out. Don't you think if he hasn't figured it out in 7 months, that he's not really going to figure it out? My sister thinks we should get him a cell phone. Are you KIDDING me?????

I jokingly tell my husband that I hope the lack of understanding related to technology isn't a genetic thing otherwise Grace is going to be irritated with me to no end.

Have a great day! The weekend is right around the corner and it's supposed to be beautiful here in Kansas City.