Springhill Sewing Group

Last Thursday night was the Springhill sewing group get together. Show and tell is always the best part.

Pat machine quilts and did this quilt for a customer. It was absolutely beautiful.

Simba is Pam's dog. Grace loves him because he doesn't have any teeth. That's the reason for the crazy tongue. Simba is a rescue dog.
Roxie did beautiful embroidered blocks. Everyone had to get a good close up look. The deliah (large purple flower) quilt was purchased off eBay for $35. That is so CRAZY. Pam has found quite a few tops or 1/2 finished quilts on eBay.
This is the Olathe Quilt Guild Opportunity quilt for 2009.
Very cool 9-patch quilt. The blocks came from a church sewing group. The winner for the month took home all of the 9 patch blocks and then could set as she liked.

Have a great day!

Spring to Finish

Yesterday I said I would share pictures.

These are monsters that I'm doing as applique via the embroidery machine on the Monster Quilt.


Coin Quilt - I showed the top once before, but now it's quilted and bound.


Coin Quilt #2 - This came from Amanda Jean and her Moda Bake Shop Tutorial.


Farm Quilt - Quilted and bound.


The last 2 pictures are the quilt that's now on the frame. I hope to finish it up this week. The pattern is from Bonnie over at Quiltville.com

My side story for today - the rat bastards got our credit card number again and had a hay day. I mentioned previously that some how someone accessed our PayPal account and bought a computer on us. That hit our normal checking account, which was really inconvenient, but taken care of. This time they got our credit card. For some reason the credit card company didn't call to say they were deactivating the card. My husband found out today when he tried to buy new wheels for his bike from eBay and was declined. All of the fraud paperwork is on it's way. My husband talked to the credit card rep and asked how they knew to close the account and flag it as fraud. She told him that they know what we buy and that the purchases weren't a "normal" purchase for us. While it's nice that the company monitors our account, it's also kind of creepy that they know our spending habits and can tell when it's not us spending. I can hear my dad telling me "Big Brother is really watching you."

It's spring here in Kansas. Rain, rain, rain. Seems like everything greened over night though. There are leaves on the trees that didn't have leaves yesterday. Grace is excited because they turned the fountain on in front of our house. She can go toad hunting now.

Have a great night.

Spring to Finish and I Did

Wow, I just put in a 12 hour day and I'm tired. The cat started messing with the blinds at 7 AM so that woke me up, but I wasn't ready to get out of bed. Then at 7:30 AM the phone rang. My husband has a friend with a very CRAZY dog. The dog decided to place a wake up call to us. I kept saying Hello and all I could hear was panting on the other end. Had I not heard my husband's friend talking to his son, I would have thought that some creep was calling just to be annoying.

Since I was awake, I got up and headed to the basement to start sewing. I had the realization that Spring to a Finish will end this week and I hadn't really gotten much done. So what did I do today, you ask??? Well I quilted 3 tops that I had finished, put a 4th one on the frame. I started it, but the bobbin thread kept breaking and it was getting to be very annoying. I cut and ironed binding for 6 quilts (3 previously quilted and today's 3). I also managed to get the binding sewed onto the 6 quilts.

My feet and back are sore. Standing on the cement floor for that long probably isn't the best thing. Just reinforces that I need to get the mats to stand on.

I will share pictures of my finishes tomorrow.

Have a great night.

Before Quilting

I thought I would show you what I used to do before becoming obsessed with quilting. I used to cross stitch. The more complicated and the smaller the better. I completely forgot that I did this picture for my sister. She had it hanging on the entryway wall. Very cool to walk in and be reminded of handwork that I used to enjoy. I'm not really sure why I don't do it anymore. I do know the eyes have grown a bit worse and it's harder to see the smaller count fabric, which is what I LOVED to work on.

Anyhow, just thought I would share. Maybe I will have to do that more often.

Grace's Take on the Quilt Festival

I said yesterday that I would share Grace's view of the show based on her pictures. When we were walking through the vendor area, I noticed that pretty much all she saw was butts. Lots and lot of butts. Guess I thought my side kick was a bit taller than she really is. At a staggering 43" you are still at butt level.

Grace's Quilt show pictures

Ikea was was a lot of fun on Saturday. Grace wanted the camera so I handed it over so she could start snapping. My child is definitely not afraid of color. It was fun to look at the pictures to see what she was really looking at. I love the last picture of the Zebra. She kept asking me what the picture was and I would say a Zebra and she would argue that it wasn't. I guess we really do all view things differently.

Grace's view at Ikea

The last picture I want to share is the one she took of me and my best friend of high school. Do you still stay in touch with friends from high school? I think that Mary Ellen is the only person that really "gets" me. She was there during those "weird years." Mary Ellen is still convinced that my dad doesn't speak and my step mom wasn't always the nicest person. She was there for me during college when I couldn't seem to figure out what the world was trying to teach me. She (along with my husband) helped me figure out that all guys aren't out to make you miserable and that there is a good one here and there. I'm so glad that I have a friend like Mary Ellen. I wish we lived a lot closer. I know though that I can always pick up the phone and call.

From Grace's Fun Pictures

Grace is in the Bunny Ear phase. She would NOT take our picture unless we did bunny ears on each other. I'm doing it to Mary Ellen, but you just can't see my fingers because of the angle Grace is taking the picture from.

Thanks for letting me share today! Have a great rest of the week! Hopefully I will have some quilty content of my own to share later in the week.

Quilt Show & More

International Quilt Show

Well, I tried to make a movie of my pictures, but I think I need a bit more practice before torturing everyone. Beware though. The show was AWESOME. There were a TON of people there. Grace had fun taking pictures of almost every quilt we looked at. Shopping was overwhelming. There was WAY too much stuff to look at. Maybe it's because I wasn't feeling 100% and having to keep a very watchful eye on my sidekick took some of the enjoyment out of it. None the less we had a great time.

While walking the show, I kept hearing a recurring theme from a lot of the older quilters in attendance. The show really showcased art quilts. There weren't very many traditional quilts. I kept hearing people complain, Where are the patchwork quilts? Where is the hand quilting? I hadn't really thought about it until we were almost done. There really wasn't a lot of traditional items to be found.

I got to make a visit to urgent care on Saturday morning. Strep. UGH. Took Grace into her pediatrician today and she's also positive. Nothing that 10 days of antibiotics can't cure.

Saturday was a trip to IKEA. Oh my! I'm so glad I don't live there anymore or I would have no money at all. I will share some of the items we saw (through Grace's eyes) in a later post. When I go back in June for my class reunion, I'm going to have to drive a van for all of my intended purchases.

That's all for now. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

We're Hitting the Road

My trusty sidekick and I will be leaving the house bright and early tomorrow morning and heading for....Rosemont Illinois. We will be going the the International Quilt Festival. I can hardly wait. It will be nice to visit with my older sister and best friend from High School. There will be a bit of packing tonight. The cameras are all ready and charged. Hopefully there will be a post with pictures before the end of the weekend. I'm sure I will be updating Facebook also.

Have a great day!

Baby, Embroidery & 2 Tops

Baby Hadden was born on March 12th to one of my co-workers. Work has been hectic, so we weren't really prepared and didn't have the shower ahead of time. I had to rev up the embroidery machine. I'm pleased with the way everything turned out.

This is a top that I finished over the weekend and added to my April Challenge list. My goal is to get it quilted and the binding on.

I found this fabric and it made me smile so I had to buy it. It's Monsters in the Closet. I think some of those guys lived in my closet when I was little. My intent is to use the embroidery machine to add applique to the plain panels I inserted. Designs by JuJu has the coolest embroidery designs for kids.

I hope everyone has a nice Easter. We will be spending the day with family. It's fun having family that live in town now.

Lists, Lists, Lists

I am a list person. Sad, but true. My child has even figured out that her mom is the master of the lists. She will ask me what's on the list and if I got to cross anything off. If it looks like I did something extra, I get the "Was that on the list too" question.

So, here is my list for Jacquie's April Challenge:

1. Finish applique on monster quilt
2. Quilt & bind monster quilt
3. Quilt & bind tractor quilt
4. Quilt & bind batiks square quilt
5. Quilt & bind 10,000 pyramids quilt

Anything else I might get done is gravy.

I don't think I've mentioned the upcoming trip to Chicago. I'm so ready for a couple days off and out of the house. Grace and I will be visiting the International Quilt Show next Friday. If anyone else is there visiting the same day, be on the look out for us. I'm sure you will recognize the cute kid before me. Be sure to say Hello! Then Saturday we are going to make a trip to Ikea. 2 days of shopping. What more could a girl want????

What's the Issue?

I think I mentioned before that I use Google Reader. I love it, but do miss looking at all the headings on the blogs and the pretty side buttons people have.

So, today I decided to click on the Trend link on my Google Reader session. This is the message I see:
From your 309 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 2,491 items, starred 37 items...

OH MY! I had no idea that I have 309 blogs that I look at. I hope that count includes blogs that aren't active anymore because I know there are a lot of those. Wow, Wow, Wow. That's a lot of time reading and looking at pictures.

I might need a 12 step program for my blog reading as well.

April is....

The month that I participate in Jacquie's Spring to Finish challenge. I'm glad there are people out there that can motivate me.

And since I'm feeling a bit technically challenged, maybe I should try to beef up on my HTML so I can figure out how to grab the picture for the challenge. Oh well, I guess that's the least of my worries.

We went to the zoo on Saturday. Grace took a friend and we met 2 friends there. The girls got to ride a camel. Big excitement for one day. Us big folk had to chuckle because it gave new meaning to 3 wise men.




This morning was kindergarten round up. Very interesting. I don't know why I worry about other people and what they think. I don't know why but I felt completely out of my league and quite overwhelmed. I'm hoping that feeling goes away over the summer or I'm in trouble.

Hope to have some pictures to share tomorrow of the latest creations. I can say, I'm pretty pleased with my "wing it" abilities this weekend.

Have a great night.

New Shirt

Saw this machine embroidery design and had to have it. Put it on a t-shirt last night. The design is from Urban Threads. I LOVE their stuff. (BTW - it's not all that easy to take a picture when you are wearing the item the picture is of. :-) )

Another Quilted

Yippee, August completed top, quilted on Monday night. Now it just needs binding. Hopefully I can get another one quilted this weekend when it rains.

Have a great night.