Field Trips in Fiber

Let's Blame it on Mary

and my Secret Quilter.

Mom and I went to Newport News today to take our machines to Nancy's Calico Patch for service and repair. (You may remember that I've recently ranted about the two times I have taken my machine to my local dealer.) Anyway, Mary was in town visiting her Mom so they came to meet us. We had a fun visit and helped each other buy fabric!

My MQResource Secret Quilter sent me the Layer Cake for the Fresh Squeezed line. The shop had all of thefabrics in the line and they had this quilt on display. We decided that was the one that I needed to make so I bought the border fabrics. I forgot to get fabric for the binding so I will order that. Mary liked it so much that she bought fabric for it too! I also got a patriotic dot fabric on sale to use in a future QOV.

It was a fun day!

Now I have to get back to quilting a QOV quilt because Mom has offered to take all three that are done home to add the binding! Yeah Mom!

Ahhhh, the weekend!

Tricked you! My weekend actually started yesterday and I'm getting 2 4-day weekends in a row! I've been very busy the last 2 days. Yesterday I made 3 batches of soap and mixed a bunch of dye concentrates in preparation for today when Estelle came over for another play date in the dye studio. We had a blast. I did more tie-dye that I will show after everything is washed and dried. Since I don't have much to show for my efforts yet I will share the great mail week that I had.

First I received this great bag from Carla. I won the bag on her blog drawing but the bag went to the county fair before it came to me. You can see that she also sent along the blue ribbon that it won! It has lots of great details with fibers stitched all over it and that cute dimensional flower. Thanks Carla!

In todays mail I received this cute brooch from Cindy. It was another blog drawing - I'm on a roll lately! Cindy is a "local girl". We met in a postcard club that I hosted. You msut read her blog. Aside from the cool crafty things that she makes she tells very entertaining stories from her childhood.

Let's review the list from last week:

• Make the second mixed media box - have to get that done before the machine goes into the shop - not done yet, but tomorrow!
• Finish the QFAH quilting - done!
• Load Wanda's second QOV quilt for quilting - another for tomorrow
• Some fabric dyeing - TWO days worth!

I also accomplished:

• 3 batches of soap
• 4 placemats

So, here we go with the next 7 days:

• FINISH Alana's box
• Load and quilt Wanda's second QOV quilt
• Load my second QOV quilt
• Freemotion quilting sample for the DSM (secret project #1)
• Write up instructions for secret project #2
• Make another set of placemats
• Drop of sewing machine for repair and visit with Mary!

It's a miracle!

He's wearing one of the shirts! Admittedly he is wearing it to a "cement pond" party being hosted my my friend, Anne, She made a special request that he wear one of them. He actually seems to like them and has requested some for some friends that he's visiting in Vermont in a couple of weeks. I don't even know him anymore....LOL!

Jan's post today reminded me to take a look at the Magnolia Tree. I though I'd share a couple of my blooms too.

 

 

Some quilting and the weekend list

It's been a very productive week!  I'm posting the weekend list a day early because I am going out to dinner tomorrow night with a work friend.

Here's the update on last week:

• Deep clean Willie

- done!

Load and start quilting one of Wanda's QOV quilts - done! I'll show this one when it's all done. It quilted up quickly and I love the look of it.

Complete the 2 mixed media boxes - since they are gifts for MAY birthdays! - 1 done, 1 to go

Play with Estelle - at least we know I will accomplish this goal! - DONE and what a blast!

Fabric dyeing test - done!

Tonight I loaded and started quilting the recent QFAH. This will become a Quilt of Valor. I am doing Suzanne Earley's Meandering Magic on it and I love how it's looking! This is the quilt that I made a hand-dyed back for and it's looking great with this quilting in bright pink Bottom Line thread. Here's a photo of the back.

I have 4 QOV quilts (this is #2) to do before I quilt my Mom's quilt. I'm going to be doing a lot of quilting because I have to take my sewing machine to the shop for the THIRD time this year! This time I'm taking it down to Newport News and hopefully it will be fixed right this time. I will NEVER take it to the local shop again. Don't these stores know how much we love and adore our sewing machines and that we hate being without them in the first place but that we hate more having them gone and then finding out that it wasn't worth the separation anxiety because the poor baby is still sick? What's worse than that? Not even getting an apology for having to bring it to the shop twice because THEY didn't fix it the first time. Then getting it home and finding out it still isn't fixed right.

OK, I'm over it. Deep breath. My Mom had the same experience so we are going to Newport News together to take our machines to a new (to us) Pfaff hospital. The bonus is that we are going on July 3 so we can meet up with Mary and her Mom and then we will get to visit my baby brother.....not really, we will visit his wife and daughter. He's OK and we will talk to him too if he's home that day.

Anyway, here's my new to do list:

• Make the second mixed media box - have to get that done before the machine goes into the shop
• Finish the QFAH quilting
• Load Wanda's second QOV quilt for quilting
• Some fabric dyeing

That's enough for 2 days.

Sunday wrap up and stash report

I had a quiet and productive day. Chris is still at the beach. I think they were all glued to the TV today watching golf. I belive that tomorrow will be a repeat of today.

Today I deep cleaned Willie (my longarm) and got the next quilt loaded. This is one of the QOV quilts that Wandamade. I really like this row quilt, it's very patriotic. I loaded it by the short end because I had planned to use my QuiltEZ clamshell template. I did 2 rows with the clamshell and hated it.Clamshells would have looked fine but I just can't get the hang of this template. I think that the template I have is one of their older ones (I bought it used). I think they have a newer template that makes better points. I ripped out the stitching and am going with simple loops and stars. I should be able to get this one completed in a couple of evenings.

I got one of the mixed media gift boxes done and will post photos tomorrow after I give it to Kim. I'll work on the other one this week. They are only a month late! I'm a bad friend and aunt this month, although I know Kim won't complain since I just did that ginormous quilt for her!

On the stash front I only added 3/4 yard to stash (the 3 fat quarters that I parfait dyed yesterday) and I only used 1/4 yard - the lining for Kim's box.

The current tally:

• This week IN: .75
• This week OUT: 3.25
• YTD IN: 108 yards
• YTD out: 150.75 yards
• NET OUT: 42.75 yards (Goal 100 yards)

That wasn't particularly interesting!

Last night and the weekend

Chris is on the beach in South Carolina for 4 or 5 days so I'm on my own - except for the whole "job thing". I wanted to play some last night so I pulled out some ugly fabrics and did some painting. This is the technique that I wrote about in the current issues of Fibre&Stitch. I love doing this! It's so free and easy and fun. If one turns out bad I just add more layers. Here are a few of the pieces that I did. The ones on each end are some faux velvet fabrics that was given to me. Painting them improved them greatly so I know what I will be doing with the rest of them.

I'm really looking forward to the weekend because my friend, Estelle, is coming over tomorrow to play! We are going to dye and paint all day.

Last August I did some testing of different fabrics for dyeing. Since I have refined my whole dyeing proces since then I am going to do another test with 3 fabrics that I have picked for most of my dyeing. The driver of the selection? Price! I can't afford bolts and bolts of $6 fabric for dyeing so I have to find an economical fabric for my dyeing. I'm going to do that this weekend and I'll let you know how it goes.

Here's the list and status from last weekend:

• Finish quilting Kim's quilt - DONE!!!!
• Load and start one of Wanda's QOV quilts - not done yet
• Make 2 mixed media gift boxes - not done yet
• Dye fabric - gradients - DONE!
• Paint fabric with the metallic technique - Done last night!

Here's the new lsit for the next 7 days:

• Deep clean Willie
• Load and start quilting one of Wanda's QOV quilts
• Complete the 2 mixed media boxes - since they are gifts for MAY birthdays!
• Play with Estelle - at least we know I will accomplish this goal!
• Fabric dyeing test

 

Fabric Dyeing and Stash Report

Yesterday I had another fun day of dyeing! It's hotter than hot here and perfect for curing dyed fabrics. I started with some triad dyeing. I did this a while back but wanted to try it using the 2 sets of primaries. The set on the top is done with fuchsia, cyan and yellow – the process primaries. The bottom set is done with light red, cerulean blue and yellow – the pigment primaries. I love the blended colors. Notice that I got the best purple from the process primaries but the best orange from the pigment primaries, proving that I need both!

Here are some of the others that I did with various methods of folding, clamping and dyeing.

 

 

 

 

 

It was lots of fun! Now, none of these are going into the stash count for the week because I'm not done with them. They went back to the dye studio for more "treatments"!

Stash Report

The only activity in the stash this week is that I sent away 3.5 yards of the fabrics that I dyed last weekend. Now that Kim's quilt is done I hope to get one of my QOV quilts completed soon so that I'll have some real stash usage!

The current tally:

• This week IN: 0
• This week OUT: 3.5
• YTD IN: 107.25 yards
• YTD out: 150.5 yards
• NET OUT: 43.25 yards (Goal 100 yards)

The weekend list

The weather forecast for the next 7 day is HOT! - over 90 every day.

You know what that means - Perfect Sewing Weather!

Sew, that's what I'll be doing all weekend. Here are my goals from 2 weeks ago - I didn't do a list last weekend because I was still working the previous list:

Quilt Kim's quilt - in process

Make the backing for the Doubles QOV quilt, I think I have something in my stash that will work. If not, I will dye a backing once my dye studio is back together. Done!

Finish my samples for my machine quilting class Class canceled

Make postcards for 2 swaps and for all of the May birthdays that I missed - Done!

Here's my list for the next 7 days:

• Finish quilting Kim's quilt
• Load and start one of Wanda's QOV quilts
• Make 2 mixed media gift boxes
• Dye fabric - gradients
• Paint fabric with the metallic technique

Stash Report and Other Stuff

The long weekend continues it's good streak. Yesterday we had company - a very rare event here at Casa Welsh. Our friends Mark and Margie braved I-95 to spend the afternoon with us. For me and Margie it was postcard making day! After we made a few postcards I HAD to take her to my favorite LQS. We were both rather well behaved but I believe that's a normal state for her. I bought the 3.25 yards shown in the photo. The piece on the right is for a gift box. The others were some Japanese fabric samples that Joyce and Phoebe brought back from Quilt Market. That nets against only 1/2 yard that we used making postcards.

I am finding myself with an overwhelming urge to buy fabric! I've even been shopping the on-line stores. So far I've been able to resist but I REALLY am itching for new fabric. So far the desire to make June 30 with a net out of 50 yards is winning.

The current tally:

• This week IN: 3.25
• This week OUT: .5
• YTD IN: 93.75 yards
• YTD out: 147 yards
• NET OUT: 53.25 yards (Goal 100 yards)

In other news, my article on painting fabric with metallic paints was published yesterday in Fibre&Stitch eZine.

You can purchase the issue here.  It's very exciting to be published and I found out that I actually enjoy writing. Hopefully I can come up with other topics to write about.

A great start to the weekend!

I love my boss! He called in today and told our admin that we could take the afternoon off! She didn't argue and I got a jump start on my sewing weekend. I finished my QFAH Star blocks so I am caught up on Judy's instructions. I even got my Doubles quilt top together. Based on your comments I used layout A. In the end I chose to continue with the original border plan.I can tell you that it looks much better than the photo. The outer border has more blue and brown than what shows in the photo.

This quilt is from the book Quilts on the Double. You cut out two quilts at once. It's a terrific technique and I will make others. My Mom is making the matching quilt to this one but she's been so busy killing snakes that I don't think she is done with hers!

It's time to review last week's list and make a new one! Here are last week's goals:

• Make a new batch of soap with hemp butter done! I made Hemp and Shea Butter
• Quilt Kim's quilt. I got it loaded Sunday and started the quilting and I like how it looks so far - not done
• Start Judy's Quilt for an Hour project. This will also include a trip to Quilting Adventures to take advantage of the batik sale. My QFAH will be made from bright batik fabrics and I need one more. Besides I think I deserve a present for my great week at work! LOL!  I'm up to date on this
• Finish my samples for my machine quilting class - uh, not done
• Work on my QOV project. The top is done!

Tomorrow a friend is coming to visit and learn to make fabric postcards. That should take about 10 minutes so we might have to go to the fabric shop for a while! My other goals are:

• Quilt Kim's quilt
• Make the backing for the Doubles QOV quilt, I think I have something in my stash that will work. If not, I will dye a backing once my dye studio is back together. More on that later....
• Finish my samples for my machine quilting class
• Make postcards for 2 swaps and for all of the May birthdays that I missed

That should keep me pretty busy! Chris is going fishing Sunday and has a friend coming in to fish with him Monday and then he's going to a cookout Monday afternoon (it's outdoors so I can't go). That means that I will have lots of quality sewing time!

I'm back!!!

I know that we usually prefer to complain about work but I can't complain about anything this week. I worked every day from 8:30 am until 10:00 pm hosting a 4-day workshop. This is a program that we started last year to facilitate networking among associates from our offices around the world. I have a class of 20 each year. The come to the headquarters the week of the Shareholder's Meeting where they meet every executive in the company, learn about all of the big initiatives going on, attend the Shareholder's Meeting and kick off a year-long project. This year was even more awesome because both of my classes were recognized at the Shareholder's Meeting Tuesday. On top of all of that my boss was promoted to President of our company. It was a super fabulous week.

But even the brain needs a balanced diet and mine is low on fiber. So I'm taking off tomorrow and Monday for a 4-day weekend! I have to do a little "real" work but most of the weekend will be all about ME! My mind isn't totally functioning yet but I am going to attempt a to do list for the weekend:

• Make a new batch of soap with hemp butter
• Quilt Kim's quilt. I got it loaded Sunday and started the quilting and I like how it looks so far
• Start Judy's Quilt for an Hour project. This will also include a trip to Quilting Adventures to take advantage of the batik sale. My QFAH will be made from bright batik fabrics and I need one more. Besides I think I deserve a present for my great week at work! LOL!
• Finish my samples for my machine quilting class
• Work on my QOV project.

That should be quite enough, don't you think?

No Activity.......

Just checking in for a few minutes to tell you that my blog will be on a "no fiber diet" for a few days. This weekend and next week are all work and no play. It's OK, because it's a very rewarding project but I will not see my sewing room again until Friday.

......keep up your posting though! I'll have to get my daily fiber intake when I can steal a few minutes to read your blogs. I do hope to get in at least one more bird watch post though.

A beautiful day!

Mom and I had a great day today! For one thing, I believe this was the first Saturday in 9 that we haven't had rain. It was a beautiful day. We started off at Quilting Adventures where I bought 18 1/4 yards of fabric! Eek!

The two on the left are to go with the fabrics we pulled from my stash last night for new QOV quilts. The others are the fabrics that I saw in the store last weekend. after a week I was still lusting for them so I invested! Mom got some fabrics for a quilt she is working on and templates so that she can finish a double wedding ring quilt that my Great-Grandma Flora started.

then we headed over to Millstone Quilts. Isn't this beautiful and wouldn't you love to shop there? So would I. We walked in and the smell of some sort of fragrance was overwhelming. We didn't get to look around at all. I was totally bummed because this store has just about every reproduction line made and I was looking forward to wandering around the place.

They did have a nice outdoor quilt show and here are a couple of pictures of the quilts.

Tonight we'll start cutting the fabrics for the new QOV quilts.

It's the weekend!

Yeah!!

Mom is visiting this weekend. She came to quilt one of her quilts on Willie and did the whole quilt while I was at work today. I had to come up with something  else for us to do this weekend. So tonight we pulled these fabrics to make 2 QOV quilts. We are going to make these two quilts. They are from Quilts on the Double by Judy Hooworth and Margaret Rolfe. You make a set of strip pieced fabrics and cut triangles from the strips. You get two quilts out of one set of strips. I first met Judy and Margaret when I took their Spectacular Scraps class at Houston in 1998 or 1999. We then hosted Judy to teach the class for our Guild. It was a fun technique and I made several quilts with it. I saw the "double" book in my LQS last weekend and picked it up. There are loads of possibilities for this technique - that's what I love about their approach. The quilts are scrappy and have a lot of design possibilities. Hopefully we can get the cutting and strip sewing done this weekend.

But first I have to take her to Quilting Adventures and Millstone Quilts. I hope I can show a little bit of self control!

Here was last weekend's list:

• Load and quilt the Guild baby quilt done and delivered!
• Work on samples for the LQS machine quilting class worked on but not done
• Paint more of the black feathers from the MQX class. nothing accomplished on this one.

Here are the goals for this weekend and next week:

• Cut out fabrics for the new QOV quilts
• Work on the machine quilting samples
• Make a new soap recipe with hemp butter
• Load Kim's quilt for quilting
• Clean out the dye area to make room for my new dye sink!!

What are your plans for the weekend?

Time for a giveaway.....

but you will have to work for it!

A couple of my Internet friends do charity quilting and I offered to send them some fabric for their projects. I packed it up into these two boxes. I'm not favoring one over the other. The large box is going to the person who coordinates several projects and the smaller one to a person that does all of the sewing herself. So please don't think that one is being cheated!

Are you ready for the challenge?

My article about making these metallic painted fabrics will appear in the next issue of Fibre&Stitch. To celebrate I wanted to give away some of the samples that I made for the article. Here's how you can win these 4 fat quarters. Post a comment with your guess of the amount of fabric in both boxes combined. The person who comes closest to the correct number will win the metallic fabrics. If more than one person is a winner then one final winner will be randomly selected as the winner.

Here's some information to help you guess the amount of fabric.

• The ruler behind the boxes is 20 1/2 inches square
• The boxes also contain some scraps that are NOT counted int the total. The scraps take up the equivalent space of two filled gallon sized plastic bags.
• Both boxes are stuffed full
• Sorry, I don't know the weight.

I'll select the winner Sunday morning when I post my stash report for the week. It's going to be a GOOD stash report!

The Weekend

What is it about going away for a week that throws off you routine for 2 weeks? Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade my vacations - especially ones like my trip to MQX - but it seems to take me at least 2 weeks to get back into a productive routine. I looked at my weekend list for last weekend and discovered that it's still good!

• Load and quilt the Guild baby quilt
• Work on samples for the LQS machine quilting class 
• Paint more of the black feathers from the MQX class.

Well, that was easy!

I actually made some progress on every item. The baby quilt is loaded and it's about half quilted. I will certainly have that done this weekend unless something intervenes - like more nasty menopause symptoms. Have I ever said that menopause sucks? It does - in every way. I've decided that we come back in subsequent lives as women until we make it through menopause without causing physical harm to another person. If we make it through then we get to come back as male - otherwise, we have to be female again. All I can say is that I must have actually murdered someone in my previous life and I am being properly punished in this one.

But, I digress - which happens - you totally lose focus during menopause. Anyway, the baby quilt is loaded and I am going to a Laura Cater-Woods class tomorrow. I signed up for 3 classes but I have too much going on at work to take Monday off and I have way too many things that I need to do here to be in class all weekend.

I received my Snails Trail quilt back from MQX yesterday. This was the first time I've entered a big quilt into national show. I knew it wasn't a winner but I wanted to see what kind of feedback I would get. I also wanted to start paying back the favor to all of you who enter quilts into shows for me to see. Often my favorite quilts aren't the winning quilts. Anyway, the feedback I received was much more positive than I expected and I got excellent scores on my binding and piecing. It was good to get an unbiased assessment of my skills. The things that I though I was good at were confirmed, as were the things that I thought I needed to work on.

If you've been afraid to enter a quilt - don't be! Think of it as getting private tutoring and use the feedback as a development tool. If I show mine, will you show yours?

Kim, thanks for bringing dinner and ending my crappy day on a good note! Now the weekend can start off on the right foot.

Stash Report and other things

Home from MQX and time to tally the damage. I think I did great! I only bought 8.5 yards. Aside from the convention I also went to 2 quilt shops; one in Massachusetts and Keepsake Quilting. I made it out of Keepsake with NOTHING!

We will not talk about the thread though. I bought lots and lots of thread but you can't beat getting Superior threads at wholesale. I don't have a wholesale license so these shows are the only times that I buy thread. They keep coming out with fantastic colors.

Judy recently set a specific stash reduction goal for the year. I laughed at her until she talked me into doing the same. I suppose she needs someone to be there with her on December 31 when the goal isn't met! Her goal is to have a net reduction of 150 yards. Ha! Not a chance that I'll set such a lofty goal. I'm going to set mine at 100 yards. Remember I'm just doing this for moral support. It will be a miracle if I actually do it.

• This week IN: 8.5
• This week OUT: 0
• YTD IN: 53.5 yards
• YTD out: 68.5 yards
• NET OUT: 15 yards (Goal 100 yards)

I don't have any fiber photos so I'll share a couple of photos that I took out in the yard last week. I was hoping to have updates from the bird boxes today but it's raining. If we get a break in the rain we will do a quick photo inventory.

In other news.....it's great to be home! I love going to quilt shows but I always really love coming home to my own environmental bubble and my bed. While I was away this week I used some of my time to re-think some of the things I am working on. As I work on preparing my list each week and always have more to do than time to do it in. I needed to reprioritize. 

I decided that I have 3 primary goals:

1. Make more advanced quilts that I can enter into shows and that will develop my quilting and design skills
2. Spend more time developing classes for my LQS and possibly develop more articles for publication
3. Make more community service quilts, especially QOV quilts

I also want to have time for:

• Making gifts
• Quilting for my Mom, Anne and Kim
• Learning more about color theory and dyeing - which could play into primary goal #2

What have I been spending my time on lately? I have been doing some community service quilting but I haven't worked on any of my quilts for a few months. I have been working on 2 classes for the LQS and an article for F&S but they took a lot longer to develop than they should because I didn't have time to devote to them. I still haven't quilted my Mom's Stack and Whack (which would feed into primary goal #1) and I haven't worked on my color theory posts since October.

What else? I spent a lot of hours on the MQResource triptych challenge in January and February, I took the Monoprinting class in March and didn't have time to get through all of the lessons and I've been spending about 20 hours or more each month on the Take It Further Challenge. I also an signed up for 3 days of classes with Laura Cater-Woods at the end of this month.

Some things are going to have to give. Going forward, if I take any classes I will only take those that will support one of my goals or that will focus on technique/skill development rather than just starting yet another project. Aside from the 2 postcard swaps that I belong to, I am not going to participate in any more exchanges or challenges and I am going to drop the Take It Further Challenge. I enjoy the challenge and developing ideas for the challenge but I am spending way too much of my time on those projects.

I really hate to give up on things but you can't do everything and I don't need to get frustrated over a hobby! With that, here's my current list:

• Load and quilt the Guild baby quilt
• Work on samples for the MQS machine quilting class
• Get my materials together for the LC-W classes that start Saturday
• Paint more of the black feathers from the MQX class.

What are your tips for setting and managing your priorities?

MQX Day 5

Today is the last day of my vacation and it was a great way to end the week. I didn't go to the convention center today because Summerset emailed me yesterday and told me that she got the day off. So I bagged my plans to go back to the show for a few hours and spend the rest of the day working on a speech for my boss. Instead I started up teh Yaris and headed off to Concord to meet Summerset for a day of shopping. It was much better than speech writing!  (Be sure to check Summerset's blog and see her on the runway last night at the MQX fashion show. She won first place in her category!

We started the day at her favorite bead store, Bead It!. What an awesome store. They have a very wide variety of beads and there's a lot going on in the shop. The owners are very energetic and offer some of the best bead classes that I have ever seen. I can't share a photo of what I bought there because it's for a gift. I didn't buy anything for my own bead stash. After a very nice Mexican lunch, I easily talked her into going to Keepsake Quilting. I've never been to the store although, like everyone else, I get the catalog. We were so close that I knew that I should take the opportunity to visit this famous house of fabric. There's really only one word to describe it - overwhelming! It's a perfectly merchandised store. It's bright, clean and very organized and there's soooooo much fabric! Guess what I bought?

NOTHING!! Do you see that Judy? I bought NO FABRIC! Frankly, I rarely buy fabric in places like that. One, it's simply overwhelming. There are so many fantastic fabrics that it's impossible to find just one or two "got to have"s. And, two, given that their fabric is probably the most expensive fabric in any quilt store it's hard to pay premium prices for fabric just because it needs me. There was a lovely yarn shop right next door and I did find some yarns on sale for half price. I only buy yarn on sale because I use so little of it. At half price it's more economical to buy a skein than to buy those 3-yard embellishment packs.

On the way to Keepsake we were talking about shoes and I mentioned that I like  Skechers because I can put my old-lady orthotics in them.Bonus! There's a Skechers outlet in her town so on our last stop I got 2 new pairs of shoes. We thought these were going to be perfect quilt show shoes with the buttons and appliques.

Well, the fun is over but I leave with new friends and strengthened relationships with old friends. It's been a great week and was just the break I needed from work. It's too bad that I have to go back to work because I an energized with about 15 more ideas of things that I want to make. That's OK, at least I have ideas and I'm looking forward to coming back next year.

Tomorrow I head home and I'll be back on the blog Sunday with an update on all of the nesting bird activities at home. Meanwhile, I'll leave you with the thing that made the biggest impression on me today and is now my primary fun fact about New Hampshire. I was very surprised to see that New Hampshire seems to promote gambling, drinking and driving  all at the same time. Here's a rest stop that I passed on the way to meet Summerset. It's the most multi-functional rest stop I've ever seen - bathrooms, liquor and lottery tickets all in one stop. Hmmm......

MQX Day 4

Today was "walk the show day". No classes and no commitments. I started my day that the QOV booth. Jackie remembered me from last year so now I am "binding girl" forever! I was in the booth when some guy was there taking pictures and talking to Jackie for an article. I realized at some point that I was in one of the pictures - I was leaning over the table trimming binding so basically my butt will be the background if that photo is published. Isn't that nice? That's why I had to have my own photo taken.

Next up I met Carole. She was shopping for a longarm and I was happy to "help"! We spent the day looking at the quilts, test driving longarms and SHOPPING! We went through the entire show - twice. Carole and I have emailed quite a bit but this is the first time that we've met. We talked and laughed and had a great time. And we shopped....

I picked up some fabrics - 3 batiks and 2 silk  bits - and 3 new ruler templates for the longarm. I hope I can remember all of the things that the lady in the booth demonstrated that I can do with these rulers! There were some other rulers that I was interested in but the demonstration was lasting way too long and we got tired of waiting! I can order those later if I need them. Then I found these note cards. Aren't the just perfect for me? Quilts and birds! I don't have a clue what that bird on the right is but we've seen all of the others at our house. And what's this?  Hmmm, it looks like more thread. How could that be? Carole really needed to look around in the Superior booth so I had to support her - right?

I ended the day having dinner with several people from the MQResource list and went to the Fashion Show with Aileen Sansone, who I met here last year. Aileen won a judges choice award from Anita Shackleford for her Coxcomb quilt.

Tomorrow I'm heading north a bit to meet up with Summerset to visit some of her favorite shopping venues. I saw her at the MQX Fashion Show tonight. Be sure to check her blog tomorrow morning for photos of her at the show!

MQX Day 3

Another great day in New Hampshire! The weather was absolutely perfect today and the biggest problem here today is that there seems to be some sort of controversy over the snowfall measurements in New Hampshire this winter. Apparently it possible that they had record snowfall this year but the official recorder was out of town during one snowfall and the backup recorder didn't do his job. It was on the local TV news and the local radio news this morning and I don't know how they will resolve this big mystery of the missing snowfall record! It sure beat hearing about the presidential race.

I had my second class with Jessica Schick today and yes, I wore my respirator all afternoon. You can laugh if you want! No one laughed directly at me in class but you can sure bet that people talked about it later. I always have to wear the respirator when working with the acrylic paints. In this class we drew and painted feathers. I didn't get very far with my painting but I am pleased with the results so far on this piece. Your screen is right, I am painting mine black. (Sorry, Anne, it's not yours - I'll keep this one if it ever gets finished!) When I started I figured that I would toss this out as a practice piece but I think I will finish it.

After class I met up with Suzanne. We had dinner and did a quick tour of the show and caught up with several other bloggers and members of MQRersource.  Here's a picture of Suzanne with one of her quilts and a picture of me with my little quilt. This is the first time that I've had a quilt in a national show. There are a lot of amazing quilts in the show this year. I'll get around tomorrow to get a better look at all of them. I'll also be meeting up with Carole and help her shop for a longarm. It will be fun to help spend someone else's money for a change!

Here's the last photo of the day - there are happy people everywhere! Here are Gretchen, Michelle (2L) and Suzanne - all from the MQResource list.

On to tomorrow.......

MQX Day 2

What a terrific day! Summerset met me at my hotel at 8:00 and we arrived at Sue's around 9:30. It took a little longer than expected but we missed a few turns because we were talking and not paying attention to the road signs.

The day was full of talking and shopping. Can it get any better than that?

Our first stop was Franklin Mill Store. What a great place! It's in a large old mill building and they carry quilting cottons, evening fabrics, lots of trims and ribbons, yarns, decorator fabrics, stationery.....all kids of fun things! I found two fabrics to use in QOV quilts and a fantastic Japanese fabric printed with little chickens. This and the natural colored trim will go into new placemats for my kitchen. I also picked up a really interesting skein of green yarn and a beach themed ribbon to use in postcards.

After lunch we went to Tatnuck Bead Company and Necessities for Needle. Both are in Westborough. I picked up the blue paint palettes in the bead shop and everything else in the yarn shop. I should have put a quarter or something in the photo because these are all large beads. The wood flowers are about 2" in diameter. The polka dot ones are Virginia Tech colors.

It was a fantastic day - thanks Sue and Summerset!

MQX Day 1

It's a miracle! My flight from Richmond to Boston yesterday was on time and uneventful. Not only that, we were treated to nice scenery - a college baseball team.  Then I picked up my luxury rental car - except that I got the 4-door version. Yes, it did take me 15 minutes to figure out that it did not have cruise control or mirror adjustment controls. It's actually a cute little car but it was not designed for people over 40. The speedometer and other displays are in the CENTER of the dash instead of the normal position right in front of the driver. They did not test drive this car with people wearing progressive lenses! LOL! I can't see the speed I'm going without turning my head.

If you've never been to New Hampshire you should visit sometime. The people here are really nice - everywhere!

The MQX show hasn't started yet but classes began today. I am only taking 2 classes and both are with Jessica Schick. I enjoy her energy and you can count on the quality of her classes. If she is teaching something you know that she has fully explored the subject. Today's class was on dye painting. I've done the immersion dyeing but I haven't done any dye painting. I learned a lot which is a good thing because my samples don't really look like I learned anything valuable. Here's what they are supposed to look like.

I got half of the first one done in class and got the painting done on all 4 this afternoon. You know how I get when I'm on a mission. I didn't want to have to bring the supplies home with me. I had enough fixer to finish these 2:

My flowers aren't so bad but the backgrounds are horrid. Here are the last 2, painted but not washed out.

They will lighten up quite a bit when they are washed - but they probably won't lighten up enough. It doesn't matter, it was a great class. Maybe I'll make placemats with these and then I could work on spaghetti and cranberry juice stains to improve them.

Tomorrow is a big day. Summerset and I are going to spend the day with Sue B. Wednesday is my second class with Jessica. We will be painting with Setacolor paints so I will get to freak the whole class out by wearing my respirator all day. I should make lots of friends that day.

Vacation rocks.

Catching up and the list

I think my sewing room is missing me this week. Between the bad allergy day, getting ready for vacation and the new project, work has taken center stage this week. I haven't even been in my sewing room this week except for 10 minutes here and there. Let's review last week's list:

• Take It Further Challenge - March - I have been doing a little work on this. My plan involves lots of foiling in different colors so it's taking several sessions to get the results that I want.
• Plan TIF - April
• Load and quilt Anne's baby quilt
• Load Kim's quilt to start quilting - Sorry Kim, not yet but it will be done on time!

So what's on the new list?

• Pack for MQX
• Make cookies and muffins to take on trip
• Rob the ATM
• Polish the credit cards
• Throw caution to the wind regarding the fabric/thread/fiber budget

I think I can accomplish this list successfully but on the topic of lists...

I'm pretty good a keeping and following the lists. Aside from my weekend to-do list, I have lists of projects with due dates that are not active, lists of WIPs and lists of things that I want to do but haven't even started. Occasionally Often, though, I get an idea or urge to do something not on any list. I suppose it's like the shiny new object that you see in the store, you don't need but you have to buy. Like the Zentangle kit that one of you fine bloggers just had to mention this week and I just HAD TO HAVE. It happened with projects this week too. Here's a partial list of project that I need and want to work on in the near future:

• quilting Kim's quilt
• quilting Mom's Stack and Whack
• Finishing the brown and pink churn dash quilt
• Neely's monkey baby quilt
• preparing two classes for the LQS
• a 3-day Laura Cater-Woods class at the LQS
• the monthly TIF projects
• 2 postcard exchanges

and on and on and on. Usually I can compare the new idea to what's on the list and determine that the new project isn't any more worthy or interesting than something already planned or underway. Not this week though because I'm having an overwhelming urge to make another QOV.  Wanda's next QOV tops should be here soon and I want to include one of my own in the mix again. So, last night instead of working on anything that I should be working on, I was pulling out fabrics for a QOV for a pattern from this book.

Now, I'm not saying that it's bad to start a new project but I've only been keeping my lists for a few months and they really are helping me become more productive with my limited time. At the same time I have loads of WIPS and current projects. In the end, I bargained with myself. I have 2 reversible baby quilts in various stages of completion. I've decided that I will complete those first and then allow myself to start a new QOV.  At least I will be down 2 WIPs and both of those quilts will go to some local charity like Project Linus. I pulled the first one out last night.

Some day soon I will post about how I organize my projects in my sewing room so that I can easily switch between projects and be productive in small time increments. For now though, I've got to get back to polishing those credit cards!

I've entered the modern age......

I've about finished off my library of books on CD and tape. I was in Radio Shack with a friend yesterday and thought this was cute. Now I have 3 books and a few podcasts loaded up and ready for my trip to MQX. Isn't it cute? I know, it's not an Ipod. I just don't see any reason to pay more for something that I will drop and break. 

Just to show how brain dead I was today, it took me hours to figure out how to load a podcast: download - copy - paste - done.

The Weekend List

What did I accomplish this week?

• FIRST - Get our taxes together! Not only did I get them delivered, I already have them back and know how much we have to pay
• Finish the scrubs pattern sample for my Quilting Adventures class.
• Make a batch of lotion Yes, well, I posted about that disaster last night. Lesson learned: Do not try to make new recipes when the head is full of pollen and mold.
• Finish my March Take If Further piece I didn't finish this and I haven't started the April one yet either. Let's move that to the new list!

The new list:

• Take It Further Challenge - March
• Plan TIF - April
• Load and quilt Anne's baby quilt
• Load Kim's quilt to start quilting

Great mail!

I am having some horrendous allergy stuff going on this week so I am very grateful to my Secret Stitcher for my surprise that arrived in the mail today! It could not have been better timed. A great magazine, some new samples and a stack of beautiful blue batik fabrics. It made my day!

Tonight I decided to make some lotion. I have only one lotion recipe so I decided to make a new one using Borage Oil and Sweet Almond Oil. I should not try to make new things when my head feels like it's full of cotton balls. I wasted an incredible amount of supplies because I read a speck on the scale as a decimal point.....I'm going to bed now that I've placed an order for more lotion supplies.

I hope to bring the fiber posts back to you this weekend - along with more bird nest photos.

This and that....

Let's start with the stash report. It's boring this week! Nothing in, nothing out. I've been working on lots of stuff but nothing that uses a lot of fabric.

This week IN: 0

This week OUT: 0

YTD IN: 34.5 yards

YTD out: 61.5 yards

I'm continuing to make progress on my list but there's nothing interesting to show. Yesterday turned into a slow day. After I got all of the financial records sorted I wanted to put some in the attic. The short version of the adventure is that it ended with a bad allergic reaction so I was very sluggish the rest of the day. Today I hope to get the last piece of the scrubs sample made. It's going slow because it's kind of boring. To make it interesting I am using a different machine in each of the 3 pieces: my fancy Pfaff, the serger and a straight stitch only machine.

It's chilly today so I hope to spend the afternoon and evening with my TIF maybe watching an old movie on TV. I did have a nice visitor yesterday. The Great Blue Heron came by to do a little fishing. Here's a close up taken from inside my living room!

As soon as I tried to open the window for a better shot he flew away. I always get excited to see the Heron visit. During drought years when the pond levels are down it's fun to watch him stalk around the edge of the pond.

All-in-all, not a bad day!

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To-Do or Will-Do?

Thanks to everyone who posted a comment on my Enablers post. It was fun and funny to read all of the responses!

I'm posting about lists because it's the weekend for me. Tomorrow is a holiday! Today, as I was counting away the work day to get to the weekend, I was thinking about my list for the weekend and thinking about list-making in general. I love my lists. I have several of them: work to-do list, home to-do list, hobby to-do list, shopping list, wish list, husband's to-do list, husband's grocery list....you get the picture. I love lists. I have so many that they run into my next lifetime.

Sasha Cagen also loves lists. She has devoted her blog to gathering up to do lists for just about everything in life. She has now even published a lot of them in her book, to-do list. I wondered just how many books about to-do lists there might be. A search of "to do list" on Barnes and Noble yielded 877 books! Amazing! That proves that there are a lot of other people like me out there that live by the list.

Don't like to-do lists? Maybe you would prefer using will-do lists. That approach is from the blog Litemind. It's all about using the brain more efficiently. There's some pretty interesting stuff out there.

But back to me. :)

My weekend is starting now and here's my list. I suppose that technically it really is a will-do list since it's a subset of all of my to-do lists.

• Finish the Chinese Coins QOV (it's half quilted and then needs binding)
• Prepare a set of fabric printer sheets (so I can print QOV labels for the 3 quilts)
• Make the matching pillowcases for the 3 QOV quilts
• Organize the taxes
• Make a batch of soap
• Finish my Fibre&Stitch article
• Make the scrubs samples for the Quilting Adventures class
• Make the MQResource sapphire postcards

I might also get to work on my March Take It Further Challenge. I'll have 3 days after all!

Enablers

My friend Anne knows that I am trying to get control over my fabric stash. What does she do to help? She buys me fabric! 

Finding these on my desk yesterday was a great way to greet a Monday morning! She knows me well. These are two collections that I have been resisting from my LQS. The stack on the left is "Kasuri" from Hoffman and the group on the right is "Bohemian Manor" from In The Beginning.

This situation, however, creates a few dilemmas.

If I didn't buy it does it really count as adding to the stash?  It does add bulk, there's no getting around that fact. It's 6 1/4 yards of additional bulk! But technically I didn't BUY it. Do I give myself "good intentions credit" and only count half of it in my stash report? What to do!!

These enablers are everywhere. What do we do about them? Once you determine how to treat the gift, what do you do about these enablers? Enablers of fabric addictions may be perfectly well-meaning but they are ultimately very bad people! The throw our new tender fabric control persona into a tailspin. Now I might need to buy yardage for borders for these fabrics. And if I'm getting border fabric then I msut also buy the backing too! Next thing you know I will have increased that 6 1/4 yards to 45!

Do you chastise the enablers for giving you fabric? I don't think so! After all, she bought me fabrics that I've been coveting and resisted buying myself. We don't necessarily want to discourage that behavior and they are the only friends we have. Are we willing to lose a friend over a fat quarter? I don't think so but there must be a limit - maybe it's around 6 1/2 yards.

Do I punish her by buying her some fabric for her overflowing stash? It's an idea. But that opens a possible stash accounting loophole. If I buy her fabric every time she buys me fabric then aren't I really paying for the fabric she bought me? Yes, I think so and the next step off that cliff is collusion. We would all just set up secret wish lists and we would all start arranging to buy "gifts" for each other. That could be really ugly and the next thing you know unemployed Arthur Anderson auditors would  be all over our blog stash finances. That would be a controversy that would turn the sewing blog world upside down.

It's a conundrum. What would you do? Besides telling this best of all friend "Thank you "!

Weekend In Review

Spring is finally arriving. Here's a little photo of the daffodils in bloom by the pond. Spring is a double-edged swprd for me. It's much prettier outside but it means that I go back indoors for Spring - Summer - Fall allergy seasons. I can't complain though. We had a much longer winter this year and I'll son be eating fresh veggies from Chris' garden.

Lets start with the Stash Control report. I didn't buy anything this week and I packed up about 6 yards of strings and pieces larger than 1/2 yard to send to someone making QOV quilts.  I didn't actually total my purchases from last week but it was about 28 yards. I went back through my previous posts and I think I have my year to date stats calculated as:

This week IN: zero

This week OUT: 6 yards

YTD IN: 33 yards

YTD OUT: 17 yards

Net: IN 17 yards

There will be some real stash reduction in next week's report!

I haven't gotten as much done as I wanted this weekend. I finished Wanda's second QOV quilt and that's about it so far. Thats A-OK because I had a great time Friday with my nephew. I picked him up at the Eastern Trombone Workshop sponsored by the US Army Band at Ft. Myer in Arlington. Ft. Myer is the base that serves Arlington Cemetery. The Post Chapel is where many of the funerals for Arlington Cemetery take place and was right next door to the building where James was attending his Workshop. This little Chapel is also where Chris and I got married 20 years ago. It was very cool to see it again!

After the Trombone extravaganza we headed to the State Theater, in Falls Church, for the Pat Metheny concert. His music isn't everyone's cup of tea. It's what I call "art music". It's very technical and experimental and the concert was awesome! Take a look at this video and you'll get a taste of his music and will see his custom "guitar" Pikasso I.

Pat Metheny Video

 

Friday list

It's not going to be a very quilty weekend but it's going to be fun anyway. This afternoon I'm driving up to Northern Virginia to pick up my nephew for spring break. We are going to a Pat Metheny concert this evening in Falls Church before heading home. Tomorrow his Dad is coming to pick him up to take him the rest of the way home. Mom is coming to town to visit with her Grandson so we will all have a nice lunch together. We don't get to do that very often so it will be a nice treat for the weekend.

I have a few things that I need to get accomplished this weekend:

• organize the taxes
• make my MQResource postcards

If I have time I would like to:

• finish quilting my QOV quilt
• put the binding on one of the two remaining QOV quilts.

We'll see how it all goes!

Thank you Michele!

I had a lovely surprise in the mail today when I received the notebook in this post from Michele. Thank you Michele, I love it!

Be sure to check out Michele's blog, she does some great projects and she just did an excellent post about the pros and cons of online classes. She's currently taking Sue Bleiweiss' Mixed Media class at joggles.

Bad Vicki. Bad, bad Vicki.

You know it's going to be a fun day when you arrive at the first fabric store and Kim has already secured a shopping cart! She only beat us there by 5 minutes. Kim and Denise were having so much fun and I thought it would be rude not to join in. So I jumped in with both feet!

Our first stop was Quilting Adventures where Kim took advantage of a great rayon batik sale and Denise bought several quilt backs and a bag of fat quarters. I found this red, white and blue stripe to use in future QOV quilts and the ugly print at 60% off to use for my metallic painting technique. Quilting Adventures has also started selling Wonderfil Invisafil. I've been using the black and I love it so I picked up white and beige.

We had to break for lunch before heading to Quilter's Corner in Midlothian. It's like we won prizes! I bought waayyy too much stuff but Denise needed the support. I totally fell in love with the Moda Mary Engelbreit Friends and Flowers fabric. Wasn't I lucky that they had the entire collection in a fat quarter bundle. I picked up another fat quarter bundle of bright tone-on-tone fabrics. Of the large pieces the two on the left were on sale, the green floral was a pure frivolous purchase, the stripes are for possible QOV quilts and the sport print is for a couple of Project Linus quilts using Mary's quick quilt pattern.

I think I've been a very good friend today.

Total stash Used: ZERO!

Total stash added: a lot

A very productive day!

Denise doesn't arrive until this evening so I had the day to do all of my weekend chores. Not only did I get the laundry done but I made a new batch of soap, finished quilting Wanda's second QOV quilt, started quilting my QOV and made some gluten-free cupcakes for Denise. The cupcake recipe is from the vegan cupcake cookbook that I mentioned yesterday. We were pleasantly surprised that the gluten-free cupcakes are awesome! They are a little denser than the vegan vanilla cupcake so they will be perfect for strawberry shortcake this Spring.

I am using the Ebb and Flow panto on both quilts. On the flannel quilt I used So Fine thread in an ivory color. I should have used a heavier thread, like King Tut, because the So Fine really doesn't show. On this quilt I