Houston Part I

Houston was amazing as always!
There was no way I could take photos of all the quilts - 500 or so - but I tried to capture the ones that drew my attention.

This is my favorite quilt in the whole show.

Even though it looks like raw-edge work, each and every little edge is turned under.

The quilt is at least 6' x 6'.
It was made by Martha Brown from Canada.
Here's some of what she said about the quilt:
"I found an embroidery I had created in my teens - a simple design of the wheel of the zodiac.
In interpreting it as a quilt, the challenges were to create effective imagery for each sign and element, maintain a cohesive design, and stay committed to the project.
It took over 6 months/500 hours and I loved every minute of it."

The center:

Pisces:

Aquarius?

Leo:

Aries, Sagittarius:

Virgo, I think:

I wish I had taken detail photos of all the signs but there were people waiting to see the quilt.

Kudos to you Martha!

Edited to add: Thank you Quiltbug for giving us a link to Martha's site where you can drool over her other creations: http://www.bluemoonfabricarts.com/Index.htm
She now makes absolutely stunning dolls. Be sure to have a look at those.

I made something!

I had to.  I was under pressure.
I have a friend who always has an artists' sale at her home in November. She wanted to get the flyers out but needed a photo of "something".
I had promised to make things for the sale and small items always sell better hence...

At least I know I can whip up one of these in about 20 minutes because that's all I had last night.

I'm back!

I'm back from Houston. It was wonderful as always.
I took a lot of quilt photos and will share them this week, but at the moment I have my hands full catching up around here.
When I went to the mail box yesterday, the new batch of Don't Look Now patterns were waiting for me.

Lilly Pilly:

Love Birds:

And my favorite - Willow:

To celebrate, Kellie is having a wonderful giveaway on her blog so head over there and enter!

And off we go!

Today I'll be running around trying to get everything together for my (very) early morning flight to Houston tomorrow.

I will try to blog while over there (haven't quite figured out the mobile blogging thing) but I'll definitely be on Twitter and Facebook.

And because I won't be able to ship any orders while I'm away...



If you're willing to wait a couple of days for your fabric to ship, you can get some good deals over in the store this week.

Bundles of Joy

These little guys and their accompanying instructions have kept me very busy this week.

They're now in their envelopes, adressed, and ready to go out to their new owners on Monday.
Woohoo!

These are all fabric bundles for the Rainbow Jane Block of the Month. I have decided that the latest session will be my last RBJ session.
There's one signup spot left and then it's over.

Now I have to clean this house so the boys can mess it back up when I'm in Houston...

Blogger's Quilt Festival

I was so excited about this and then almost forgot!

Since we should probably all have started our Christmas sewing by now (yeah right!), I thought I'd share my Christmas quilt.

I made this last year with leftover fabric from strippy runners I'd made to sell at a friend's studio sale.
I had been wanting to make a zig zag quilt for a while and Christmas was right around the corner.

I love this quilt and can (almost) not wait to take it out of the closet.

If you'd like to have a look at other lovely quilts or enter the Festival yourself, just pop in over here.

My New Toy

Remember when I broke my timer?
I ordered a new one.
It arrived today.

It's amazing.
FOUR separate timers!
Oh the possibilities!

Pink

There probably won't be much blogging this week.
The Rainbow Jane kits have to go out on Monday.
On Tuesday I fly to Houston and I haven't even looked at the supply list for my classes.
I'm stressing a little but trying to breathe.

A little bundle of pink that went out in the mail this morning - $2.50 donated to a good cause.

Joining the fight

The National Breast Cancer Foundation's mission is to save lives by increasing awareness of breast cancer through education and by providing mammograms for those in need.
More information about the National Breast Cancer Foundation over here.

This little friendship bag...

...will be off to its new home tomorrow.
And yes, I am a little obsessed with Panache right now.

(It's my bag for the Friendship Bag Swap. Tutorial over here.)

Birdie!

Cleaning has come to a grinding halt over here. A terrible cold bug has me in its grips but I'm sure I'll survive.

Finding these on my doorstep definitely helped.

Birdie Quilt Fabric by Me & My Sister Designs.
I'm in love.
They're in the store now.

Move over Martha

My glue gun and I have been busy.
This is the kitchen notice board before:

And after:

All I removed were the buttons. I just covered the rest with new fabric and ribbon and glued new buttons on.
I used thumb tacks to secure the fabric and ribbon. Push the tack in as far as you can and then whack it once with a hammer.
The fabric is from the Panache line by Sanae for Moda.

Oh No!

My timer broke! I probably wore it out.
Yesterday I tackled the "red bathroom" - the one where the teenager lives. Not good.
3 hours (give or take a couple of minutes) later I had everything cleaned. I just have to sort through the cabinet and drawers. That could take another three hours.

And these arrived.

Aren't they cute? They're going to be freebies with bigger store orders.
Today I'm going for a walk and coffee with a friend.
Then I'll come home and maybe finished cleaning said bathroom. Or sew.

(BTW Don't Look Now patterns are back in stock. For now. They're really popular. I'm happy to announce that I now carry all Kellie's quilt patterns.)

Wednesday

Powder room: 1 hour 20 minutes

Amongst other things:
Washed all the moldings - door frame, window frame, baseboards, door.
Clean baseboards really make a difference. You should try it.
Applied some toothbrush power to areas of the toilet normally impossible to reach.
Windex-ed every shiny surface.

Tip: When crawling around on the floor, wear socks. If not, you may end up with hard to remove red nail polish lines on your floor and very unflattering white tips on your toenails.

I cleaned and sewed!

Cleaned a lot. Sewed a little.

The kitchen is clean!
I did not scrub the floor because it extends into different rooms and I'll just tack that onto another room. Makes sense, right?
Oh, and the junk drawer is now in a shopping bag. I'm going to go get some drawer organizers today.

What I learned:
We like beans

and banana pudding.

There's an explanation for the pudding.

The most disconcerting thing about the whole kitchen cleaning experience was the vast amount of food I had to throw away. Some items had expired in 2003!
I need to find a way to organize the pantry cupboard so that I know what's in there.
Any suggestions?

As for the sewing:
Made a Dear Jane/That Quilt block

And the September SewConnected 3 block(s) for Ashley.

Today I start bathroom day/week. Gosh I hope it doesn't turn into a week as well!

Today is the last day

I swear, today is the last day I'm spending in the kitchen.
I have half a pantry cupboard, a junk drawer, and the floor to clean.
I should be able to do it right?
I reduced the recipe books quite a bit:

I'm hoping to get some sewing done today. Wouldn't that be great?
Then you won't have to suffer through photos of my messy kitchen any more.
P.S. Do you like my sheep?

It's still kitchen day

Or is it kitchen month?
I have now spent a total of 10 hours in there and I'm not done.

This morning, amongst other things, I unpacked the two recipe book shelves.
We have way too many recipe books!
Some of them have to go.

Gifts

Look what arrived in the mail:
Anya sent me this absolutely lovely postcard to thank me for hosting the three by three swap.

Thank you Anya!

You may be pleased to know that all I got cleaned yesterday were three drawers and one cabinet.
Today promises to be better because...

...I now have an industrial strength toothbrush!

Still Cleanin'

Yesterday I:
1. Cleaned both ovens (well, turned on the self-clean)
2. Cleaned the inside of the top oven's door. It was awful. This took 35 minutes!
3. Attempted to clean the oven shelves but my arm got tired. I'll have to do this in phases.
4. Cleaned the decorative plates and plate rack on the wall
5. Cleaned the door and frame to the dining room. It's a six-panel pocket door so this involved that toothbrush again.
6. Cleaned and re-organized all the cabinets and drawers in the island. Who needs 30 sets of chopsticks? DH brings extras every time we get Chinese. What's with that?
7. Scrubbed the island inside and out - doors, drawers, shelves, everything.

And then I started on a little project...

It is now 9:30am and I haven't done a thing today.
Gotta go to the post office, the gutter guy coming to give his estimate is late.
Oh, here he is now...I think.

Monday Recap

So did you do it? Clean, I mean.
I did. And I've found that cleaning is really cleansing for the soul.
It made me put a little something out to kick off Fall.

I'm starting to think about doing a painting project or two.

Monday was kitchen day. It took a lot of time. Today is kitchen day as well.
And Cleaning Week may turn into Cleaning Fortnight.

Yesterday I:
1. Washed out all the wastebaskets with soap and water, inside and out.
2. Cleaned the dishwasher inside and out. A toothbrush was involved.
3. Cleaned the cooktop inside and out. Once again a toothbrush...
4. Washed the kitchen table, chairs, and bar stools. With soap and water.
5. Cleaned the outside of the refrigerator. Yes, a toothbrush...
6. Washed out out the kitchen garbage can - with soap and water.
7. Dusted along all the ceilings and corners where the dust bunnies hide - through the whole house.
8. Washed the kitchen rugs.
9. Dropped off some old chairs at Goodwill.
10. And then quickly swept the kitchen floor, vacuumed the carpets, and swished the bathrooms.

Phew!

And then I plonked my tired butt down and paged through some decorating magazines.
I'm inspired, I tell you.

Stay tuned...

It's Cleaning Week

Since I started my little store, things have gotten a little out of control around here.
The days of putting around in the garden, redecorating, sewing when I felt like it, and cleaning the house thoroughly once a week are over.
I'm not complaining, mind you.
But something has to be done.
So this week I'm spending three hours each day "Fall Cleaning".
Since I just counted the rooms in this house and came to twelve, I hope that's enough.

Would you care to join me?

Don't Look Now Patterns

I'm happy to announce that I'm the first US distributor of Kellie Wulfsohn's Don't Look Now patterns. I'm very excited since this will mean that quilters over here will be able to get the patterns without having to pay the shipping from Australia.
If you haven't seen her work, hop on over to her blog. She's AMAZING!

Remember that little flower quilt I made last week? Well, that was me trying to get a sample made before the patterns arrived. Alas...

Pretty 'n Pink


Garden Party


Meg's Garden


She has a special offer for the first person to purchase one of her patterns from me - a free pattern. (Just scroll down on her post a little for the details.)

Off to go package Rainbow Jane kits.

I think the mojo is back

I was playing around this morning and came up with this:

Now if only I had time to actually make one!
I have kits in the store.
An offer for you: A 50% refund to the first person to buy a kit, make one, and send me a photo I can use to show a real runner.
The free strippy runner tutorial is over here.

Katie's Back!

I managed to get my hands on a teenie bit more Katie Jump Rope fabric.
Some orange and brown:

and some blue and green:

If you want some, I've made up a couple of fat quarter bundles. They're in the store now.

I'm also working on something new to share with everyone. If you scroll down and have a look in the right sidebar, you'll see a little hint. What d'ya think?

Who won the organizer?

The winner is:

becca who said "ooh- i love it and could certainly fill it- what a great giveaway!!"

Please send me your address and I'll have this little one in the mail right away.

I had quite a few queries asking where to get one of these. I truly don't know. I bought three of them at a local quilt show and now I wish I knew where they got them from.

I do, however, have one more that I'm not using. I paid $15 each for them and Priority Mail shipping in the US is about $10 - so $25.
If you're interested, email me and we'll set something up.

How amazing is this!

With all the giveaway madness I totally forgot to share this.
Mary has finished her Geese in the Forest quilt top!

I'm definitely hopping to it on mine now. I need it to be done for Christmas.

A little reminder: The individual block patterns will only be available in the store until the end of the month. After that I will still have the full pattern including the layout diagrams available.

Happy Labor Day!

Testing, testing...

This is a little test for something bigger I'm working on.
This one's only 5" x 10".

I used basting spray. Everything is now sticky.
Do you use basting spray? Which one? Do you like it?

I'm giving away something else!

It sure has been giveaway season over here!

Do you know that Jodi, formerly of This, That and the Other has a brand new blog (or should I say blogs)?

To celebrate this, she's having a BUNCH of giveaways and I'm one of her "sponsors".

I'll be giving away a Pop Parade 2 Fat Quarter Pack.

This FQP consists of 10 fat quarters from the new Pop Parade 2 collection by P&B Textiles now in my store.

To find details on how to win this (and other giveaways), head on over here or over here.

If you made it all the way to the bottom of this post (and you obviously did),

1. leave a comment and I'll enter you in a small giveaway directly from here.
2. Subscribe to and/or Follow this blog, leave another comment telling me you did, and I'll enter you a second time.

(The drawing will be at noon PST on September 10th.)

Yesterday, today, and...tomorrow?