How Much Fabric?!?

HA! I was happy to be corrected this morning on just WHAT day of the week it is! I don’t know why, but when I woke up this morning, I had on my mind that it was MONDAY…not Sunday!

This is awesome! This means I have a whole extra day to do “stuff” before heading out to Alabama early Thursday morning! It’s an 8 hour drive – so with lunch and gas and everything else, I’m giving myself 9 hours and will be leaving the house around 5:30 am on Thursday. OY! Lecture Thursday Night…Double OY~~Maybe…I’ll leave Wednesday afternoon and drive half way instead~~ Or I’m really going to be wiped out for my lecture on Thursday night!

So..back to my day! I decided…it’s TIME!

Time for TAKING TIME….to tackleTHIS:

((OH yes, piles of fabric yardage that go back to my trip to Hershey in JULY!!))

And THIS:

((Oh, this table is packed with fabric, and some recyclable articles of clothing, and fat quarter boxes and orphan blocks and……))

It’s time to slow down, even though I have sewing on the brain…to get it all back where it needs to GO! And if it is a newer purchase and hasn’t HAD an assigned spot yet, to FIND IT ONE!

A funny thing happened when I started to uncover this table……remember me being frazzled about losing THIS??

MY BLUE TOOTH ear thing!! Yep. It was buried under piles of fat quarters and fabric yardage on the big cutting table in the “other” side of the basement.

I knew it would show up SOMEWHERE at SOME POINT.

That side of the basement is not heated, so in the winter months, unless you want to be over there in a parka, things DO just get laid on the table until it warms up enough to want to be in that side of the basement comfortably.

So now I’ve started turning the mess ((That grew over many months of neglected time)) to THIS:

It’s amazing how just having things folded into equal sizes makes everything look better. I also see a LOT of chrome yellow and at the far far end ((though you can’t see it as well)) a lot of yuk green! LOL! And when I'm done folding, onto it's shelves it will go!

There is more to do. But sometimes a day spent reorganizing and re-familiarizing myself what what already LIVES in my basement can inspire me on to future projects by using what I have --- We all need to re-confirm this to ourselves at one point or another don’t we? Or -- MORE OFTEN would be good too, wouldn’t it?

It’s a good thing I won’t be headed down I-85 on my way to Alabama– Or I’d be tempted to make a pit stop at Mary Jos! Instead, I’m going to head over I-40 and route through Asheville, Knoxville, Chattanooga and down into Huntsville!

Come to think of it, I’ve never BEEN to Chattanooga….and I bet there are awesome antique malls on the way. If it were you, would you go WEDNESDAY instead of trying to cram it all into Thursday? Just for some wandering opportunities? I’ll have to think on this – but you know me, I’m already leaning toward it!

Homeward Bound!

It was a great workshop yesterday!! Pics are on my phone, and I’m being picked up for the airport in less than 1/2 hour so I need to be quick about this!! I’m heading home to North Carolina from Tyler, Texas today --

Michelle MADE my day when she sent along an excerpt from Quilters Home Magazine June/July 2011 listing the 55 top Quilting Blogs!

I was completely gobsmacked to read that we were listed as NUMERO UNO!! Wow…I’m not sure how they came to their conclusions, but I was also tickled to find that there are great blogs that I don’t KNOW about….and I’m going to pick up the full issue so I can go check them out!

Pictures have started flooding in from Quilt Market in SLC! I’m so tickled that Kansas City Star put my quilts right where ordering people would be standing for a close up and personal look!

You certainly can’t miss them if you are standing there placing an order at all, can you? :cD

So off I go home…I’ve got a 3 hour layover in Houston, so I hope the A/C is back to being FIXED!! At least it is a sunny beautiful day today….I’m still shaking over that flight of terror on Wednesday night!

I refuse to be a whimpy traveller! This girl is getting BACK on that horse and is going to enjoy her flight home!

I’ve been working on the hexagons….of course. And it isn’t a lot of anything exciting to show you because I’m simply filling in background areas right now until I get up to the inset borders I want to do:

The cream part is almost done, you can see my little drawing for my map on the hexagon paper….this is to straighten up TWO opposite sides…and then I’ll have to do the top and bottom to square it off. It’s coming along! I really enjoy working on it…..and it is worth the time that it takes. It really is. I love every stitch! ((When the plane isn’t bouncing!!))

I hope you are enjoying a lovely weekend wherever you are…..I’ll catch you back from the NC side!

Tyler Texas–The Food Addition!

This is a late afternoon post of what was supposed to go live this morning, but Blogger was being persnickety…..Better late than never right? And I sure hope they have fixed whatever it was that was broken in the first place!

When it’s a lecture day, there usually isn’t much of a photo-opportunity! But we had a great crowd at the Quilters of East Texas guild meeting yesterday!

I was a bit concerned, as in the car on our way to the venue, my hostess mentioned how they’d had some trunk shows before that went on-and-on-and-on-and-on and that after so many quilts, the audience can find themselves nodding off --

I thought to myself…”OH NO!!” But at the same time, I knew that I had a good variety of quilts to show, even if my latest fave-four are in Salt Lake City for Quiltmarket! We have 100 lbs of quilts…and my lecture runs right at an hour, and we switch it up, from talking about Scrap Management, and into Leaders & Enders, and then into working with recycled fabrics and it moves pretty fast…so I don’t thin there is any time for anyone to snooze!

I had mentioned to the girls about my two Texas Requirements: Tex Mex & BBQ! So after the trunkshow was packed up, the book table cleared, and today’s quilt set aside for the Cathedral Stars class, we headed out to BODACIOUS BBQ!!!

And the wonderful aroma from the vicinity of the parking lot was enough to carry me to the door! Remember those cartoons with the aroma steam making a “come hither” finger?? I did a search but couldn’t find one…..but still. You KNOW what I mean!!

Rib platter! Must I say more? OOOOOOOOoohhhhhhhh….these were heaven! There is nothing like Texas BBQ. Let me explain: When we moved from Texas to South Carolina, I was greatly disturbed that the BBQ had turned YELLOW as it was all mustard based! That took some getting used to….

And then when we moved to NC, it was vinegar based, and that was a whole nuther running thing to get used to as well….but TEXAS BBQ?? It wins, hands down!

Except for the white wonderbread thing. I still don’t understand why white wonderbread HAS to come with BBQ? Ours was wrapped with saran wrap, two pieces. Like a PB&J without the PB&J to go with it! I’m not a white wonderbread fan, so mine stayed behind…might I suggest…CORN BREAD!? Didn’t matter – I was so full of ribs and slaw and beans to care!

I had the rest of the day off! On went the running shoes after I had finished with some email backlog, and out exploring I went. There is a shopping mall about 1/2 mile up the road, and though it looked like rain was impending, I walked and walked and walked around the OUTSIDE of the mall, because there were sidewalks all the way around it, and I’d rather be outside than inside if at all possible. I logged in about 5.5 miles! Not bad for a jaunt about town, eh?

On the way back I stopped at Bealls –we don’t have those in NC—and treated myself to a new watch since my other one died:

And I’m happy with this little Texas momento! Sadly…no antique malls within walking distance of the hotel!

I promptly fell into bed for a 2.5 hour nap – and when I woke…I was starving! (Could it be possible? I mean…did you SEE that rib lunch above?!?)

About 1/2 mile up the road is a Tex-Mex place I had passed on my earlier walk, so I set out again. Yep. It’s a record! I tackled BOTH of my food requirements in the span of about 8 hours..LOL!

This, my friends, is a pulled pork chimichanga with salsa verde!! Whoooooooooooo!! Let’s just say it was DANG AMAZING! And a good thing I walked so much to work this off ahead of time ((Can you do that? Work off something ahead of time!?)) because it was SO GOOD!

I’m off to get ready for this workshop. The sun is shining, the storm clouds that threatened yesterday are gone, and it' promises to be a lovely day!

Bring on the weekend!!

Good Morning, Tyler, Texas!

This is a re-post of yesterday morning's post that Blogger deleted while dealing with their "whatever" crisis!

And since it “WAS” morning when I finally arrived at 12:05am --- I can just say that I have never been so glad to have my feet on the GROUND!

There were weather delays, as there often are in Houston this time of the year—Thunderstorms had been moving through for quite some time.

But it seems that weather was not ONLY outside the terminal, but INSIDE as well!

As I made my way through George Bush International from terminal B where my flight from Greensboro, NC landed, on to the tram to take me to terminal A ---the humidity increased and increased, and by the time I got off the tram my glasses were completely fogged!

Seriously. The humidity in terminal A was so thick you could cut it with a knife. And the floor had so much condensation on it you couldn’t hardly walk without slipping – even with running shoes on! It seems the a/c for that terminal was completely down, people were drenching with sweat and fanning themselves, me included! I quickly found a hair scrunchie in my bag to tie my damp hair up to the top of my head in an effort to at least get it off of my neck.

We left Houston about an hour late, but that also made us late for my arrival in Tyler. My poor hostess! When we landed, I got a voicemail from her “Where are you? Are you in the air? Ther is no one here, and no one to ask what happened!” I guess all the gate people at Tyler roll up and go home no natter if there are still in bound flights or not!

This was the clock as I passed through the corridor into the baggage claim area! My fear was that all of the other employees, baggage peeps included, had also gone home and there would be no luggage arrival til morning!

But eventually the belt started running and baggage was claimed and we were all happy to trudge on to whatever beds were waiting for us.

This was UNDOUBTEDLY the scariest flight I have ever been on, and I’d like to consider myself a well seasoned traveler! Big thunder heads everywhere, lighting flashing out of every window lighting up the inside of the plane like daylight….bumpy doesn’t BEGIN to describe this flight!

I was white knuckled on both arm rests, and I can honestly say that I was going through all the faces of everyone I love at that moment, focusing on their faces to get me through this 50 minute flight of terror. We swooped and we swerved, and at times it felt like the back of the plane was going one direction, and the front the other. I also kept my eyes firmly planted on the face of my flight attendant seeing if there was any concern there.

There wasn’t. I figure he has been through it all and worse…

SO here I am in Tyler! What is up for me today?  We’ll start off with a guild meeting lecture this morning, and there is rumor of BBQ for lunch….and some fun stuff planned for the afternoon!

We haven’t had a Show and Share Thursday for a while, and I only have a few minutes before I am being picked up, but I thought I’d add some color to this post ((And help me forget my flight of terror!)) by sharing a couple with you!

This one comes from Grace in PA!

Grace writes:

Hi Bonnie, I just wanted to send you a picture of the quilt top I finished from Last Saturday's workshop.  I took your advice and used orange sashing.  This will probably be donated to Quilts for Kids after it is quilted.  The workshop was fun and I am enjoying the crumbs and maverick stars construction.  I still need practice with the heart.
Thanks, Grace B

What a fun quilt Grace! Thanks for sharing it! I am sure whoever receives this quilt will be thrilled!

Nancy B sent in a picture of her very fun Chunky Churndash!

She writes:

Hi Bonnie!
I just wanted to send you a pic of my completed Chunky Churndash quilt.  It was my very first "Bonnie" quilt!  Almost half of the churndash blocks were from a swap I participated in with a Yahoo Group.  I'm a lover of all quilts scrappy, but don't yet have much of a "stash".  (*Gasp!*  I know, right?)  I had a really hard time finding fabric for the border.  I didn't want to pay full price for fabric, when the theme was to use what you have.  I was browsing some booths at a local trade days, when I ran across the fabric you see in the borders.  I passed it up at first, I mean, after all, what did I need fabric with granny square motifs on it for?  And then it hit me!  It would be perfect to complete my CCD quilt!
Thank you so much for sharing all that you do...you are SUCH a joy!

Nancy, your border fabric is PERFECT!  I know how you feel – but sometimes the only thing that makes my quilt happy is to find something new that makes the old fabrics just sparkle that much more. It’s a happy medium if what I buy new is going directly into a project I already know about and is helping me USE the stuff I already have. It’s a win-win and your quilt is definitely a winner!

Our next quilt top comes from Jeanne D who took my Scrappy Mountains workshop when I was up in CT/NY a few weeks ago! She is really FAST!

I love the streak of lightning setting she choose. This does not look like mountains at all, does it? To do this lay out you have to do all of your blocks as “downhill” only, where the regular layouts come from having some go uphill, and some down.

Thanks for sharing the picture, Jeanne! ((And especially for your understanding words of encouragement!))

I’m being picked up in 10 minutes so I suppose I ought to upload this, grab my stuff and get myself down to the lobby. Y’all have a great Thursday! We’ll catch you on the flip side!

Evening Addition: Free Kindle Book!

This is a re-post of a post that blogger deleted when doing their "whatever" over the past couple days!

Just when I thought there wasn’t anything good out there anymore…I found this one! It’s called “Too Close To Home” and is volume #1 in the Women of Justice series. I like it when I can find a volume #1 and not have to jump in somewhere in the middle!

Review

Readers who enjoy romantic suspense authors Suzanne Brockmann and Sandra Brown but who prefer their thrills with a little more conscience and a little less sex will be thrilled with Eason's new series opener. - Library Journal --Library Journal

Product Description

Samantha Cash is the FBI's secret weapon. Her methods are invisible, and she never stops until the case is closed. When missing teens begin turning up dead in a small Southern town, Samantha is assigned to help local chief Connor Wolfe find the killer. And he has two problems with that. There's her faith--in God and herself. And then there's the fact that she looks exactly like his late wife.

As they get close to an answer, the case becomes personal. The killer seems to be taking an interest in Connor's 16-year-old daughter, who thinks her dad is getting way too protective. Can't a girl just have some fun?

Too Close to Home ratchets up the suspense with each page, and will have readers cheering for the characters they love as justice is served and love grows even in the face of danger. Read this one with the lights on!

I downloaded this just before leaving for the airport! As always, download this while you can, and check to be sure it is still free before you do so as prices can change without notice on these deals.

Next time you hear from me, I’ll be in Texas! Thursday is a crazy day – I’ve got a morning lecture, and an evening lecture, and who knows what is planned for in the “in between” times! Friday is an all day Cathedral Stars workshop --- so with this schedule it may be Friday Evening before you hear from me again!

test

Just a test to see if blogger is back up and running...They deleted every post posted since Wednesday morning? What is UP with that?!

Under Pressure!

I woke up with a Queen song in my head today…Under Pressure! Not a bad kind of pressure really, just a lot to do and not so much time to do it in!

You know how it goes --- I’m leaving for Texas this afternoon, but playing on my mind is my need to make a baby quilt for DH’s assistant controller and his wife who are expecting their first baby any week now.

On Sunday DH was telling me how he TOLD Michael not to worry about buying a baby quilt, that “WE” would take care of that. ((Did you get the “WE” part?!?)) Uhhuh!

And it isn’t that I don’t want to do it, I do….but it’s a matter of when, and what to do --

Michael is from Kenya, his wife is from Uganda. A couple weeks ago we were invited to a lovely Kenyan meal at their home, and I got a good taste of the décor, featuring bold colors, a definite African influence, and wonderful accents!

For our dinner, they even were dressed in the clothing of their home country, and I would so like to do something that fits with their culture and life style. Little baby pink bows and cutesy bunnies are just NOT going to do it! ((Oh, yes, we've been informed that it is indeed, a girl! :cD))

And did I mention the TIME frame?!

Somewhere….SOMEWHERE in this basement, is a handful of African fabrics that had been gifted to me. And, I started digging for other things I could use…for instance:

I pulled a bunch of batik parts and unceremoniously dumped them on this chair, along with a selection of background yardage….

I sorted through the 2.5” strip bin and pulled out any batiks, brights and fun textures that might work for “SOMETHING”

Oh, and then there is THIS box of Novelties that was gifted to me from someone who thought they might be useable to me, but when I opened up the pieces, this is what I found:

Well, might be useable if I were planning on making a hanging thing for a bean bag toss, but?!? Well wait a minute, if I layer the good parts between the circles, I can probably get some quarter square triangles that would have the straight of grain on the long side --- We’ll save this box for another time!

And all while I’m deciding what to do, how to do it, what to use, and worried about how much time I don’t have --- I still need to repack the trunk show and pack my suitcase for my flight today!

I guess I should take care of “first things first” and then use the extra time to worry about the baby quilt. Do you see why my theme song today is “UNDER PRESSURE?!?!”

((And you must excuse me for my love of music that takes me back to my highschool years! I was a HUGE Queen fan in the 70's & 80's and this music just takes me back!))

Better get to it!

A Little Help From My Friends ---

That would be YOU!!

I’m not going to Quilt Market in Salt Lake City this year….I’ve got to be in Tyler Texas! I fly tomorrow, Have two lectures on Thursday, and a workshop on Friday, and I’m home again Saturday. How is that for a quick whirlwind trip?

I’m repacking the trunk show today….because, on my jaunt home from Pennsylvania last week, I got an email from Kansas City Star reminding me that quilts were needed for the booth at Market!

And since it was easier….and more of a direct route, and would get them on the road a day sooner rather than a day later, I stopped in Richmond, Virginia on my way home from Philadelphia and went to Home Depot. I bought a shipping carton….and I unpacked and repacked in the parking lot, choosing 4 quilts that I thought would best display what my new book is about into the carton, sealing it with zip-ties.

Up the road I went 1/2 a mile to Fedex!

I guess there is one thing to be said for “strip mall” America --- You can always find what you need in any city, be it 3 states away or in your own town. Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Fedex, Sam’s Club – I’m a happy girl when I can get the job done! And it goes without saying how much I love my GPS ((most of the time)) for getting me where I need to go!

This is the shipping tub on the scale –off to Kansas City, to be packed with all the other Quilt Market Stuff and driven to Salt Lake City! These quilts have a long way to go, and many hands to handle them!

Where YOU come in is this ---

Are you going to SLC for Market? Would you like to be my eyes? I really REALLY need pics of my quilts hanging in the Kansas City Star booth. Will you take pics for me? Don’t worry if other people say they will take pics too, In this case, too many is better than not enough!

You can email them to me when you get back from Market, and I would be ever-so-grateful!!

I’m happy to report that I slept the whole night through last night! Oh Happy Morning!

Today there are other mundane things on the list like getting the car inspected, and going back to get the new tires re-balanced because the car shimmies over 50mph. ((AUUGHH!!) But I think I feel a mani-pedi coming on to make up for that otherwise boring trip, and I’ll be packing for tomorrow….

And hopefully finding time this evening to work some more on some bindings!

And THIS was the movie I watched when I couldn’t sleep yesterday morning…..And it had me bawling by the end, and that probably made me more unsleepy --- but it’s a good one! I really enjoyed it.

I’m sorry to report that I haven’t come across ANY good free kindle books lately. It seems all there is are “how to invest in the market” kind of books, or ones that seem overly pushy-religious to me, and I prefer a good story without it being laced with a whole bunch of fictional dogma, if you know what I mean. And then there are those who are so far the OTHER direction, and I’m really not into reading steamy trio scenes either so ----That’s why I haven’t posted any suggested readings lately. There haven’t been any that I am interested in. I am keeping my eye open and will let you know when something comes along that interests me that I think might interest you!

Auntie’s Antics!

It was one of “THOSE” nights.

One of those where I was tucked into bed by about 10:30pm or so, thumbing through quilt magazines, drooling over antique quilts, fabrics, colors, textures, stitches…..and off to dreamland I went--

Only to be rudely awakened by NOTHING AT ALL----No reason, whatsoever ----at 3:45am.

Toss, Turn, Toss, Turn, ((If you get up, it’s all over, you know it, don’t you?)) Toss, Turn, Toss, Turn.

OH! ALL RIGHT!!

I’ve been up since 3:45am. Quilting. At least I’ve been productive, right?

The picture you see above is representative of how I feel as I type this..No, I don’t have a new kitty, but after seeing this guy I wish I did!

So what am I quilting on?? Teehee!!

Just quilting through these whacky combos of fabrics makes me giddy! Maybe that is why I couldn’t sleep? The quilt is begging to be finished? Or…it is giving me nightmares? Nope –I’m definitely over the moon for this quilt!

See the M&Ms right in the middle? Whooooo!

So the quilting is now done…and I’m ready for a NAP! But before I head off to take one..I wanted to introduce you to someone special to me:

This, Y’all, is Little Miss Elizabeth Caitlynn! She was born just last week to my brother Mike and his wife Nicole, and weighed in at 8lbs 2 oz!! I tell you, she will be ready for pre-school next week! She is that brilliant!

And you can see what stole my heart with this picture, other than that crop of dark dark hair? She is sleeping on the Little Monkey quilt that Auntie Bonnie made for her!

I am assuming this is Mike’s finger in his daughter’s mouth. Why he is doing this, I have no idea..but I assume he washed his hands first!

My handsome brother is already wrapped around his baby daughter’s finger….Isn’t family wonderful?

And now…about that NAP!?

Home for the Weekend!

You know, it doesn’t happen very often that I’m not teaching somewhere on a Saturday, or using a Sunday as my travel day to/from somewhere. I decided a couple years ago that I was going to try to schedule the week around Mother’s Day off as a treat for myself…and it has been great to be home this week!

The one hard part about the scheduling is, fitting in all the stuff I want to do in the amount of time there is to do it. For instance, I’ve got a guild local to me….within an hour’s drive away, that has been trying to schedule me for some time for JUST a Saturday when I could just come and do a workshop. Just down the road…would be fun…easy access, fun day, sleep in my own bed without a lot of travel, but I would have had to give up YESTERDAY in order to do it, and sometimes a girl just needs her own Saturdays, no matter how badly she wants to spend time with the guild ladies down the road.

There is not another place through the whole year that that Saturday for them will fit. It’s crazy! So now, we are looking at any Fridays…I sent them to the calendar to see if any openings I have will coincide with openings that THEY have --- if they can narrow it down for me it helps.

But in the mean time….I tried to not feel too guilty that I was able to spend time this week working on my own things on my own time frame in my own basement!

I took time this week to grab dinner out with Lisa – and we took Shelby for a walk afterwards!

On our walk up the street, we were approached by this orange and white fella who was VERY curious about just what Shelby was! Shelby IS kind of cat sized you know?

Things were going along just fine! Little orange kitty let us pet him, was very affectionate and not afraid of us at all….and Shelby was ready to get into the act and see what all of this was about as well….

They got closer and closer, just about to touch noses --- lots of sniffing going on…..

Aaaaaannnndddd----

YIKES! I guess that was close enough! The kitty hissed, reached out a paw….and the blur of Shelby you see is her getting the HECK outta Dodge! LOL!

We really enjoyed our evening walk, and made plans for Lisa and Karen to come to my house to sew the next day ---

Morning arrived, and my doorbell starting ringing! Lisa set up her FW at my sewing desk and started piecing on her project, a shop sample in blues..

After the previous night’s shenanigans, Shelby was going to stay close to “MOM” under the desk!

Karen and I loaded her 4 patch scrap quilt in the machine….and commenced to quilting! She has a house guest coming, and you know, there is nothing to spruce up a guest room like a new quilt on the bed, especially when the house guest is an in-coming guild teacher!

We used a variegated purple thread, and the 4 petalled posie pantograph called LAVISH by Hermoine Agee of Lorien Quilting was perfect for spring!

It was so perfect, that I also used it to quilt the CRUISE QUILT!

Doesn’t it look pretty on the aqua blue border!?

And I’ll give you just a sneak preview of the corner treatment..LOL! I’ve worked it out with Sew Many Places, that the kit I provide will be called a “STARTER KIT!” And just like Stone Soup, by the time we all bring some extra fabric and share with each other, we’ll have a good mix for the center which will be very scrappy, just my style!

Even those aqua cow spots don’t look so bad when quilted! LOL!

Neither does that art deco aqua and peach thing on the other side of the hopscotch blocks! I love the whole texture that the quilting gives…..

The binding is ON…it just needs an evening or two of hand stitching down…and I’ve got a hanging sleeve to make…a good way to use up MORE of those aqua cow spots maybe?!

Today has also been a great Mother’s Day. DH and I headed out to Concord Mills to use a gift certificate that was nearing expiration date. It’s over an hour away, and I stitched hexagons in the car the whole way. Nice eh?

We got there too early! They didn’t open until 1pm, and it was 11:20----what to do? We went and watched a matinee movie! We saw Source Code, and it was quite interesting. After that we had no trouble finding things to spend the gift certificate on. I got new summer sandals! Happy Mothers Day Feet to me!

We enjoyed a nice lunch at Texas Land and Cattle….and I napped all the way home. Here I am, 5:40pm, a late blog post, but I’ve enjoyed this weekend so much.

Happy Mother’s Day, Everyone!