Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Chloe and Gladys (the chicken)

Isn't she cute?  Little Chloe is feeding Gladys (the chicken) over the Christmas holiday.  She was quite impressed that the chicken would eat out of her hand with what must have looked like a giant beak!   Chloe would just giggle after Gladys would peck at her hand.  Unfortunately, the next day, one of the visiting dogs, took a bit of a chunk out of Gladys.  Gladys is healing nicely, although she lost quite a few feathers.  Personally, I think the chicken likes all the extra attention!

Still working on my list of New Years Resolutions.  Trying to keep them real and 'doable' and not too vague.  Still on my list is to knit a pair of socks.  I have been doing lots of knitting, but haven't started on those yet.  So much yarn, so little time.  I have picked the yarn, I have picked the pattern - just need to make the time.    Still like the idea of taking at least 6 workshops - just am not going to limit it to just quilting workshops.  Might have to include a knitting one, and maybe a painting one.  hmmmm..


Friday, December 31, 2010

A Weeks Vacation Does a Body Good!

Well, Christmas has passed, and tonight is New years... Managed to get all my Chirstmas customers taken care of, and they seemed quite happy with their quilts.  Kids have gone home, Christmas decorations are put away. the house is clean, the STUDIO is clean, and I'm almost caught up on computer stuff.  Have to admit that I spent one whole day in my pajamas watching movies on the Hallmark channel.  Life is good.    Tomorrow, our Thursday Bee is having an all day sew-in at Ann's home.  Sounds like there are going to be 16 of there.  Ought to be cozy!

Speaking of the Thursday Bee, we had our Christmas party a couple of weeks ago and one of the gals made everyone (13 of us) handknit socks.   Here is a sampling of what Mariet created for us!  Our Bee is so giving, we also got handknit scarves, handknit washclothes (YES, this is a quilting Bee), pincushions, ornaments, homemade cookies and so on.  Such a generous, giving bunch of ladies.  When we meet tomorrow, we will decide final instructions for our next block swap which are sets of 2" x 4" Flying Geese - Positive and Negitive in contrasting Batiks.  

I have been doing quite a bit of knitting lately.  Right now, I'm working on a scarf for my daughter, I think the yarn I chose was a little too lumpy to see the actual pattern - but that might be to the good to cover any mistakes I might be making.  Almost done, then needs to be blocked.  This is the Cascade Jewel Hand Dyed yarn that I got at The Hen House awhile back.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

I see the light - or I'm almost done!

First of all,  many thanks to all of you that have sent in your t-shirts to be turned into a treasured quilt.  Now, I'm not complaining, I am thrilled hat I've been so busy with customer orders, but  I only 1 T-shirt quilt and 2 custom quilts to finish for Christmas.  I'm hoping that for the most part that they will be done today.    Going to take a week or so off, then get started on the orders that have already come in for the new year.  I am blessed.  Here is a collage of some of the quilts finished up in the last week.


A cousin of mine sent some photos of my grandmother (Annie Scarlett) and her quilts.  This was taken back in the 70's.  My grandmother loved to make quilts, and this is a picture of her standing in front of a quilt that my great-grandmother pieced, then she quilted.    This is my favorite quilt. The 1/2" hexagons are all fussy cut  so that the flower or image all goes around the center hex.  One of my favorite memories was looking at the details when we would go visit as a child.  I still enjoy looking for certain blocks.   We hung this quilt in our "Old Fashined Quilt Bee" booth at Houston Quilt Festival this year.   I think it got more attention than our Raffle quilt!  oops!

Well, back to work, really do want to finish those last quilts up for the holidays!  Wish I would have had time to work on my stuff!
 

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Back from Houston Quilt Market

Market actually ended last week, but I had to turn around and go back for Quilt Festival!  I love living in Houston, but trying to get to the GRB (George Brown Center) early in the morning is not the easiest thing to do, so we stay at the Holiday Inn Express, just south of the GRB. (Have to say they love having the quilters there and treat us right with cookies and milk and even a free Lasagne dinner on Friday night!).

Senses have in overload, but finally winding down.  Not sure about my sister-in-law from Cleveland who was a Festival Newbie this year.  She was pretty impressed even though she is more of a seamstress than a quilter.  We found plenty of yarn, fibers and 'bright shiny' things to grab her attention.  I didn't get much in the way of pictures, because my battery died shortly after we got there.

Sharon Schamberg - Closeup
Sharon Schamber won Best of Show for a third time.  Never been done before!  Glad it was her- she is a nice gal and does spectacualar work with her attention to detail.  Look at those tiny herringbone areas around the trapunto.  And using BLACK thread.  The edging is three dimensional as well and there were open cutwork areas in the quilt. 

One of my other 'favorite' quilts that I saw during Market was this one on the right.  It was one of the big winners as well.  check out the colors! I don't remember who made it, but it was awesome as well.

I didn't buy much in the way of fabric - what a shock!  Really did stick to my assumption that I should finish up some projects before starting more.  Of course that does NOT apply to yarn.We went The Hen House ( a local shop) several times as well as many other yarn places.  All had lucious fibers.  I think Laurie got hooked on the Free Form Knitting concept and had several ideas running through her mind.