Eye Candy for the Weekend

I thought I would follow up with a littlebit of eye

candy from the Road to California Show.

                                              

A fountain of fabric!

                                                     

There was a fascinating exhibit of

 signature quilts at the show also.

 I love this one.

 This is a sweet store that we made a

pit stop at

on our way to the quilt show.

 This store is Strawberry Patches in Bakersfield CA.

It's 3 hours away from home for me... but I think it

would definitely be worth a little road trip to...

just to go there alone!

Last night I was talking with the hubs about blogs when a contestant on 

Wheel of Fortune said she had a blog... and it had xxx amount of views.

So that prompted me to look at my "stats".
I have an amazing (at least I think so) 719, 640
page views.
I have over 900 sweet followers. And

I noticed that I am just a few posts away from a whopping 700!
Now, that is a fun one... so I am going to have to celebrate!
I will be thinking of an idea and I will let you know when
it's my blogiversary so you can celebrate with me!
It won't be long!!!

Where Have I Been?

I must have gotten lost somewhere between going to Road to California...

and coming back home!

It's been a week since I have posted!

You haven't seen too many pictures from the show already have you?

I thought I would share some of mine...

I guess I should have saved this quilt for last!

(he he)

I have a great time at this quilt show but 

most importantly, there was some fabulous shopping to be done.

A little bit here and a little bit there!

One of my favorites was

My Red Door Designs.. their little store is amazing!

I love Dresden quilts... and versions 

thereof.

An amazing piece of art.

Eye spy a Jaybird quilt...

this was Science Fair entered in the show.

A beautiful traditional quilt.

A very fun alphabet quilt.

Another amazing art quilt.

They also had a fantastic exhibit of

signature quilts.

And an exhibit of modern quilts.

And some quilts that were no doubt made 

by saints!

I love this quilt... Green Tea.

A lot of people are making the designers' other

pattern: Gypsy Wife. Both are very fun quilts.

I think this one was made out of wool.

Here was a gorgeous embroidery quilt in monotone.

And that's not all! But you will have to wait to see the 

photos that focus on the shopping!!! Woohoo!

Oh, and a newsflash: 

Our February 1st AYOS Schnibbles Parade  is going to

be postponed until Monday Feb. 3rd.

Sherri is away at a wonderful retreat... and

we don't want to have the parade without her...

or DO we?!!! ha

That means... we have another weekend to finish our Jersey Girl quilts!

A Finish and An End to a Story

This was one pattern I have been thrilled with all the way through!

I loved seeing each block unfold.

This pattern has being made up a lot in blogville and 

each one has been so cute... 

it just really works well with all fabrics and especially 

theme fabrics. Thelma made hers in Christmas fabrics.

I knew I had to use my Going Coastal fabric especially 

because the Bottle Top fabric I fussy cut for the center of the stars.

I went from one block to

7 in no time flat!

I have plenty of GC fabric left over too...

which I had been hording so I could make this

pattern by

Sweetwater.

http://sweetwater.typepad.com/makelifesweet/2011/04/our-hometown-quilts.html

I might still be able to make it out of my scraps.

I seem to be starting this year on a Nautical theme.

Oh wait... I ended last year on this theme

with Anchors Aweigh.

I guess that works just fine for me.

no jury duty for me...

I was able to be excused from jury duty.

It turns out that it was going to be a projected 6 month long trial.

It involved a couple who went rouge this past summer and started

over a dozen arson fires. 

It actually happened up in my area... even though the court

was being held 45 minutes away. Although I would have 

liked to have been a juror...

I have very strong opinions about this...

so it is a good thing I won't be on their trial.

Road to California... here I come!!!

The Story Has a Twist

This week Road 2 California begins!

It is an event in Southern California that I try to attend

each year.

The quilt show is amazing and the shopping...

is fantastic... and if you take a class at the convention...

those are super fun also.

These are photos from last year...

Ms. Cupcake n Daisies had two quilts in the show!

I was thrilled to meet her there along with 

Ms. Sister's Choice and Ms. Stashmaster!

Woohoo! 

It was great having a little bit of time to walk around with them

and lunch too.

Here are a couple more photos of quilts that were 

at the show!

And there was a special exhibit of vintage PINK quilts!

So sweet!!!

I did manage a few purchases for my souvenirs 

and then there was a little side trip over to

Temecula Quilt Company... because 1,248 

vendors at the show were just not enough!

So my plan is take a little road trip and go

there on Thursday- Saturday.

I am super excited to make an escape...

the only thing stopping me from my adventure now is

 a Jury Summons for tomorrow!!!

Please keep your fingers crossed that they don't pick me!

New Floss Cards

I made a little time to play. 

I have been on a mission to do something a little different 

with my Cosmo floss...

I originally wanted to order some fun Eiffel Tower floss cards

but then I thought I would ask for that as a souvenir when

my kids go to Paris this summer.

So then I decided to do a DIY project.

I ended up combining a few ideas.

One day on Pinterest I saw that someone

had made handmade tea bags filled with tea for gifts.

I am a tea drinker so the idea stayed with me.

I also remembered Happy Zombie taped the number

from the floss scan on to the embroidery cards.

So I used mini to/from tags and did the same thing.

The other side is cute paper. 

The tea bags were made from some left over scrap booking paper.

I used my never ending spool of baker's twine to

attach those to the "tea bags". 

You can easily take a tea bag apart and use it as an example.

I cut my paper 6" x 3 1/2".

Then folded the paper in half... lengthwise.

Next find the center and make the bottom "V" fold.

Fold in the top corners Like wrapping a package. T

Then fold over the top again to make the squared off top.

Loop your twine in the fold and staple top.

All you need to do next is make a cute little tag and attach it to the 

baker's twine.

These might be too cute to put away.

Mid Week Mosaic

(photos from pinterest: antique quilt, greengate, bordiere and more greengate)

 I have been doing some binding on a secret project...

and have embarked on an embroidery project.

Now, it's kind of manly, but I have a new vision for it.

It's Hook Line and Sinker by Crabapple Hill Studios.

I plan on making it girlie. The colors in the collage 

are my favorite kind of palate. So, hopefully I can pull it

off and do so without making the guys in my family

grumble too much!

Can you see my vision? The colors in the embroidery could easily 

work with pastel blocks.

I have plans to change the name from Blue Lake to (my local) Bass Lake.

Also, beer bottles... will be root beer! 

Maybe that creel should be pink?

In order to make sure I stay on track...

I have 2  reasons to give me incentive.

1. I have a friend now working on the embroidery with me.

(the same one who did Winter Wonderland with me)

(um, however, I confess... she finished and I did not)

2. I have been put on the waiting list for a Crabapple Hill retreat...

for 2015.

Have you seen the photo albums of Meg's retreats?

They just look like too much fun!

And they must be because the retreats fill up

within hours of registration.

The reason why I need those two incentives is:

1. I lose focus on embroidery.

2. It's probably going to take me that long to finish!

I have a growing collection of Cosmo floss and I have acquired 

a lot of DMC floss... the DMC is wound on clothespins.

I wanted to do something a little bit different with the Cosmo floss.

I have been gathering ideas. 

The plastic cards are just too boring.

Stay tuned to see what I come up with!

Now the question is...

who won the patterns from Monday's post?

The randomly chosen number was 18... 

Kimberly from my brown bag studio!

Yeah!

Easy As 1, 2, 3

I continued to clean out my sewing room over the weekend.
But during the cleaning I decided that this girl needed a new skirt...
and it's also a good way to "hide" fabric.
I can tell you that there is a lot of 1/4 and 1//2 yd, pieces in that skirt!

I did get done with Round 1 of the destashing but I now need to go on to Round 2...
which means
I got rid of all the things I really really didn't want anymore...
but now I need to
dig in a little deeper and turn loose of the things that I know
I will probably never get to.
I did go through my magazines... and now only have a reasonabe
stack left. But even with those I think I need a Round 2.


It's like exercising...
I got started, which is well and fine but now I need to feel the burn.
No pain, no gain!
(okay that is only an analogy... I have not started to exercise).
(although I should, it could be next)!

I haven't even started in on the pattern collection.
Seriously... what was I thinking?
Way too many patterns. But they are cute.
Even though I haven't started to destash
patterns yet...

I thought we could have a giveaway today for these 3 patterns.
Are you interested?

Wild Life and More

A friend of mine took these gorgeous photos...

I had to share the "wildlife" with you!

Fence hopper!

Hummer!

Family photo!

New parents... taken at Morro Bay.

I won't be seeing much of the great outdoors this weekend.

It actually might be a good weekend to stay inside!

How is the weather where you are?

Somehow, every project I am working on seems to have

an endless amount of HST trimming that needs to be done!

I wish I had someone to hand off some of the "grunt work" to.

Here is a very fun quilt that I am working on with my sewing bee group!

I actually haven't done any work on it yet... but the blocks are

coming back to me know, so I am getting ready to start working 

on the alternate block.

I love seeing it all come together! It's like Christmas when I get these

blocks in the mail!

Now, just for the fun of it I thought I would share 

a photo I took while I was cleaning my room!

It is an awful task... and I seem to get diverted...

so when I saw some of these items sitting near each

other amongst the mess... I thought I would 

place them on some background fabric and

snap a pic.

Trying to make some order in the 

kayos. 

I am afraid that there is still more to do in there too!