February already?

Today is my day off and I am blessedly snowed in! Blessed because Friday I actually shopped for groceries! I don't cook very often so I don't always have stuff to cook in the house. But a friend invited me to go the other night and I did. I am working on a yummy beef stew for lunch! 
I am also blessed because my assistant made it into work so I didn't have to go in. (I live a few blocks away and can walk if need be)
I am also blessed because I get to sew today.
I have been working on the Kitty in the Garden quilt for a dear friend who would love to have a cat but travels alot. I started this way back in 2009 or 10. I work on it feverishly and then it gets put away. The last time I worked on it was last February. I wanted to get it finished for our quilt show at the nursing home.  It went to the show as a flimsy.  I decided to add more borders and put it away again. Until January 2015. I added a border using the scraps from the stepping stones blocks- I made hst blocks from the corners before trimming them. I also did a piano key variation from the other scraps. (my friend and her hubby play the piano so I thought it was fitting) I am now in the midst of quilting it.  I am attempting to fmq kitties and paw prints here and there. 
This year's quilt show is the 26th and this quilt WILL be  finished by then!  My friend's birthday is at the beginning of March so it will be perfect timing. 

Quilt Show 2014

We had a quilt  and Handcraft Show today!  We had a great turn out in spite of the weather being in the negative numbers!

Bobbie's UFO's

One of my residents did all of the Cross Stitched pieces

We had cross stitches, crochet aprons, quilts and embroidered pieces



MY Resident's Postcards (and a few of mine too)

We also held a bake sale with AMAZING goodies

Quilt show

Just a few pictures from our first Quilt show. We had around 25 items to show- If we had had any more I would have had to go down the halls with them! We are already planning to expand the area for next year's show.

Our residents enjoyed hearing all the stories about the quilts and sharing some of their own as well.

I am sew excited! tomorrow starts the Nancy Drew HOP- makes me think of the Lindy Hop- Let's Dance! :) You can check out all the fun over at Carol's - She is our fabulous cheerleader for this hop! my day isn't until the 14th but you will see my footprints heading toward the clues!

some of my blocks adorned the nurses desk- three are from blog hops!

If you are not having fun.....

Warning! Picture Heavy post!

I just discovered something that I think is great! I can type my post is Word and have my spell check on and change my fonts and do all the “normal stuff” I do when I type – and THEN copy it over to my post. This is great because, the internet connection is not always the greatest and I like playing with fonts and I am not thrilled with Blogger’s spell check and they don’t have grammar check. ( that was a lot of ANDs J) I also have a tendency to capitalized two letters in a word (holding down the shift too long) and Word fixes that for me. I am liking this!

Have you been following the Bowls with Borders?

if not, you should!

I was getting a wee bit worried about making my bowls- I was NOT having fun! I wasn’t doing something right. My motto is “if you are not having fun, you aren’t doing it right!” I ripped out so many stitches that I wore out the fabric 3 times. Sherman was complaining- "Didn't we just stitch this seam?" NOT FUN! It didn’t help that I thought my day was the 13^th (because my day for RWB was the 13^th and my day for Think Christmas was 31^st) so I was kinda freaking out and thinkin’ “there is no way I will be ready.” I wanted to give up but admitting defeat does not come easy! Thanks to Regina’s help, Carol’s “I am not an expert” post,and the tutorial over at Madamme Samm's the light bulb finally turned on, I got my bowls done and I was having fun too!  I am not good at paper piecing yet but I can now say I am enjoying the learning process. I have a Craftsy class that CaMom sent me and I was so frustrated that I was just not looking forward to taking it- now I can’t wait! I have a few finishing touches I want to add to my bowls and I am excited to say, the plan I had in mind when I first saw these bowls is coming together and they will be ready for the 23^rd- which is my day! Until then, visit these blogs for their bowls or you can visit Carol’s blog for the whole schedule.

 August 14th

Jen Duncan

Sharon D.

Apron Valley Road

Quilts and Quilt Things

Pieceful Life

North Hills Quilter
Vroomans Quilts

Somewhat Fanciful

Jane's Quilting

August 15th

Binks
Robin S.
Trish
Quilting Along Life's Way

Sew Me Something Good

Quilt Doodle Doodles

Happier Than A Bird Quilts

Dizzy Daze

Bee Tree Designs

Daisy Days
A Quilting Sheep

Oh yeah! I said this was gonna be a picture heavy post- I think its a WORD heavy  post :)

Last weekend, My SweetMommie and I went to a quilt show during Franklin Grove’s Harvest Fest. We made Fredly come too- he was chief photographer and stuff carrier. We also took my friend Christa (who recently asked me to teach her to quilt. She is 8 years old.) Harvest Fest is also when the Chaplin Creek Historic Site is open, so we went there as well. These pictures were taken by Fredly and MySweetMommie- I will save the ones on my camera for another post!

I love the quilting on this! I may have a picture of the front
of it on my camera

I admire cross stitch amd embroidery-
It is not my favorite thing to do but it sure looks great

This one made me smile- the ants are carrying food all around the edges
I have a few other pictures of this one on my camera

There were quite a few vintage quilts and some reproductions too

Kettle Corn being made in a Kettle ( good place to make it)

Yum! Yum!

Pincushion in the Salt box house-
 I will have to look up the dates but I believe its from late 1800's