Fun Afternoon at Quilt Show

Hubby surprised me AGAIN by taking me to the Garden State quilters quilt show in Westfield this afternoon. What a guy :) There were about 250 quilts. Not too big and plenty of vendors....but imagine his surprise when I said I didn't really NEED anything and I was still trying to bust stash :O





I'm thinking of doing this quilt in either red and hunter green or maybe use up some of the black and white yardage I have.

I usually don't take pics of whole quilts, mostly blocks I can redraw in EQ :)
but I did make an exception for the one quilt above ......






I didn't get alot- the only fabric I got was a great Halloween panel, some more 30's repros. I did get the new Quilter's Home magazine and a book, Free and Easy Circles.
The 2 fqs were door prizes- how cool was that? We both won!! *** How does one explain Mark to their hubbys??***






Here's more of the Halloween Panel- Isn't it great?????






They had a small wall hanging raffle and hubby won this one :)

Quilters A.D.D. Strikes again

This morning when still looking for the green batik I bought last fall on retreat to finish the Majestic Mountains wallhanging (which I did find) I came across a box of partial diamond strings from Bonnie's website (http://www.quiltville.com/diamondstrings.shtml)






Of course my new quilting buddy NEEDS to supervise me while I work.

I tried a few blocks of 4 diamonds and not sure I like them. Will probably rip apart and make it more like Bonnie's.














Maybe more like this:

Hall of Fame / Cooperstown Pics

Remember George from Seinfeld???? He greets you at the Wax Museum entrance :)






He might of went into the Hall of Fame as a Red Sox but look what team he got his World Series ring with :P





Wax Ted









This morning we went to the Hall of Fame and finished our shopping in the little town. Lots of fun. I got a few great cards. Should have bought another one but for some reason I didn't.
As you walk in the front door you see The Babe's statue





And Ted Williams's statue





Here's Scooter's Holy Cow when you go into the main entrance of the Hall of Fame :)




For Paula :)

See ya:)

Leaving in an hour for the Baseball Hall of Fame:)
Be back sometime tomorrow.
Wonder if Barry Bond's 756 ball will make it before we leave ......

http://www.vote756.com/marcecko/

Does anyone know......

The name of this block????? I saw it blog hopping a few months ago and didn't write the name down anywhere :(




I have a bunch made. They finish 16 1/2" and I think 20 laid out 4x5 will make a nice quilt to have for someone for the holidays, don't you????

Taking a break

While taking a break from the endless trimming and pressing of hsts ( I'm almost done with the 7th color!) and pressing parts of cathedral windows- only 162 more of the little background parts........I was playing with EQ 5 and decided I wanted to make a wall hanging for over my sewing area........What I SHOULD be doing is packing and clearing the memory card of the camera so I have an empty card for Cooperstown...maybe later **VBG**. All done!!!!


Moose is fitting in well to the house. He likes to nap nearby while I'm sewing -
He's a psyco kitty in the morning and naps almost all afternoon.
Well the iron is beeping all ready for more pressing and trimming.....

Mondays blah......

So sometime over the weekend I started to get sick- achey- sneezing- coughing.
Now the men of little faith thought I was allergic to Moose ( the cat) no the eyes are fine. So I started taking cough medicine for the cough and I was "ok". Well other than the fact I hasn't eaten in almost 50 hours. Maybe that was why I was so dizzy-lol.
So I only worked on joining more pieces to the cathedral windows. Can't find the green batik I got on retreat last fall for the scrappy mountains wall hanging. Might have to use some hand dyes if I have enough.
Moose is settling in nicely- for a cat his size he is quick- really quick. I had to get a collar with a bell so I know where he is. Cyd ( dd's cat) is not amused that I brought another cat home-bummer for her.

So just how many of us ordered Rugs from Rags after reading Carole's post???
If you missed it:
http://carole-quiltingadventures.blogspot.com
I know the other Kim did- that's another thing- see how many quilting adventures there are in blogland. Anyhow I'm hoping mine gets here before I leave Wed for Cooperstown. This way since hubby will be home with the contractor putting new interior doors in ( see how cool is that Im missing the conruction this time), he can start building the frame. Oh and take my truck to inspection lol.
So that's it from my corner of the quilty world- I'm thinking I might crash before 11 if I can find something to read for awhile.

Hsts revisited

I'm back to the hsts- the cleaning fit for the week is over- well except the never ending battle of the laundry -sigh.

I need to make some blocks for a love quilt and send them out this week also. Hopefully before I leave Wednesday for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Time will tell.

In the mean time I wanted to show what one of the seven quilts will look like for the Girl Scouts. Each will have binding in their favorite color. I "think" there's no need for borders as they are pretty large as is 60"x 84".
So I hope everyone is getting LOTS done. I'm trying but I have a new quilt supervisor and he isn't quite sure of the sewing machine-lol

Random Friday Five

1. What is your favorite season?

Fall- cool days- changing color of the leaves- kids go back to school -lol
and BASEBALL playoffs/world series



2. What is your favorite warm beverage?

Lattes or cappuccino- skim milk please no sweetener


3. What is your favorite sport or hobby?


Baseball, baseball and more baseball :)
Favorite hobby- quilting of course :)


4. What is your favorite style/type of music?

My favs are U2- the Stones- Dave Matthews but I listen to all of it. From Marilyn Manson to Tony Bennet and everything in between


5. What is your favorite thing to do on a cool rainy (or otherwise inclement) Autumn day?


Curl up on the couch with a good book and a warm quilt

This morning I got up at 3AM - yep 3 . Why ??? I have no clue- so I played mindless games online- I finished reading COMEBACK ( very good book). Shocked the kids and made breakfast for them this morning-lol. Once they all left and the mess from the cat was cleaned up I started cleaning- kinda like a "fall cleaning" got alot done and crashed at2PM for 2 hours or so. So I needed to empty a rolling cabinet of "stuff" nothing really important just alot of of Stuff and came across these blocks-now I need to find a nice border /binding fabric and I'll have a nice wall hanging.Sometimes it pays to clean the sewing stuff-lol.






Isn't he cute??? Well he's been trying to come in for weeks so this morningI picked him up and brought him inside. What amistake that was :O He flipped out and charged for the window over my kitchen sink- knocking over plants, dishes anything in his way howling the whole time :( Never in 35 years have I ever seen a cat climb the curtains- I did today. We're friends again- he came to be brushed and fed before-





Blog hopping the other day I saw these blocks. Cute huh? I like the 2 color one, but DD wanted me to try a scrappy one and figured what the heck- I'm not sure I like it.**I'm thinking it's the light yellow hst in it- what do you think? I have to find it and change the color there and see if it looks better......**



But with all the great baseball games on lately I managed to get a big section of my cathedral windows quilt together. I need to add 2 more rows to the short side and finish the other half of the quilt. It will hang LONG over the sides of the bed.

Coming down to the wire

What a great baseball night, Detroit lost, Boston lost ( sorry Paula)
and the Yankees won!!! Who would have thought when we were 14 1/2 games back it would all come down to the wire.
Of course the Mets ( the men of the house's team) is doing a major swan dive -what's with that????

Doll Quilts part 2

The problem with yesterdays doll quilt was I was lazy ,gasp-it's true.
I wanted the blocks to be broken dishes but by adding a single row of hsts it looks like pinwheels. Pretty but not what I wanted :( . That one is going to my niece- she won't care.

I have 3 more done in broken dishes just needing borders. I found more fabric I cut for the original quilt that I will make some more hsts. I''m also working on the 7th of 11 color combos for the Girl Scout quilts. Woo! Hoo!! Snoopy dancing here. I so want to start piecing the blocks soon. Very soon. And again the color is yardage left over from the gmfg I did last year.


See the pretty pale green used in the stars- I have LOTS. So I'm using that for the second green VBG

This doll quilts along with the dolls from the Salvation is a great project. The local Girl Scout service unit is going to be dressing bears also. Sounds like a trip to Build A Bear for my troop.

Oh I just got a mail delivery!!! From Connecting Threads! Yippee! I've been waiting for the neutral thread set for a couple of weeks but now it's here! I also got Brandy's 2" hexagon pieces. Like I didn't have enough fun with them last year.

Well I need to get some sewing done here this morning as I have yet another meeting tonight- no rest for the wicked as hubby says -lol
Have a great sewing day everyone and I'll read blogs tonight

Doll Quilts

I'm not thrilled with this one :(
I'm going to frog the borders and add another row for the broken dishes blocks to stay the way they "were" before adding an extra row for size. so they will be 6x6 in the small 61/2" size blocks.
Our guild collects them to go with dolls for the Salvation Army for holiday gifts.
ALLof the hsts are leftovers from a love quilt I made my friend earlier in the summer .....once I "birth" the quilts I'll bring them to a Girl Scout meeting for the girls to tie. I was hoping for this evening but I didn't get enough tops done :(

Embroidery Machine Working Overtime

As VP of the guild one of my jobs is to make little gifts for the new members. So I had the logo digitized for my embroidery machine and made little towels. I also did a couple of tote bags for some of my friends on the exec comm and since I never ever remember my name tag added my name to the logo for a denim shirt. It's cold where we meet and I always wear a denim shirt. The speaker was good, Sally Davis. She used to own one of the quilt shops around here and now makes quilts for Fasset Kaffe. But some of her work is amazing.

Next month is Linda Franz-our workshop is on handpiecing and I did sign up for that :) Did you see Simply Quilts is back on HGTV???? Linda Franz's repeat will be on this Wednesday- the Quilted Diamonds segment.









One of the groups I'm on is doing this cute little bag during the weekend frenzy. I did mine yesterday while the embroidery machine stitched out some more of the guild logo on items.




A gloomy fall day here in the Northern NJ- perfect sit and sew some more cathedral windows weather :) Games not on till late this afternoon- should be a good one with Beckett vs Wang. I was so upset with the guild meeting being last night instead of the day and night meetings we have the rest of the year. I got home and the Yanks were losing 7-2 to the evil Red Soxs :( but they came back to win it 8-7!!!!!!

September 11, 2007

On the anniversary of one of our nation's greatest tragedies,
take a momment to remember all the people that were lost that day......

Hsts Are Done!!!!

Snoopy dancing....I finished the orange AND another set of yellows. So I have 5 sets done 11 to go :).
But tonight my back needs a break and I'll be working with the embroidery machine to get the last few new member gifts done for the guild meeting Friday night.

Hope everyone is having a productive weekend

I did it again-lol

I have no control- I swear it's true.
Surfing blogs before to give my back a break from trimming hsts I was reading
purlbee's blog.( Links on the left) They have ALOT stuff on their blog(s) and saw this book :). So of course I HAD to preorder it. Now if I can just get hubby to order Angry Chicken's new sewing book....hey he owes me!!! I'll have to get him to do it when he gets home later-lol.

Now how often do you need a last minute gift and haven't a clue what to make??? I'm hoping this book will help with ideas for the Holiday boutique the guild has every year also. I mean how many embroidered towels do I have to make before Dec??? I need something else to alternate with....oh besides the pincushion patterns I ordered. A few years ago a made cute little mooses for a retreat gifty and had to buy a bag of those plastic pellets- so I have to find something to use up the other 90% of the bag before it breaks and I have that stuff all over the frame/juki area....but I think I'm up to 120 of each color of hsts done VBG. So it's off to the street fair and see what's going on........

Oh my aching back

THe other day I decided that my back was ok and I cut almost all the tubes for making hsts with the wondercut ruler-BIG MISTAKE . By the end of the day (Thursday) I wanted to cry. My back kept feeling like it was going to go out. Now knock wood it hasn't happened in years. I've been very good about what I do to prevent the fusing surgery they were talking about almost 12 years ago.
But hubby, the clueless prince I married remembered that I promised to make burritos for the guys at the town fair booth today while they work on some kind of child information discs- you know pictures, fingerprints, height and weight, dental imprints. Parents get a disc that if their child goes missing they give this disc to the police . Great program and free ! So I figure a batch of burritos is fine- who am I kidding ???? He wanted 30 of them!! So I did 2 double batches of the meat- Thursday night when the back started going out and yesterday morning while it still felt like crap :(
But last night I made the 30 he wanted and 8 for us for dinner.....in case you ever needed to now, this is what 30 look like reheating for today's lunch right before hubby came to pick them up. That man owes me BIG TIME. Good thing he's cute :)






On a different note about Thursday, I also worked on the new members gift for my quilt guild. Seems they didn't tell me that the Vice President makes gifts for all the new members....sigh. I emailed the logo of the guild to one of my friends and her hubby made the PES file that my embroidery machine uses. So I need to make 12 of these cute little towels by Friday night.I think I can, I think I can.
Mel got me this great thread stand for a secret santa gift last year. I love all the dowels so that I can line up the colors for embroidery in the order I need them....
for those that read my blog during Lent on Yahoo....see the plush Peeps sewn together to look like the Peep Joust that started it all???????Snicker , snicker.




I did manage to get 100 of yellow/light and 100 of orange/light hsts done by this morning...only 110 of each to go and I'll have 5 of 16 colors worth of hsts done.....
Will someone commit me now and put me out of my misery...PLEASE

Friday 5 Sales

I saw this on Quilting Pirates blog and had to answer :)




This week's theme: Sales!

1. How often do you use coupons for quilting related items?
2. Do you find coupons for local quilt shops?
3. Do you shop online with coupons?
4. What was the best coupon/sale you took advantage of?
5. What would you like to see your local quilt shop often in a coupon or sale?


My Answers

1- all the time if I have them.But especially for notions of higher prices at Joann's.
2- once in a blue moon in the newsletters either via snail mail or email they have them.
3-whenever possible- Equilter just had a really short survey and I immediatly used the $5 off to buy a special fabric
4-When the Rag Shop was still in business they sent an coupon for 25% off your purchase including sale prices and I bought a whole roll of warm and natural batting for $137 since it was on sale 50% off at Joann's. I should have bought 2.
5-Anything- seems they only have sales for class supplies, the shop hops-take a type of fabric and throw it ons sale- 30's, batiks, etc. Though has a special kind of "bucks" program. If you spend $200 you get $20 of their bucks to be used later on.So that helps..........

Moving forward slowly with hsts :)

I did manange to finish trimming the red/light hsts! Snoopy dancing all around !!!
Onward to the orange/lights...sigh. I will finish these before the weekend is out.

I've been making more 36 patch star blocks - well actually the 36 patch blocks as a leader ender project also . Why??? I have no clue. What I should be doing is working on the Yogi quilt. Wait!!!! I am ,the fabric is in the wash VBG.
My goal is to do at least a block a day.

One of the board members from hubby's work is moving to St Louis and has been packing up her house and I get all the wayward stuff she isn't fond of anymore. In the past I've gotten great batting scraps ,Gwen Marston's Liberated Quilting ( what a great book) I had Liberated Strings but wow I love the other too.
Yesterday's give away was A HUGE coffee table book The Art Quilt, a book on stained glass quilts and the Spirits of the Cloth a book on African American quilts. All great eye candy.

My mother in law has been cleared by the dr so I gave her back her car- wow!! Did she ever get cranky not having a car for 2 1/2 days!!!!!

I finished the book the other Kim recommended These Is my Words. What a great book that was to read. Thank you Kim!! Next on the list is Comeback, Ree, from Pioneer Woman's blog recommended this one a couple weeks ago. See that's the problem, I see all these great books on other people's blog and then go order them. Like when Finn recommended Hamilton Books- of course I went, I saw I ordered! I have no control it just happens. LOL but it's not fabric VBG and Im expanding the the gray matter

The kiddies went back to school yesterday! Another round of Snoppy dancing!!!!! Both
of my babies are in HS already! Does that make me old too???? I mean some days I feel 100 with my knees and shoulder but other days I can run circles around them.
Well these hsts won't sew themselves together and trim themselves so I guess that's what I need to get back to......

Labor Day 2007

The picnic yesterday was eventful. My poor mother in law had "something" happen right after we ate- the hospital says vertigo but could be a reaction to the generic drug she takes for blood pressure- first line of warning says"May cause nausea or dizziness" there you go- Vertigo is when the hospital doesn't know what's wrong even after a CAT scan. But she is home. Supposedly resting ( yeah right) Her car is here until she can get a drs appointment and they tell US that she is cleared to drive. Complain, complain complain- she has things she "NEEDS" to do- I offered to drive her anywhere and she couldn't come up with anywhere she needed to go.

But after I left her I went to Joann's to buy backing fabric for the pink and white mystery I did a few weeks back :) Fabric is in the washer as we speak. Hopefully pieced tonight- who knows maybe even load it on the frame - what a concept VBG.
I bought a couple packs of needles for the embroidery machine, janome and some stablizer for embroidery - woo hoo!!!! Some seam rippers, mine are always MIA when I need one. And some creams and whites for backgrounds of the depression blocks :D
I even managed to trim another 60 hsts meaning I need to do 100 more and I can move onto the next color which will probably be orange to get it over with. Not my fav color but I need 16 assorted colors and I have 3 yards in my stash left over from something else. Those were the days of over buying to have some left over.Now I just want to use some of this "what was I thinking?" stuff up

I even bought some worsted wool to "hopefully" try one of the patterns for crocheted socks. Yes I was surprised it called for worsted yarn but I like wool better so that's what I bought.

The blue potato salad was a hit with everyone BUT dad *snicker, snicker* but he did eat it after much grumbling over the changing of food colors- he'll get over it I'm sure * snicker, snicker* I'm off to my brothers for another BBQ for a couple hours. Poor DD has to work, Hubby wants to stick around and nap as he was at his mom's overnight making sure she was ok and didn't sleep well, DS won't go if DD isn't going as my niece's just pick on him as he's the only Male grand in the family. Poor thing.

So enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend. I plan on taking the hawaiian baby quilt to work on in spurts this afternoon.........no I promise I won't over do but I need to get this done and I've been doing 30 minutes a day. It will be late but finished SOON!!!!

Sewing again and vacation pics

Between cooking most of the day yesterday I managed to get some hsts cut and sewn together for the depression block quilts.....I have 50 trimmed in the baggie and a little more than 100 more to trim VBG....so if I do it in small spurts I should be able to finish the red ones tomorrow and tonight after the BBQ then onto the next color- I have green and orange ready to go Yippee!!!!




Here are a few pics from Eastern State - It's the oldest jail in the country that was closed in the late 80's. When the jail was closed ther were a bunch of ferral cats that took over the place. The ghost cats is an artist's diplay of them through out the jail.
When the jail first opened in the time of Ben Franklin each cell had one person in it- meaning everyone was in solitary confinment...creepy. Later as many as 4 people were in each cell originally built for one person. The have a great Haunted House type thing in October called Terror Behind the Walls- if you're in the Philley area at that time I HIGHLY recommend it. We may go back for it again this year- not decided yet. One never knows with my 2 teens......
Ghost cats




More Ghost cats..........



Door to nowhere along outer wall.............





one of the wards




Another ward.............




Hospital Ward..............






Another one of the wards............

Special Order Quilts

This morning the fabric I've been waiting for from Hancocks of P came so I can start to make this quilt again :( . It is my own design and though it's nice I really don't like making the same quilt twice. Well it's amother row wider than this one and the only thing different is I don't need the signature block on the bottom right again. LOL as the person signing it below is the person who's lovely wife ordered one for them. I'm hoping to have the whole thing completed by the end of September. We shall see-



Now see Paula, this is one of the reasons I'm such a big Yankee fan :)

Getting Ready for the holiday

So I hope everyone is having fun this weekend!!!!
I'm spending today cooking for a family BBQ tomorrow here :)
Potato Salad ( I used blue potatoes to flip my Dad out- he like "normal" food) Done :)
Pasta salad is being made as we speak- well the pasta is boiling. Done :)
Libby's Tomato pie yummmmmmmmm done :)
recipe is here on July 17's blog :
http://simplylibby.blogspot.com
it is so very good. This time I used spinach instead of basil.
and of course the traditional Boston Baked Beans :) beans are soaking :)
BONUS!! Apple crumb pie Done :)
Who knows maybe I can clear the table later and trim some more of the hsts needed for 7 quilts of depression blocks- right now we're doing a pretty red and creams or whites. That would be 3 colors done 13 to go :( I'm starting to think with this shoulder I'll never get all 7 done by May 2008 but I might die trying :)

Ooopps the game is on gotta turn the radio on and listen instead of watching - have a good one everyone :)