Immature

Is it super un-grownup of me to squeal that I LOVE when my birthday starts approaching?!!  I think it may sound like something a 7 year old would chatter about, but its totally true.  I have received three gifts and they each made me super duper geeked.  My mother in law sent me this cute fabric.  And an apron pattern, and a disappearing ink pen...AND

 Basting pin cover thingies.  Do you know how excited I am about these??  I cannot tell you how many basting pins I have sewn into my quilts while free motion quilting.  I just don't see them in time.. then BAM they are stitched right in my freaking quilting, OR remember when this happened?

This incident kind of scared me a little.  So hopefully these little doodads will alert me of an upcoming pin and save me a lot of cursing and pouting.

Of course I spent an hour snapping those little thingers on instead of working on this quilt, which is priority number one for me right now.  I have 4 days to finish quilting and bind it.  I can do it!

Excuses

I have some really good excuses for why I haven't been finishing anything... here is a photo feast to distract you from the lameness of the excuses....

Naps... summer naps are fun...

Weather... good and bad... has me outside, either watching the monster hitting golf balls or standing on the deck watching the storms roll in from the hills.  This was parked behind our house last night... I just had to watch...

Well, then I ran inside cause there was golf ball sized hail....

So now some flowers need to be replaced.... it was one hail of a storm...hehe...Get it??

took this here photo and the next photo on my new iPhone  tehehe.. 

 Free light shows... we have had a lot of evening lightening storms... its been fun to watch.

I have been trudging through the quilting on this one though.  I just need a big stretch of time. 

Thankfully, I finally decided on my fabrics for the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt Along.  I have been debating on they type of fabrics I wanted to use for two weeks.  

But the biggest reason is that I am just enjoying the hubs as much as I can while he is still here... Next month I can start sewing a ton. Now is time for spending extra time together....Gotta stock up until next year!

Loot

 Here is what I bought in Denver on the fabric crawl, and on a quick stop to Joann.  I don't have much to say in my defense.  A lot of it was on sale?  I really needed some of it? If I didn't get it, I would miss my chance and never find it again?

Here is the beginning of my Patriotic Home Front Quilt. I still need to hunt down a bunch of fat quarters for the top... But the backing fabric(the blue stars) was my jumping off point, it was on sale, and the purchase of the backing got me the yard of fabric I will use for binding for FREE!  FREE BINDING PEOPLE!(the diagonal stripe)

I don't think that I have mentioned here that my hubs will be deploying soon and will be gone until next year.  So I am piling up a to do list of projects. 

my Fancy Tiger Crafts purchase.

These were my only other yardage purchases.  But I did get some fat quarters for a winter tote bag(at stop 1), a white jelly roll (at Lickety Stitch Quilts)so I can finally start that postage stamp quilt, some fat quarter and backing at Joann for a Christmas gift, a few gray fat quarters for my someday gray project, and a couple books.  

I'm feeling ready to get something done so I can start on one of these new projects!

Fabric Crawl

We headed to Denver on Thursday to see my favorite..Ray LaMontagne in concert. And since my sister in law and her fam live in Denver we made a good weekend of it. We dragged the monster and his younger cousin to the zoo and a baseball game. It was great fun. And since my SIL quilts and my quilt friend from high school both live in Denver we decided to do a big "fabric crawl" to some of their favorite fabric shops around town. We woke up early(for me), had breakfast, and hit the shops!

Lickety Stitch Quilts --Lusk, Wyoming

This really cute shop was actually one that I hit up on my own. (well, the hubs and monster were with me) It was full of really awesome fabrics, some that I hadn't yet seen in real life! And Sharon, the girl working is doing the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt Along...AND she is going to the Sewing Summit!! What a great start to my weekend eh?!

High Prairie Quilts

At our first stop, I picked up a bit of yardage and a few fat quarters that I needed, and a few that I wanted real bad. Hehe..The women at this shop were SO FUN! They were having a big sale to celebrate their 199 years. I asked whose 199 years they were celebrating, because I was confused....turns out three of the women that work there have birthdays this month, and their ages add up to 199 years. They asked us to guess each of their ages...we passed. Seemed a little too risky.

Holly's Quilt Cabin

Our second stop was to another really big shop. I probably could have looked all day in there... but I grabbed 2 fat quarters that I needed, and a thimble.

Creative Needle

Our third shop was quite the machine shop... but they also have a great honey hole of fabrics. I bought 2 fat quarters that I needed, and a needle case. (is anyone noticing my restraint here)

Our fourth stop was to one of Julie's favorite shops...well guess what!! They were closing! Poor Julie was a bit heartbroken to walk into an empty store. And the staff there were quite upset too... it was a shame. I did pick up a few patterns though(for CHEAP) and Becky found some fabric...

Harriet's Treadle Arts

We ate lunch and pulled ourselves together for the final leg of our marathon. We stopped at Harriet's which is HUGE, and has an incredible reproductions section, the likes of which I have never seen before. They tear fabric, which I knew happened, but had never witnessed before. I looked away while my 1/4 yard was torn.

I picked up 3 fat quarters, that 1/4 yard of fabric, and some pretty quilt greeting cards... Julie and I wandered around a bit, came back to the reproductions area and found Rebecca with this!!

I was speechless for a minute, and I heard Julie say, "what happened?" Or maybe I said that, I can't remember, blood was thumping in my ears, and my mind was racing. I felt speechless, but it's a bit of a blur, so maybe I shouldn't have tried to quote anyone. Anyhow...

Rebecca's 30's reproductions bucket list project just took her over! All those 30s and 40s prints... and me chattering about the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt Along all day just got to her, and she was powerless against the creative lightening bolt that hit her.

I'm not sure how her husband feels, but I'm so geeked! I'm happy she will doing the sampler along with me!

where the ticker tape lives

After our fifth stop and Rebecca's big moment, we stopped at Julie's to see where she lives(I'm so jealous, she lives in this old brick house, that is completely adorable! Darn base housing with ZERO personality.) She showed us her stash, which she keeps in the chest that her grandparents(or maybe she said it was her great grandparents) sent to America when they moved over from Europe. It has the address in Michigan, and the departure stamp from Copenhagen. How cool is that? We also found out Julie is a serious reusable shopping bag hoarder...

On our way to our sixth and last fabric crawl stop we saw this guy... I think I would like him if I knew him...

The Fancy Tiger, our last stop was really hip, and I felt super un-hip... But their fabric was great, and I picked up a couple yard cuts, to make something.... does that make me more hip-ish?

Fancy Tiger Crafts

After this mega day of fabric shopping, I felt blissful and giddy. I had a great time. Julie mentioned after the Fancy Tiger that she was so glad she made it through the day without getting cranky because she isn't much of a shopper!! I think it was more about the company that the fabric for me... although the fabric was good too.

I'll have to share my loot later, since your behind is probably numb from my excessive chatter... atleast my behind is.

Thank you Julie and Becky!

You charged my quilting battery, and I think the happy feelings I have from our crawl will hold me over through the months to come

Black Hills Quilt Show

Today I went to the Black Hills Quilt Show with my friend Tineke.  She quilts and she doesn't get confused when I'm sarcastic or cynical. So I really like talking with her.  Plus she is like super mom with two little girls, and I'm always impressed at how well she balances everything.  But today she had her husband to keep the girls, and the hubs kept the monster, and we got to go to the quilt show KID FREE!  We had breakfast at Denny's, and it was the darnedest delightful thing.  Its been a long time since I went to breakfast without the monster!  

We saw a lot of quilts.  These are a couple I liked a lot!  

I liked this one.  I see it in TOTALLY different fabrics.   

This one has enough white to suit my taste.  I heart reproductions really hard right now, so I really love this quilt.   And, I dig that it is a log cabin, but I had to look at it twice to realize it. 

This log cabin was inspiring.  I just need to move a log cabin up on my bucket list, and make one already!  

This quilt made me super happy.  I love the dish drainer.  

 Had no clue I would ever see a nude at a quilt show.  It was pretty cool.

Love

 I picked up some fabric at the show.  Oops...But you know I saw a canning jar quilt in the online quilt festival, and added it to my bucket list.  When I saw a whole mess of foods fabrics, I went for it.  They were packaged in bundles and it was a big ordeal since the perfect pack always had something that made it imperfect.  Like LIMES.. which Tineke didn't think should be included since you don't can limes.  But the owner of the shop was awesome and helped us sort through for the perfect produce.  I think I will be making a trip to her shop since I just loved her!

 Although.... after the whole limes debacle I still ended up buying the oranges.  hehehe 

 I picked up a few gray fat quarters for my someday gray project, that hasn't gotten past the 'start collecting gray fat quarters' stage.

And I picked up some Bliss :)  Which I have been coveting... and of course by the time I was ready to make my move, it was done being printed, and was hard to find. :(

Quilt shows always have me wondering about my "quilt chops" and what my style really is.  I spend the show in some pretty deep thought.  Maybe it doesn't need to be that big of a deal?  And I should just keep doing what makes me happy?

  It was an awesome day and I had a really fun time.   

Hodge Podge

Whats happening at the sewing machine lately??

click to make larger :)

Lots! Its a bit crazy. That's okay I like it this way!

But I did finish up my four new placemats today

Sew and Tell

When Amylouwho used to host a weekly sew and tell it was super fun for me to hurry up and get something done so I could share. It was great motivation. But then I was moving and I wasn't sharing much... But today she is hosting and she wanted everyone to sew and tell about sewing with others. I didn't hear about this until after I had a couple girls I met at playgroup over to make the tree wall hanging. Musta been fate eh??

I have been having a few girls over to sew on Monday nights. And since we live on the prairie Kristen thought she might want to learn how to quilt. We picked out fabric for a quilt for her little boy, and I showed her how to cut and piece and press.

She learned how to baste and quilt this past week.

Here is her first quilt... quilted and trimmed up. Binding is next! She is a really great student!

Her mom just gave her a retro Brother!

Briana already knew how to use her machine and knew how to sew!! But I taught her how to do HSTs and she has been assembling a zig zag! Isn't it flipping cute?? I don't know if she likes HSTs so much but she is doing a really good job!

Go check out what other folks are talking about in Sew and Tell this week!!

The Juki is humming!

I've been behind the juki today!  Some placemats being made from this fabric I felt I NEEDED! 

And some wonky 9-patch blocks.  I'm finally using my 1933 Cloe's Closet... and I'm using this awesome free pattern.

I haven't been this motivated to work in awhile!