Welcome to my Creative World with quiltmaking, scrapbooking, and most of all family and friends!

Monday, September 29, 2008

Back From Quilt Festival


What a wonderful week last week was in the Ogden Utah area with my friends for the Utah Quilt Guild's Quilt Festival. Each year we gather as a state guild to take workshops, listen to lectures, eat, visit and of course shop! LOL And so we did.
Usually I stay in a hotel connected with the conference center with my friend JB but this year she is serving with her husband as a missionary in Canada and so I made different plans. Our timeshare Worldmark has condos that are less than a 1/2 hr away and so we spent our free time and nights there and it was a wonderful choice. It gave us plenty of room to spread out with 2 bedrooms (and two Murphy beds) a kitchen and dining area an nice living room plus all the extras like a gas grill and hot tub if we wanted to hike down to them as they were a bit of a walk LOL
My personal experience was good..but I have to admit my class wasn't what I expected.
It was a lovely project and the teacher had some new tricks to teach me doing foundation paper piecing but unfortunately the class "should" have been limited to experienced students with the paper piecing being such a hands on teaching thing and there were WAY too many who had no experience at all with it and some who had very little if any quiltmaking experience. So I just wanted to help out the teacher and spend a large majority of the time "assistant teaching" and didn't get much done on my own project. Just to explain how NOT EASY this was it took me about 3 hours to piece just ONE star and the project consisted of 20 stars with several thinking they would be making a QUEEN sized quilt out of these 6 inch star blocks...OK NOT a good plan LOL I talked to one of the other students the next day and sure enough she was not planning on doing any more of the stars...too bad because they are neat little stars.

Anyway, I got four sections pieced together and then two of them joined into a half star and two ready to join together for the other half. When I got back to the condo that night I finished the star and completed one more but I know it will take me quite a while to get this project done even though I have plans for it as soon as I can get it done! Sigh...

For the rest of the report we enjoyed trying a few of Ogden's restaurants new to us...Rooster's and Javier's (let me know if you want more info) were both great! And DH and I ate at a Dee's on our way home that was a great memory for him as it is a Utah based place and been there since probably the 40's or 50's LOL
Also the speakers at lunch were great but a bit shorter than in the past....the lunches were OK but the Key Lime Pie for Friday dessert was quite yummy! LOL The vendors were "ok" but didn't give out the usual little "freebies" of simple patterns or little kits, bags, etc as they did in the past. I got a cute kit from a girl who lives not too far from me and has a really nice style...more on her later...some fat quarters (that's pieces of fabric for you non quilters) and a book for the "future" LOL And a bit of this and that.

Funny enough my "lucky" streak has continued as I won three door prizes this year! One each day of the luncheon. Since I left before they did the drawings for the other stuff maybe I won something else LOL

One other thing the guild president Jill, asked at our last year's meeting to join her in a project to make Quilts 4 Cancer and at least turn in 250 quilts by next festival...so at our lunch meeting we were informed by the Chairmen of that committee that they had collected over 1200 quilts and more coming in after the lunch was over! Wow! I was so impressed that the guild and friends responded like this. The quilts would be distributed to children and young adults with cancer as a hug to them for best wishes and love. You can see the quilts all stacked up in a hallway...it was an impressive sight.

DH and I drove home on Sunday late morning and as we went took some pictures of the beautiful scenery and I just shared a couple!
Enjoy...this is long enough for now and I have plenty of stuff to get to after being gone for a lot of the week

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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Farewell for the Week

I am heading off to Ogden, Utah for the Utah Quilt Guild's Annual Quilt Festival...lucky me!
I have one class on Thursday and lunches on Wed, Thurs. and Friday but the rest of the time I hope to enjoy visiting with friends, shopping the vendors and doing some sewing.
We are staying at our Worldmark timeshare up Ogden Canyon so it should be beautiful there with fall starting the color changes. I have two great friends with me and then DH H will join us on Friday sometime.
I will report in when I get back but meanwhile you can "visit" Wolf Creek here!

Monday, September 22, 2008

Bread Machine Zuchinni Bread

You know that old joke about zuchinni?

If you leave your car unlocked while attending church it will be full of zuchinni! LOL

I just bought a new breadmachine a few weeks ago and in the little booklet there is a recipe for Choc.Chip and Walnut Zuchinni Bread that looked good and more than that only calls for 1/3 cup of oil. I try to cut the fat as much as possible for DH and I figure a 1/3 cup in the whole loaf is good.

I did half whole wheat and half white flour and have added a cup of fat free granola instead of the nuts before but this time it has nuts in it. So yummy when it is done and I just love the ease of putting all the ingredients in the machine and letting it do it's thing!

I am going to do pumpkin bread too soon and see how it turns out.
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Saturday, September 20, 2008

Saturday for us

Lot's happening here on Saturday but no pictures to show LOL
This morning I got up early and made a loaf of bread in the bread machine cause I forgot to do one with the timer last night. I sure wish I could figure out how to keep it from having a funny top...like it rises too much and then bakes that way. I have been reducing the yeast since we are at a high altitude...almost 5000 feet and it is still doing the funny flat top. Anyone who uses a breadmachine got some advice?
Went back to bed...smiles... and DH and son A got up and went to a "gun show" in Sandy. A came home with some vinyl albums...for the covers as he found 3 Kiss and one Pink Floyd...and some things to hold bullets for one of his guns. Makes it easier not to have to load just a few at a time he says. They brought home some corn and homemade tamales from a farmer's market and the chicken one they brought me was very yummy. Nice flavor and not overwhelming with the masa!
I am spending much of the day scrapbooking trying to get in the rhythm again. So far just 5 pages but that's OK I am working on it LOL
For now son A is at work...finally he has a job...and DH is in SLC with his siblings for a get together at Liberty park and I am sure they will talk about their memories of childhood and family there. I think H told me one of his Aunts and Uncles lived near by and he remembers time spent at the park.
So that's our Saturday...the grass needs mowing because A hasn't had the time or so he says but better long and green than short and brown! LOL

Back to scrapbooking for me and hopefully I can share a page or two later

Thursday, September 18, 2008

I Have too Much Time on MY Hands


According to big "A" LOL
I just couldn't help myself but when I was between projects or parts of projects I surfed into this fun pattern and pulled from my stash and voila!
Jennifer has created a whole grundle of blocks and is sharing them online for free! One day I would like to create a table runner or wall hanging but for now I have the Hogwarts crest...or at least a quilter's version of one!
For those of you who are Harry Potter ignorant...not stupid just not in the know....Hogwarts is the school that Harry and his friends attend and where much of the action takes place in the 7 novels!

Another A Grad Layout

Funny when I was taking all thes pictures I thought most of them wouldn't be great but I have had to scrapbook most of them LOL
Took these Grad Day morning and just in case you don't recognize the instrument he is playing it is called a Digerydoo (spelling). His favorite celtic type band Wicked Tinker has a guy who plays and before we knew it he ordered one online and has been playing around with it for a while.
Supplies
cardstock, pp from Costco stack, kit elements from Storytellers Kits, cork letters Target Dollar spot.
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Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Mending and Chickesns

So did you think I was going to talk about the farm wife's life? LOL
Not exactly...
Does anyone mend their clothes anymore? Youngest DS A showed me his jeans had three holes in them...three different pair of pants. Funny spots not the knees or bumm area but he wanted me to mend them. Now I don't know about you but I hardly ever mend anything but way back 13 or so years ago when I got my machine we learned how to use the fancy stitches to mend so dragging the information out of my almost 53 year old brain I mended his jeans. One thing they need to make is a variegated thread that is called "washed denim" LOL I tried all kinds of thread and as you see it doesn't lend itself to un-noticeable mending with one of my pretty fancy variegated quilting threads but it is done....
So that is the mending part, now for the chickens.
One of my projects on my blog Quilts in Que is a Block of the Month from 2005. The board members of my weekly quilt group each took turns presenting star patterns that could be divided by 3 inches through the year. I had a stash of fabric that I purchased mostly in Anaheim on a family trip that had roosters on it picked out and through 2005 I did the monthly block. Because we don't do an actual meeting in December there were only 11 blocks presented. I had designed a wall hanging that needed a total of 17 blocks and planned to create the extras myself...well here it is almost 3 years later and I just needed two 6 inch blocks to complete the block part and I pulled out the plastic box with fabric and blocks and decided today was the day. One block is from Carol Doak's Yahoo group August BOM and the other was taught to us today at our meeting called Twisted Star. Carmen taught us the "partial seam" method and it was a 9 inch block. It is not a hard method but makes the blocks look really neat with the kind off center parts. Luckily she had Electric Quilt on our quilt room computer and was able to print off directions, templates and foundation pieced papers for a 6 inch size. OK I was tempted to paper piece it but nope...I bit the bullet and used the templates along with my Kaye England rulers and TA-DA it came out perfectly...or at least as perfect as I can do! LOL
So here you see mending and chickens!
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Sunday's Scrapbooking Pages

Well, after over two months of no scrapbooking I finally set up my table in the guest/scrapbook room once more and jumped in for some pages.
Worked on big A's graduation pages and some of baby A too.
the supplies for baby A's page came from Big Lots mostly or at least the paper is from there but you sure can tell it is a discount paper as it is very flimsy LOL but still so cute with the photos!
Love my little guy and his little old man look of just a few days old.
I have more photos for family on graduation day with big A but they are hiding out somewhere. So the last page is very much NOT done yet.
Anyway enjoy and one day I will figure out how to do a slideshow LOL






Monday, September 15, 2008

Mini Bear Paw

You know how sometimes you keep putting off a project or chore and it looms larger and larger?
This little mini quilt is doing that for me...so I just put it under the needle and did some quilting and ....
ARGGGGG it is awful! All puckery and stretched out of shape...I am ready to just trash it or hide it deep in a closet right now!
So...taking in hand the seam ripper I am going to take out all that yucky quilting and try and make it better if I can. I am really loosing my patience with this little project and just want to get it out of my sewing room so I can do something FUN!
Wish me luck

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Next CWLL Blocks Finished!

I thought this would be a good day to finish up this month's Civil War Love Letter Quilt blocks...my friend CN's choice this month.
I decided to not worry about fabric choices long ago so just picked ones that I like together. This month my favorite is probably the one bottom center with the red, black and light gold. I have been waiting to use the red print for a long time and the black works great with it to me.
For some reason the bottom left block didn't turn out the way it was supposed to...I think maybe the light connector corner squares are too big but oh well...only God is perfect and that is for sure NOT me! LOL
I like working on them but glad they are done for the month so I can get ready for Quilt Fest coming in less than two weeks.

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What Happened to our Tomatoes?

Can you guess what is eating our tomatoes?
I picked these this afternoon off of our Morgage Lifter tomato plant and YUCKO, what got to them?
On one spot (back of the tomato on the left) looks like a vampire kitty bite!
So disappointing to go out for a nice yummy fresh tomato and find this!


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Friday, September 12, 2008

It's finally Done


After hours and hours of sweat and blood and tears...oops not really but the hours and hours is right LOL Here is DS A's HS graduation quilt! It is from the book Tradition with a Twist by Blanche Young and it was not terribly hard and I love how it turned out. To me it is very much like Aaron with the happy colors and the great graphic design. The pic is a bit washed out as the blue is more royal and the reds are deeper but that's OK.
It is queen sized for his twin bed...LOL...but he is a big kid and will appreciate the size. Now for the next thing in the UFO pile.
Maybe that mini bear paw that just needs a bit of quilting and binding to get it done. We will see....
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Thursday, September 11, 2008

Debbie Mumm BOM update

It seems to have been forever since I posted the first four blocks for my night quilt group's BOM but here are the next two plus the first two. I am loving how it is turning out so far. The colors are so much me and my living room so far and the blocks are different enough from what I have done in the past that they are interesting to do!
I just have to comment on the sideways tree. Many of the ladies in the group really don not like that block and the sideways basket to come and are searching out different blocks to substitute in the wall hanging. That is one thing about this group of ladies, they will make a project "their's" and aren't afraid to try something different! In looking at the block I wish I had fussy cut the larger tan squares in the Friendship block (lower left) but other than that I am liking it.

I hope to report that I have finished binding A's quilt tomorrow as I am on the last side.
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Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Papa and Grandson "I"

When little grandson I spent some time with us earlier this week Nana took some pictures as I and DH H played together.
I loves the See and Say that Nana found in a local thrift store DI and he and Papa got a bit creative by seeing what could ride on the arrow when they pulled down the handle. Little I also created an indoor snow storm when he found a small box of packing peanuts and loved tossing them about and crunching them up in his hands LOL Nana wasn't so thrilled to have to clean them up as they skitter away from the vaccuum.
It was fun to have him over and amazed at how much he has grown and learned to do!

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A's new Talent

Youngest DS A has decided to learn how to play the guitar.
He found this great electric guitar on Craig's list for $65 with it's amplifier and then spent at least another $50 for other things to get started. He found a web site that has a guy who teaches you how to play with video online. Very cool!
So far he mostly has learned how to play scales and a couple of classic songs...Theme from Peter Gunn and The Star Spangled Banner...but really wants to be able to play a whole bunch more! LOL
Way to Go A!
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Last week's New Friends


My quilt group had a different kind of first week meeting this month. One of the local grocery stores has a great "little theater" where they have small cooking classes and they did a special one just for us. It was a great break from our regular meetings and we got some yummy new recipes from our President Peggy and from the teacher too.
You see pictures of one of the recipes she shared Strawberry Bread/muffins. They are nice and light with a delicate strawberry flavor.
As a door prize Peggy put together a fun fruit and veggie quilt top and lucky Jeannie won! Congrats and we look forward to seeing it all finished!
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Thursday, September 4, 2008

All my Children...or some of them

Just a few new pics of the "kids" LOL.

Little grandson "A" dressed up in his church clothes on Sunday

Son "D" and grandson "I" from Tuesday

The birthday girl B with her DH B and little A saying "Happy Birthday"



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Trying to get a Family PHoto

WE really wanted to get a nice picture of the family before B&B headed out for Texas and took the opportunity at dinner last night as we celebrated B's birthday...and D's too as I told them just one cake from now on last year!
So you see our attempts to get just one good one! LOL
The top one has most of us looking at the camera and the last one is when Isaac didn't want to sit on Nana's lap LOL!
So I guess someone needs to photo shop them into one good picture!



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Monday, September 1, 2008

Doughertys Last Sunday with Us


Yes, that's right!
B &B & A's last Sunday here in Utah was spent with us as they have finally gotten their information and move "orders" for Texas. There is plenty of excitement as they are working to get their apartment ready for the movers, getting rid of things that aren't needed or wanted and sorting what will be packed. Little grandson A was not happy as Mommy and Daddy's attention needed to be on getting all the other stuff done and not on him! LOL
He also got he shots on Thursday and probably not feeling his best for a few days. Poor little guy. They are searching online for a place to live in San Antonio and are asking a friend to check out a couple of possibilities which would be nice to have done quickly so they can leave to visit family in VA. with a home to come back to! LOL
Today I will try and keep little A happy while all the confusion goes on.
As you can see I am still binding Aaron's quilt and he is anxious to get it on his bed I guess as he is always asking when it will be done! I need to take a break and bind my fall wall hanging but it shouldn't take too long so I can show it at my New Friends Quilt group meeting on Tuesday.

It is much cooler and rainy here in Utah and a wonderful break from the hot weather we have had the past few months. IT rained most of last night and it was wonderful to fall asleep to the sound of rain out my window. No plans for this year to cook out as usual so we can help out B &B pack and get ready!
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