Write it down, I was wrong.....

When I first saw Angela's challenge here, I was sure I couldn't join. Don't get me wrong, I love the color yellow. I just didn't think I used it in my decorating. I was wrong.... I found all kinds of yellow in my house.














Thanks for the challenge Angela, and for opening my eyes to the sunshine in my home.

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

Crunch......

5 car pile-up
in the rain
bummer
and freshly washed and waxed



Happy Sewing,
Nancy

Too Big or Too Old.....

Yesterday was the much anticipated trip to the Paducah Quilt show.... We took off from St Louis at 6am on a bus with 47 other woman bound and determined to BUY..BUY...BUY....

We had a wonderful, tiring, back hurting day of shopping, walking, admiring quilts, walking, eating, walking, buying, walking, drinking and oh! did I mention we walked? My feet and legs were dead by 5pm. Apparently everyone had the same problem as we couldn't find a chair to save our soul. Finally, we found an open classroom, walked in and asked if we could just sit in the chairs for a few minutes. Where we taking the class we were asked? Uh no... No problem. just feel free to sit until the class starts, the Janome expert said, then proceeded to give us the low down on the
?new Memory Craft 6600. Um..we tried very nicely to say we were Bernina gals, but we let her go on and on. Very good deal, but DH would have killed me if I brought home yet another machine...lol

Purchases here....
I pretty much stay away from curves in quilts. When I saw this demonstrated I was fascinated. I do realize, it looked much easier than it probably is, but it opens up a whole new area of quilt patterns for me. I had to buy the Bernina adaptor, but the tweezers were free with purchase. (yes, the photo is upside down)



This was $1. Who could possibly pass this up?? No, I don't have a clue where it will end up, but it's CUTE!!!! and it was only $1...


These are the FQ's I found for my Ava for her Christmas quilt. I will use the Terri Atkinson pattern Snapshots from the book Happy Hour.





This little gadget was demonstrated by Sharon Schamber herself. Looked really easy even for others that tried it (and bought it). My SIL and I got the last two they had and I see that their website is also sold out. Once again the camera has decided to take upside down photos.


I also got a new water erasable marker and a chalk marker from Clover. I did miss one big buy....

About 5pm, SIL and I decided to sit in some chairs and wait for the bus to show up. Along came Ernestine and we started talking about the "great deals" we got. She had a cutting mat AND rotary cutter from Clover and together the cost was $10. WHAT??!!! I want that!! She told my SIL where they were and since we had about 20 minutes she took off to get two good deals of the day. Carole comes back empty handed and says "I can't find them". I get directions and take off. I return empty handed (and feet hurting). Ernestine takes the money, leaves her purchases in our capable hands and starts walking off. I yell "RUN, We only have 10 minutes and the bus will leave without us!!" She starts trotting off while we alternately watch for the bus and Ernestine. She returns empty handed. They SOLD OUT!! Bummer!!!

Watched a cute movie on the bus on the way home. Shirley Valentine about a 40's lady that heads to Greece on Holiday. Very funny, rated R with brief nudity that you will miss if not watching closely....lol

So back to the title of this post...Carole and I were talking and it seems that the Paducah show has become bigger and more spread out and we are going to have to stay over one night next year. Or maybe we are getting older? No, that couldn't be it!!

Off to finish laundry and such....the St Louis Cardinals game tomorrow. Sister has tickets...

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

No Way!!! ......and way

Look what I won!! I was the first to comment on this blog and got these. Are they not the cutest notecards? These babies will not be going out in the mail to anyone. I will frame them and hang them in the grandkids room. They will fit in perfectly with the 30's theme. Thank you so much Carrie.

I am almost all packed for my trip to Paducah. I will be staying tonight at my Mom's as she is closer to the bus pickup. The bus leaves early, early, early.... like 6am and to get a good seat (like up front!) you have to be there at 5:15am when the bus shows up. YIKES!! I will be sleeping all the way there. Got to keep my strength up so I can SHOP!!

If I don't sleep all day Friday, I will post pictures. Here is a link to the Best in Show from this year. I didn't realize that the winner got a choice to keep her (his) winning quilt OR the $10,000.00. Hmm....not sure what I would pick?? Not that I will ever have to worry about it. lol

So, off to finish packing.'
camera..check
money..check
underwear..check
comfy shoes...check

Hope I don't forget anything...

Happy Sewing,
Nancy
PS check my bag in the previous post and say HI if you see me....I will be wearing it.

Messenger Bag......

It's done. I used THIS pattern. Here are the changes I made.

The pattern calls for fusible fleece. I used 100% cotton canvas and zig zag stitched it to each pattern piece. I personally don't like the looks of fusible fleece as it can wrinkle the nice fashion fabric. The pattern doesn't call for anything in the flap and next time I would use the canvas in the flap also. The pattern uses fusible (what did we do before irons?) hook and loop tape to close the flap. I didn't use anything. The flap is enough for me.

There is a zipper pocket inside. The directions call for you to make your zipper pocket out of two layers of fabric, then top stitch it into the lining. Since the whole zipper case was closed up and the edges finished, I top stitched on both sides and the bottom. Now I not only have a zipper pocket, but a pocket behind it.

After looking at the pattern I just realized that I sewed the strap on the wrong place. Guess I will be doing some "frog stitchin".

Here are the pics. Yes, that's me in the photo. Bad color as the light isn't the best in the guest bathroom. The photo of just the bag is closer to the correct color.

Off to frog stitch.....

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

PS..... just finished frog stitchin and the strap is on correctly now...

HELP!!!!

I have been looking at this block on my design wall for a couple of weeks now. Every few days, I add a piece of fabric and play with my graph paper. I can't figure out the second border. I like it on point since it is a basket, but can't for the life of me figure out what to put into the corner triangles. The center is so busy that a plain triangle with hand embroidered flowers looked really bare, I drew a feather quilt pattern on a triangle and thought to do it in redwork, but it looked wrong also. It is such a beautiful block and I don't want to mess it up.

Please comment or send me an email at quilt@centurytel.net and tell me your suggestion. I am lost......

Off to the sewing room to finish my messenger bag and get my stuff together for guild tomorrow. Also get something out for dinner.

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

Tired......

Yesterday I met my oldest daughter at a not-so-local outlet mall to hand over my son and his friend. They had tickets to a concert and were going to spend the night with her and her family. I dropped them off, hit the quilt shop and found a beautiful Moda fabric (I got the pink background with brown)for my messenger bag. Alas, they had nothing that suited for the lining. Apparently they only bought the one bolt and no other part of the line of Tiddly Winks.
Today, we took off at 8am to pick up the guys. I convinced DH to visit another quilt shop where I looked at every bolt of fabric available. I finally found a check that is perfect. I have the bag almost done. I had to stop and fix breakfast (for dinner).
Tomorrow I will finish the bag and show you all. I am really liking it.

I also need help. I am doing an online swap and need some help....please check back tomorrow and leave a suggestion....

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

They came, they sewed .....

We did some cutting...

Some pressing...

Some pinning....(some people did more pinning than others!!. No names mentioned here, MISS NANCY)

and some sewing...


At the end of the day, we had nothing finished to show for it..LOL Anne got some help cutting selvages off to make a backing for a quilt. She did get her main backpack fabric quilted.

This photo doesn't do the fabric justice. Up close and personal it looked like black and blue butterfly wings. She will make this one for her daughter.

Here's Miss Nancy (LOOK!!! She's pinning!!! HA HA HA) She is always pinning..
She knows I am teasing her... My dad used to say "If I didn't love you, I wouldn't take the time to tease you....


Miss Nancy got 2nd place in finishing. She was having some issues and decided to pack it in at 2pm and take Anne home.. She hadn't had a very good week. Everything that could go wrong did...(hope everything is working today..)

I got first place in finishing. I just need to put the lining into my bag and sew around the top. Now, here is the problem. I don't like it. It doesn't do anything for this body. Today I am going by the quilt shop and get some fabric to make a Messenger bag. I will use the pattern from this book by Pat Sloan.
I will finish the backpack this weekend, make the messenger bag and then find something to do with the backpack. Maybe I will have a contest with giveaway...

Would anyone like a contest??

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

PS somewhere in this blog there are 2 "and"s where there should only be one. I saw it once and now can't find it.....DANG IT...just skip over one

PPS....HA Found it!! Now it's perfect....LOL

Gone missing......

I can't believe it has been 5 days since I have blogged. Nothing much going on around here until today. Miss Nancy and Anne are coming to a sewing day. We will all be making a backpack from Sew Batik. We all bought kits and patterns at a quilt show a couple of weeks ago. Miss Nancy and I will use ours for the first time next week as we venture to Paducah and the BIG SHOW.

Tune in tomorrow for photos of our sewing day and finished projects. Right now I need to take a shower. I don't think they would appreciate me sewing in my PJ's.
Chicken noodle soup is in the crockpot and blueberry cheesecake muffins are on the menu for lunch. Stop by if you are in the area....

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

Death of a tree.....

I got up this morning with nothing to blog about... I have had vertigo the past few days which limited my sewing, embroidery and reading time. I have actually been able to clean, but that would be a boring blog....

Until this morning..

I am in the midwest and we have had rain since forever. Areas near here have had flooding and we are watching the rivers crest again today. The ground is saturated. Now the wind has started. I live down in a hollow and we always have wind, but today it is rattling the windows and flue. Sometime within the last hour this happened. I never heard a sound. That tree must be 100ft tall (ok, just talked to DH and he says the tree is about 30ft tall, seems I always think things are bigger than they really are).




That is NOT my house on the left, but that is my shed. And yes, that is my no grass lawn.. This is a fairly new neighborhood so all the lots have not been sold. The neighbor was really lucky that this tree didn't go the other way and slam right into his roof. I think it missed the other side of shed, but it is wet and windy and I am not going out to look. I sent these photos to DH at work so he now knows that his Saturday work will involve the chain saw. He will end up doing the whole tree. We know for a fact that the neighbor doesn't have a chain saw as he asked our son one time if he could borrow ours and our son said we didn't have one. Well, he didn't know we did....


Happy Sewing,
Nancy

Flop your head to the left......

My camera software doesn't want to talk to Miss Nancy's camera software, so you will just have to flop you head to the left to see the purse she made... She did a great job even though she used pins and was very exact and marked things and all that.....(inside joke!)LOL

Still waiting for Anne to send me a photo....

NEWSFLASH - Anne just sent me a photo....a bit dark.



Now look carefully at her purse. Does it look any different than Miss Nancy's?? NO?? Can't see the difference? Look carefully...

Ok, I'll tell you... Anne didn't use any pins, and she wasn't as precise, and her purse came out looking JUST AS GOOD AS MISS NANCY'S.....ROTFLMBO....

Oh, BTW, here is the sample for the shop. This is my own pattern that I developed after making around 30 purses for family and friends...





Happy Sewing,
Nancy

It was a class today.....

Miss Nancy and Anne were nice enough to volunteer to be my "students" today. It has been awhile since I taught my purse class and I have reworked a few things so I wanted to try it all out before I taught the "paying" students. I emailed them the cutting instructions and told them I would bring the interfacings.

They were good students and said I was a good teacher so my class in May at the LQS should be a hit... Not sure how many students I will have. I know of 3 that have signed up and the LQS classroom is only large enough for 6.

I played along also and made DD#2 this purse. It isn't the exact purse pattern as they will use fabric for straps, but DD#2 requested the bamboo...we even did magnetic snaps.



Tonight I am watching "Hells Kitchen" and finished another Winter Wonderland block.

Bad photo, it is wet and wrinkled....bt it is DONE!!


3 more to go....

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

Ok, this is it.....

I promise that if you look at this last tiny photo, I will not blog on the Noah's Ark BOM. At least until next month when the new block comes out....lol



and I wanted to be prepared, so I cut a lot of 3/4" strips...



All parts and pieces are safely tucked away in a paper bag just waiting for the next block to appear.

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

This was on purpose....

This Dove block has bothered me all day. I just didn't like the look of the dark beak against the calmness of the rest of the colors. It just "screamed" at me. Tonight while watching "Trading Spaces", I stitched a new one.

So here is before.....


And after....


I like the after better, so maybe I will make the first one into a pincushion so as not to waste it....

BTW, the stitching is not crooked, it's wet as I just rinsed out the blue marking pen.

Tomorrow I am going to add the strips to both blocks and also get that TicTacMo block sewn back together again. I need to have it ready for the quilter.

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

Another one done.....

This is the first block. They are so small that I finished this one tonight while watching Dateline.

I am so glad I started these. I am hoping to continue....(Lisa..you need to catch up!! LOL) These are part of a new BOM that Lynette Anderson is giving away. Yes, can you imagine that such a well-known Australian designer is giving away a complete BOM. She is so generous..... Thanks Lynette!!
Oh, I don't think she reads my blog, but there is always hope....lol

Can't wait for number 3....

My nephew is in town this weekend. I haven't seen him since last September when his sister got married. He is in the Navy and stationed in Florida. We will meet at my sister's house and his Mom is serving lunch. Lots of family and I hope to get some photos.

Happy Sewing Weekend,
Nancy

Look twice, stitch once.....

I was so excited. I finished another block for my Winter Wonderland quilt. I am doing this block with a yahoo group as a BOM and I started it last year...I only have 3 blocks left. We are keeping track on the group using Yahoo's database. I went in this morning to update mine with the finish date.. WHAT!! It's already filled out!! OH NO...I made this block twice. Dang It!! Well, it won't go to waste, I will make it into a pillow for a Christmas present. Don't know who will get it but I will finish it and put it with my stash. Guess I will trace off the HUGE top block. You can see this pattern here. That is one big top block.... It is going to take me forever.



I have also started working on Lynette Anderson's Noahs Ark BOM. She is on block 2 which I started and finished last night while watching Eli Stone..I love that show. It's so inventive. I hope it lasts. Anyway....this will be a small wallhanging as this block is only 2" square. I think I may redo this one as the beak is a little bit dark and needs to be a lighter brown. Then to trace off the first block. Yea, I started with block 2.

Today is grocery shopping, gray hair removal and errand day....better be off to shower.

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

Sewing therapy....

This was my sewing therapy yesterday afternoon. I joined the Spring Fling over at Pat Sloans yahoo group. We make either an appliqued tea towel or a set of coasters and then add other spring like items. I have lots of tea towels left over from when I did a lot of machine embroidery, so I pulled this one out and used this pattern. Click on the Farmers Market set. They are supposed to be herbs, but I made them little flower buds.

Isn't this cute?? I need to add some spring like items to the box and have it mailed out by April 15th... Since today is redwork club at Patches I will do a little shopping. I am limited to $10.00 No more, No less.

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

All over the place.....

Just a quick note to say that I FINALLY got my April Fools joke in late last night. DH and I headed up to bed about 9pm and there was our son sitting in front of the computer talking to his peeps on IM.
"Hey Ryan, are you gonna sleep late tomorrow?" "What?", he says. "Oh, guess you don't watch the local news. Channel 2 just said that school is closed because of a boiler or water problem.". "WHAT??!!" "Oh, I gotta tell people. No one else watches the news"..... "YEA, No MAPP testing"

So I stood over his shoulder as he IM'ed his peeps. Bwa ha ha ha.....

After he and all his friends got very excited I said "Well, guess you better tell them APRIL FOOLS".

I GOT HIM!!!!

On another note, I dropped off Weaver Fever at the quilters yesterday. I didn't give her any instructions other than a tight overall masculine pattern. I can't wait to see it. She did say that she is close to finished 100 quilts and that person will get a little "something extra". Hope it's me!!

Today I am going to do some resewing. When I showed off my TicTacMo at guild I noticed that one of the border blocks was sewn in wrong, so I ripped it out a week ago and will get that fixed today so I can send that one to Pat Two Borders when Weaver Fever gets back. I am very excited to be getting these Christmas presents done so early in the year...only two more to go.

Happy Sewing,
Nancy

Not an April Fool but.....

an April Freebie....There is nothing better than a freebie and Wildcraft Farm has one with your name on it.

Happy Sewing
Nancy