Home Decor Challenged

How can I not decorate?  How can I put quilt colors and blocks together but cannot put together my house?  Is it PTSD leftover from 20 years of being a renter and being issued a military house?  I can't figure where to hang a shelf, where to put a picture, what color scheme....UGH!  The walls are not white they are pretty greens, tans, corral, greens, greens and greens.....get the drift.  Celery green, apple green, gray green, dark pea green....green green green.  

The Hubby has declared that he is not repainting a room-it will have to be done professionally.  Not quite so easy as his house in NY-fancy ceilings, hardwood floor, molding, etc.  I get it but means I either don't decorate and wait until the painting is done or buy stuff now to decorate and learn to like the green.....Sigh.  might be easier to organize the sewing area and bury my head in the fabric!!!

We are actually spending a day somewhat at home which will be a nice treat.  This evening we are headed to a Columbus Blue Jacket professional hockey game.  DH and son are WAY excited!!  Can I take my knitting into the game and not appear to bored?

Enjoy spring if you are lucky enough!

Holy Cow-I know my mom has said she misses my blog but I didn't realize it has been over a year!!  Where did it go?  I will tell you there was not a whole lot of sewing going on that is for sure!  That Red & White all over quilt is still a UFO and in progress.  I am happy to say though it is together and needs the papers torn off the back from the Gazillion 1/2 square triangles.  If I never do a 1/2 square triangle again I might just be alright!  But being my mother's daughter (with a VERY strong shopping gene) not sewing did not meant not buying fabric!!  So when I do get the room up and running I will have PLENTY of projects!

We are no longer Blogging from Central PA-we are now in Central Ohio and the sewing room changed from a great space with natural light and built in bookcases to a corner in the basement with great potential!  I am excited about the space and all it has to offer, I just need to find the time to set it up.  I get to organize from the ground up: flooring, cabinets, shelving....all of it!!

Last winter I actually was spending too much in the sewing by myself after working long hours so I taught myself how to knit and crochet so that I could at least be in the living room.  I love it!!!  I have made felted bowls, a felted purse, a cupcake hat for my cutie pie niece, a pumpkin hat for my cutie pie nephew, place mats....It is never ending!

I am hoping dusting off the blog will inspire me to get moving on the room or do something creative-I miss it and just don't know where to start.
Shelly

What is Red with White all over?

My snowball blocks!  Still working on them-got them all put together into rows and will begin joining rows into blocks this weekend.

Will post pictures maybe tomorrow-just wanted to give a brief update for my challenge co-horts!

Shelly

Red: the color of Love or Anger????

Well my awesome ivories and wonderful gorgeous reds are now a GAZILLION 1/2 square triangles!!!  Ok well not a gazillion but 500+ and not quite done, I still have to cut them all apart.....burst my own bubble.  I was determined to get these done so that I can use our 10 hour car ride to Tennessee on Wednesday to cut them apart.  I am hoping to slip my "ghetto" (no offense please) in a suitcase with out my husband knowing so that I might be able to put these together with the center squares.  Considering how many of these there are, I will be happy with just getting them cut apart!

Wahoo!!!

They all got here on Saturday!!  I was into that package quicker than ice melting in July!!  They are beautiful and range from light light to light tan.  Thank you so much swap partners!!

This is my first attempt at something scrappy.  I have been quilting for about 15 years now and have NEVER done anything like this-I can't even see the architect of a block if it is shown as scrappy-I have a scrappy mental block.  Yesterday I was putting together the reds and had to stop myself from trying to group them, make a pattern, sort, organize....UGH!!  It is funny now but was not funny yesterday!  Then to top it all off-I decided to make the quilt bigger so that I can use it on my bed.  I suppose I am into self punishment on this one!

I think I will be doing the 1/2 square triangles using triangle paper.  I figure the paper will cover the fabric and I won't be able to see the scrappy, the lack of rhyme or reason.....  ;)

Love seeing the progress on the other blogs!

Mr Postman-bring me a dream.....

the dream has been ivory/off white/cream/light beige strips which I will NOT open until I have all my packages!  My packages are traveling the world as we speak.

I thought I was going to make this using the gazillion yellow fat quarters I have collected the past 10 years.  But after seeing everyone else's red versions-I switched it up and dug out the reds.  Holy cow did I have a lot of reds and it was funny because some of my favorite ones I had 2 or 3 pieces.  At least I am consistent.

I washed all my reds and used 2 Color Catchers and then re-rinsed using 2 more which still turned pink!!  Good thing I listened to Nicole!

I finally got my book in the mail this week and had a panic attack when I couldn't find the red and cream snowball quilt in the book....took me a second peek through to realize it was the scrappy directions we were doing-consistent but not quick....

I cannot wait for this weekend-we have no real plans and I hope to be able to sew!
Take care,
Shelly

Still Here!

I have no real excuse as to why I have not blogged in 2 MONTHS!!  Holy Cow!  One reason that is a good one is that my sister got married.  As the Matron (HATE that word-Matron) of Honor it was a lot of work even with a wedding planner.  I was in charge of the RSVP's, table favors and a secret shower.  There had been some sewing going on-I made a wall hanging for my sister and her hubby and mid stream decided to quilt it with black thread instead of the King Tut that I had bought for it.
I loaded it on the frame, made some extra bobbins and away I went with the WalMart special thread....BIG mistake!!  I am now the proud owner of a birds nest wall hanging and my sister and her hubby got a last minute gift card to Bed Bath & Beyond.  I have been working on ripping it out with my best friend's assistance (the seam ripper).  I have since bought the only thread to use in my machine while on the frame and once I get this mess ripped out, I will have what I need to make it beautiful.

I was able to finish "Jack" he is so cute and I love the random Halloween fabrics I picked up here and there. My holder is a mantle wreath holder and I used triangles in the corners and chop sticks in between-Cute and Green!
I like the seasonal quiltlets so I think I will keep my wreath holder dressed appropriately.  I already have one going for Fall-it is a wrought iron fence with a tree and you sew leaf buttons on the ground.  Can't wait to have that up on Sunday!
I am participating in a scrappy snowball quilt challenge that is the brain child of Nicole at Sister's Choice Quilts and Allyson at Fat Cat Quilts.  I am even doing the light fabric swap-how cool will that be!  I am finding though that I have  A TON of ivory/cream fat quarters but not much yardage.  I might have to shop to follow through with this swap.  Not a bad thing either ;)

BOM's

I love the concept of Block of the Month's (BOM's). I love to sew and this allows me to ease into a project instead of having yardage hanging around as UFO's.

Currently I have the Thangles Buck a Block going from my local quilt shop: www.ogpquiltshop.com and the Natural Wonders by Debbie Mumm: http://shop.debbiemumm.com/p-4509-bom-2009-quilt-1.aspx

Enough to keep me busy yet still work on other stuff-well not so much of either lately.

This morning as I was cruising through my favorite blogs I saw this at the the Jolly Jabber-Beautiful and such a mix of material!

http://www.fatquartershop.com/Green-Piece-Moda-Block-of-the-Month.asp

Loving it and will head back there shortly to sign up-Hubby is in the same room-can't be whipping out the quilt only credit card-too many questions I don't want to answer!

Then while I am there I see this one!

http://www.fatquartershop.com/Pennsylvania-Dutch-Block-of-the-Month.asp

Now I am all about the Americana-RW&B color combo-OH yeah the Project House 360 BOM is being printed but not necessarily sewn at this time.

http://www.projecthouse360.com/bom2009.html

Now I am debating which one to do....Ok I got it.....

BOTH!

Oooooo the hubby left-time to place an order-or two!

This & That

3 weeks since my last post? Cannot be possible...where has the time gone, oh yeah-work. That necessary evil that allows me to support my addiction (fabric) and pay the gazillion dollars I owe in student loans-what was I thinking going back to college 20 years after high school????

Not much sewing going on here for various reasons. I am still recovering from the 10 day/bi-annual visit of our 11 year old nieces!

I will start that 2 years ago we took the then 9 years old girls for a week, I cried more than they did-it was horrible-I felt so inadequate. I took vacation time while they were here, we planned all these day trips and had great activities planned we were excited....

Went to Hershey Park for the day (5 people-not cheap) only to learn that the girls do not like amusement rides-so while the hubby and the son or me and the son sought our thrills the other adult had 2 feet firmly planted on the ground with 2 pouty young ladies.

Went to Penn's Cave, bought tickets only to learn that one or the other didn't like boat rides or bus rides.....got my money back on that one luckily.

Went to a swimming pool with slides and water sprays and cool stuff to find that one didn't like getting their head wet. We sat on the blanket and she pouted while my son and the other had a grand time.

They are allowed to stay up past a decent hour and`1 sleep til noon-at that time we lived in a ranch house with our bedroom right off the living room and Hannah Montana at 1AM is NOT COOL to me!

Then there was the cool Aunt Shelly saying I would buy them an outfit for school....ended up at the Limited Too-because they are picky dressers and they would defiantly find something there.....can I saw that was almost as much as a student loan payment!!

So that was 2 years ago.....This trip had some thought into before they got here-laugh I know the best laid plans....

This year I did not take any time off-the hubby wanted to do this and he is retired so he could schlep them all over and not have them like it. We would do bigger things on the weekends, together. During the week they would do day trips and cheap activities.

I also planned the menu around exactly what they would eat-we had a LOT of steak those few days.

We established some ground rules about bedtime, behavior and language right off the bat.

So we started off good-hadn't seen them in a few months, how is everyone, do they like their new school, was your summer good....then they spotted my sewing toys-OMG don't you know THEY LOVE TO SEW!!!

My husband got all gushy-awww-look you can be their mentor as you would a daughter(not even closely related duh? As if!)....I grudgingly opened up my sewing toy shop-laying out a few ground rules:

1. Not buying anything-so whatever we decide to do has to be from the stash and something they could work on while I was at work-figured this would give the hubby a break during the day.
2. I had to approve the fabric they wanted to use
3. They could not just use the toys-I approved what they used on what IE Gingher scissor must NEVER EVER TOUCH Paper!

We decided on raiding my stash of 4" squares and making pillows. Easy enough. OK a headstrong 11 year old on a sewing machine scared the HELL out of me! I corrected her finger placement a million times then finally decided I couldn't watch and if she sewed her finger than at least she would learn....even the scissor usage was painful to watch.

So after an evening of sewing squares together one decides that they don't really like sewing and the other decides it is too hard and needs a break...2 days later they want to know when am I going to finish their pillows-uh never...you wanted to do this you finish them.

Heartless? May seem that way but what you don't know is that during the two days it took them to make that request, the hubby and I had been following them around picking up glasses of table tops, wet towels off bedding, wet towels off carpet, wet towels off wet towels, throwing away half eaten items, gathering shoes from all over, closing doors, closing the refrigerator, shutting off lights, reminding that we don't call each other names, you must take turns on the video games, being anti-social in public with arms crossed is UNACCEPTABLE-don't go or stay in the car, No you CANNOT be online after I go to bed.....

After about a million re-threads on the machine (the ghetto machine NOT the Viking!) Exasperated-I finished putting them together. At the end of the visit we had 2 cute pillows somewhat made by them-only 1 twin agreed to having her picture taken-this would be the professional pouter niece.

That is how the visit was sewing related-the rest of the drama and the reason I will NOT do that again for AT LEAST another 2 years is not for this blog. I did walk away with a DEEP appreciation for having only 1 child with the bonus being his MALE gender! They are great young ladies-just moody 11 year old girls who have different rules than at my house which results in being allowed to do more grown up things.

Whew!

The drama did not end yet with this quilt! Can you believe it??!!
I found a piece of batting that was exactly the right size if I were to not use the quilt frame.

I decided to just do one diagonal line in the plain white blocks to maintain the flow of the triangle blocks. I used a red chalk pencil to mark the diagonals. When I tested it the line rubbed right out with warm water as directed. So I layed it out on the floor and safety pinned it-picked it up to find a pucker deep enough to LOOSE the BABY in!! So unpin we go...the next round of pinning I taped the backing to the floor with painter's tape. Worked perfectly!

The diagonal sewing was uneventful as was putting on the binding. The additional drama came when I went to gently rub out the RED marks on the WHITE blocks-I know, I know just the idea should have been a red flag! They DIDN'T RUB OUT!! Let me tell you my husband heard me cussing words he has never heard me say! I was angry and had no clue what to try....Mom was here so that we could attend the Hershey show and suggested just putting it in the washer with warm water. I had nothing further to loose. Thank you Mom because it worked!

It is finally done and headed to NY tomorrow!!

Hershey or BUST!

For one day only Hershey is good for something other than the obvious, CHOCOLATE and outlet shopping...today the Quilt Odyssey is in town and I cannot wait to get to the Merchant Mall! I don't think this year's shopping will be as cool as last year-Hubby went with me and authorized the purchase of my amazing Sapphire 870. The Hubby is not going, he has opted to go to Harry Potter at the IMAX/3D theater with Zach and Poppa. Mom and I are on our own. Not a bad thing but the pocket book won't be as plentiful.

The Thangles quilt is quilt and has the binding sewn to the front waiting to be hand sewn. THANK GOODNESS-have you ever had one that did not go away to the completion pile? This one has been that for me and will be glad to see it land with it's new owner. In the end it turn out very nice, thank goodness despite all the issues I have had with it.

Not liking this quilt......

I ran out of backing-so off to Verna's (no complaints there) got the backing, decided on how to quilt it, decided to not use the variegated King Tut thread (have NO clue what to use that on now), had to buy white thread, loaded it on the frame got 1/2 through to learn that I was running out of batting!! UGH! Decided that I didn't want to run all the way to Williamsport for batting so I trekked to Wal Mart thinking that they had to have a packaged cotton batt-NOPE only polyester. Darn-all is on hold until tomorrow when I will have to visit Williamsport. I think I will buy a twin batt just to tuck away in case of emergencies.

All was not lost, I opened my Jo Ann Fabrics Bohemian block of the month and cut out the other 4 block pieces. I like the "Sunflower" block so I bought 1 kit and fat quarters of all the colors to make 3 more blocks for a simple wall hanging. Then I hit my ruler with the rotary cutter, chipped the blade and the ruler-set everything down and took a nap! I could not get a head today!

I hope everyone elses sewing went better today!

Next weekend is the Quilt Extravaganza in Hershey-SOOOO excited!

***I FOUND A PIECE OF BATTING THAT WORKS-BARELY!! NO ROOM FOR SHIFTING ON THIS BUGGER!!!

Don't you hate that??!!

Don't you just hate it when you buy what you need for a project only to get to a point and realize that you don't have enough fabric!! UGH!

I was asked to make a baby quilt as a gift. So we decided on a pattern (see a post in April about a Gazillion 1/2 square triangles) and away I went-construction was delayed due to the Boy Scout quilt but all was together this weekend. It took me HOURS to pick the triangle paper off the back so that it would press nice and flat. An off note-for picking the paper off the back-the Triangle Paper was much easier than the Thangles Paper.

Yesterday I came home from work ready to load everything on the quilt frame only to find that I did NOT have enough backing! UGH-kick scream cuss.....Daggone it. What I think happened because the one thing with quilting that I am really good at is the Math-is that I did not count for the 8 extra inches I need on all sides to load it on the frame. Right now if I chose to quilt it on my machine, not on the frame, I would have enough backing, but not enough to load it on the frame.

The bright side is that I now have a reason to treck out to Verna's on Saturday! I love Verna's and need to justify a reason for going otherwise I go without focus and BUY just randomly! Which is great but I am trying to stick to finishing what I have stuff for already.

Hopefully Saturday I can get this loaded and quilted. Part of my crazy thread purchase was a pastel variegated one that is intended for this-I want the quilting to be subtle so that the blocks stand out. I am thinking ABC's We will see. In the mean time I have some thangle BOM's to catch up on and the Debbie Mumm BOM to do-I just got the next 3 blocks on Monday. I am really liking these colors.

This is a random picture I took while in Chicago-I am standing inside "The Bean" looking up-very cool.

99% Finished

My disclaimer: I said that my goal was too ambitious on the Boy Scout quilt for my Dad. I had good intentions-enough said-here is the tale....

Saturday as I was packing the Hubby and the Son for Boy Scout camp I realized that the son has been wearing the same 3 pairs of shorts because nothing else fits or is "dress", the sweatpants were 3" too short (I swear I JUST bought those!) and we needed bug spray and toothpaste. So off we went-how hard in June will it be to find pull on shorts in size 8-PLAIN....Just about impossible! JCPenny, Sears, Macy's, WalMart, The BonTon, Dick's Sporting goods, Old Navy, etc....na da! I avoided The Gap because of the price but as we were walking buy I popped in quick expecting to still be empty handed....would not be the case-there they were-plain, not denim, pull on shorts-they were perfect Rip Stop Nylon, drawstring everything-then I looked at the tag-$18 a PAIR!! Daggone-oh well. We bought 3 pairs - never did find a pair of sweat pants but we did get packed finally!

Essentially there was no sewing on Saturday-still a border to add, quilting to be done, binding to be bought and cut and then sewn....already behind the 8 ball.

The boys had to meet the rest of the Pack at 2 so we spent a lazy morning together and at 2 off they went-I was alone! Just me and the dog. I hated to head home and just sit when I had 2 days alone (hubby came and went from camp-alternated with Poppa) so off to JoAnn's I went. I never get to just wander and look-I always have people in the car waiting for me to get exactly what is on my list and leave! It was nice-they carry the BSA fabric and had one that would do for the binding. $100 later (after coupons!) I left for Wegman's grocery store and dinner-love their grilled veggies!

That night I got the borders on the quilt and the backing loaded on the frame. At 11PM I gave up and went to bed. Monday night I got everything loaded and started quilting. Did not go well....the thread coming off the cone got caught on something pulling the needle off center and it chipped my free motion foot causing a burr which the thread got caught in as I was stippling. I fixed the thread-modified it's path and used a paring knife to fix the burr because I could not find a file-which resulted in me putting said paring knife into my finger tip-YES there was swearing....Eventually I had it figured out and away I went. At 1 AM with about 3-4 passes left, I went to bed.

Tuesday night I finished the quilting and got the binding cut and sewn on-not hand sewn over to the back. I was able to hand sew about 1/4 of this that night. So although it is not done done, it is together and awaiting hand attention. I took it with me to show Dad-he likes it and was not expecting it.

The matching quilt for Zach is still in single blocks and will need to wait until after the pastel 1/2 square triangle and a potential wall hanging wedding gift-not part of the 6 year gift previously mentioned.

A finish!!

WAHOO!!! The 5+ year project is quilted! All that I have left to do is the binding-actually FIND the fabric that will become the binding. At the beginning of the year I make a list of things to do this year-this was a huge one on that list. I don't really remember what is on it-uh oh. I will have to go back and check it out.

While quilting this I was using King Tutt brand thread and ran out 2 passes from the end! I had purchased the thread while on vacation in North Carolina so there was no way to "run" any where and get another spool. I found a place online and of course I am not going to order just 1 spool of thread for a $6 shipping fee-No I ordered 5! $52 later I had what I needed to finish my 2 passes and then some!

The BSA Fabric quilt is almost a top-I have the borders to put on but an not sure what I want to do there....not much time to decide since I want this on the frame Friday night and off Saturday afternoon for binding and ready to go Sunday at noon....yeah I don't think I will make it either but you always have to be ambitious. Keep you posted!

No fancy blog titles-that part kills me. I can sit here and have at it with the key board but to come up with a catchy title is beyond my blogging ability.

I didn't realize that there was such a lack of posts-a whole month! I have been quilting so it has not been because of nothing to show.

This past month I decided to make some special Boy Scouts their own special Boy Scout quilts. I had seen things made from the fabric line in numerous magazines but have limited access locally to see something like that in a quilt store. So I bought a fat quarter bundle online and thought a turning twenty was in the works. Really what else is there for 20 fat quarters.....While in NC at Easter I visited a JoAnn's Super Craft Center-those stores are awesome! They sell furniture for Pete's sake. While there I saw some of the Kauffman fabric at Joann's (OF ALL THE PLACES!). So I bought a couple yards of the blue with the numbers down the side and the piece that has all the merit badges on it-actually after searching for a SPECIFIC merit badge on it I have discovered that they are NOT all represented.

Once back I decided that I didn't want to do a turning twenty-just not exciting enough for the fabric. So I flipped through some books and magazines, you know we all have them in piles and piles, and found a Floating Square block that is in a Layer Cake book I have bought during my Atlanta trip.

So off I go with my 20 fat quarters and my floating square block pattern. I needed 35 blocks for each quilt (x2) and could get about 4 out of each fat quarter-SWEET! So the adventure began....I cut and cut and cut, then I sewed and sewed and sewed, then ironed, ironed and ironed, the sewed and sewed and sewed.....you get the picture. What I left out is cutting apart my chain piecing each morning while waiting with Zach for the bus. He was great at sorting them back into coordinator fabric piles for me.

Finally last weekend I completed all the blocks and am ready to put them into rows and so forth. But the internal deal with my self is that I can get nothing done beyond the ROW stage until my brother's 6 year old wedding quilt is quilted and off the frame-mind you no mention of when the binding will go on.....

Production on the BSA quilts ceased on Saturday and quilting began on the 6 year old. I bought a spool of King Tutt thread in NC because I had heard great things about it online and was having trouble with looping and thread breaks. So I loaded the Tutt on the machine and away we went-AMAZING the difference the thread made-no broken threads and if I didn't move the machine down the frame too fast, there are no loops! So back and forth I went-it is a queen size so there were quite a few trips. I can see the leader cloths coming around the roll bars when suddenly no thread-literally 2 passes left to finish and I ran out of thread! UGH!

Once again the 6 year old is just sitting waiting for the postman to deliver the thread.

The update on my MBIII is that there isn't one. The one I made arrived safe and sound to it's new owner but the one I should have gotten is no where to be found and no word on what happens next. I have emailed the moderator of the swap but have not heard anything back-very not like her so life must be very busy which is understandable-to a point.

I guess the swaps are cool in theory but how to make adults follow through with their commitment to a perfect stranger? I deal with people not full filling their commitments every day and they are not even strangers! Oh well.

We are in Chicago this weekend doing the touristy thing-take care!
Shelly

MBIII Received!

My apologies to Sharon for not reading my comments and realizing that she received my MBIII swap on the 7th. She likes it and is so kind about the dish towel.

I am still anxiously awaiting mine-for those that know me they have got to be laughing because I do not like surprises-love presents but don't like not knowing. I do better when I am surprised.

Happy Mother's Day

Not much sewing going on lately due to job and soccer commitments. Zach is doing well so far in soccer. We finally convinced him to open his stride and he would be able to run faster and further. The child is all legs and does this Scooby-Doo running thing-yeah Scooby-Doo was the influence-he is a DIE HARD FAN! Last weekend the coach placed him in the goal-scared me crazy! My baby laying on the ground with the ball under his body and the feet of the other children flying towards him. I literally had to leave for the concession stand. He loved it and was not afraid at all-despite my fear I am proud.

My partner received my Miniature Booty Swap III, per the USPS tracking system. I can't wait to hear how she liked it. I have yet to receive one-I am on pins and needles to see what my quilty partner created for me!

My brother and sister-in-law's quilt is about 1/2 done and still on the frame. I am loving the King Tut thread-not the price tag especially since locally I will have to buy it online. The spool that I am using is one that I bought from Loving Stitches in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Then on the sewing table it a Confetti 1/2 square triangle project-the one I tested the like and dislike of Triangle Paper versus Thangles. The cutting table has numerous projects-I have seen a few blogs with lists that run along the side of "to do" projects-I would love to do something like that but the list would run a hundred pages. I digress-on the cutting table are my Boy Scouts of America fat quarters waiting for my time to turn into them into two lap quilts for my favorite scouts-Dad and Zachary.

The best project on the cutting table are my Paper Dolls! I was lucky enough to find the elusive Paper Doll fabric at Ben Franklin Crafts in Montoursville. They don't have the complimentary pieces but they do have the big dolls and the clothes! I will be making this for myself. I loved paper dolls as a child and had quite the collection. They included Betsy McCall, the Walton children and the Gingham Girls. Sadly my shoebox of paper treasures were lost along the path of life. This is perfect for me-plus it will add some girl to this masculine testosterone driven house that I live in!

A bit behind with blogging

It has been a while since I posted and there has been some quilty things going on so here we go...

The MBIII hosted by the Quilting Pirate is on it's way along with the matching dish towel. Looking at the other blogs-my dish towel is sad sad sad....I had no idea and faced such a creative block when faced with that project. Anxiously awaiting my MBIII package!

My parents came down fro m Upstate NY (the real upstate ate-not just Albany) for Easter weekend. Like last year we bribed the boys (Dad , Hubby and Son) with a trip to Miller Smorgasbord if they would accompany us to Lancaster. Which of course would include a quilt store stop, or two.

We wanted to visit Sauder's but they had a death in the family and were closed that weekend-mom and I regrouped and headed to Brubakers. Last year we LOVED it and wanted to buy bunches. This year we walked in , around and out-hmmmm. The boys had a nice nap, which my husband informed me he took only because he could not get a signal on his Blackberry-he had no choice but to nap. Yeah right!

We left Brubakers and headed to The Old Country Store-well if you have a chance to go to the Lancaster area be sure to stop in this little town to not only visit this shop but the pottery shop, P. Buckly Moss Gallery, the little gift shops and the Kitchen Kettle Village!!! I found Triangle Paper at The Old Country Store-I have heard about it and seen it online but an too thrifty (cheap) to order it online without truly knowing what it's purpose. I bought finished 2" paper - thinking this would be a good test size having just used 2" finished Thangles for my MBIII quiltlett.

While in the little village of Intercourse-some day the 9 year old will find it funny-there was gift shop that showcased a quilt blowing in the breeze that was absolutely amazing . It is called Star Spin-amazing. I was determined to find the pattern or stand there long enough burning it to memory. A few shop stops later tucked in a corner and marked $5 was the PATTERN!!! Eureka! I will do one of these as it is stunning-here is an example: http://www.amishcountrylanes.com/Pages/hs118.shtml.

After that the boys were at their limit and we had to go feed them and head home-that and it was 6PM.

Saturday Mom and I went to Our Gathering Place so that I could pick up my months of BOM and then to Verna's. We found fabric at Verna's to put together a little something something that would test the Triangle Paper vs. the Thangles all for a mere $40. You have just GOT to LOVE Verna! While there I found that she had the Zippity Doo Dah line, so I picked up some 1/2 yard pieces of what she had-for what you ask....who knows.

That night we cut out our Verna's fabrics and tested the two products-for onsie twosies we like the Thangles but for bunches and bunches we like the Triangle paper.
After Easter weekend the hubby, kid and I headed to NC for the week-more on that the next blog.
Hope all is well in blog land-

Realization.....

The pre-story......I bought a new sewing machine last summer because after 14 years I wanted more features-stitches actually. The plan with the new machine was that some day I would buy a frame and put that on it and keep my 310 to piece on....well I LOVE the new machine. I love the features, I love the quiet, I love the size, just love it love it love it......SO I think that I will just move the machine back and forth from the frame. Yeah Right-sounded good though didn't it. In the mean time I gave the 310 to my step daughter. So I felt bad for not using my frame so I loaded the new machine on the frame, got quilt loaded, was ready to go and realized that I had forgotten the kitchen towel for the MBIII! I was afraid that if I took the machine off the frame I would postpone using it even longer than I have already. What was a quilter in desperate need to piece to do?????

BUY A NEW MACHINE! I thought about this for all about 10 seconds-just something simple, forward and backwards-Wal Mart surely will be able to fulfill my need for less than $100 (my limit without asking permission-and did I truly want to run it by the hubby???? Not so much). So I come home with a Singer Simple (yeah he noticed but has yet to say much 10 stitches all for $97!! Well a little bit more because of course I had to buy bobbins and needles that would fit.

I am excited now I can keep the new machine on the frame and still have something to piece with-a quilter's dream right????!!! NOPE!

I am a SEWING MACHINE SNOB and I want to piece on my Sapphire and I still want a Long arm on my frame (Bailey-waiting for Cowgirl Quilter to give feedback)!

The Singer is noisy, the needle does not go up and down on it's own, I have yet to find where I can get a 1/4 foot for it, what is up with the strange way the feet attach, it does not automatically cut the thread, it does not go as fast (sure sounds like it is speedy).......My hubby even commented on the loudness of it....oh well.

It is serving a purpose and so far it pieces quite nicely but this will be short term! The drive to save my $$ for the Bailey is heightened! Hurry on the reviews!

PS-this is not intended to offend any Singer sewing machine users-I am a Viking/Husqvarna type of girl. Apologies.