My baby and HIS babies

Craig hates it when I call him "my baby" but he's going to have to put up with it anyway! I usually only post photos of the kids, but as they sat snuggled up to Craig on the sofa tonight I just had to take a photo. Aren't they cute? (photos clickable for larger view)




I had a silly Halloween head band that I wore at retreat. Hayden tried it on when I got home. I'm sure it looked much cuter on her than on me!

Back from Retreat

I returned Sunday from our State Guild's annual retreat. As always it was a wonderful weekend, even though we had quite a storm on Friday night. The wind was bad enough to uproot a huge oak tree on the grounds of the retreat center.

I brought my own projects to work on for the weekend rather than taking a class. I had several projects but ended up working only on this seasonal calendar quilt. The lady holds up the different mini-quilts depending on the season. This is not my normal type of work and I didn't realize how LONG it takes to do the machine buttonhole stitch on applique like this. I spent the entire weekend doing the stitching on the woman and on the 6 mini-quilts on the bottom. I finished the stitching on the 3 on the top row today. Now I have to quilt all of them. After that is done, I'll sew buttons on for eyes. (photos are clickable for larger view)



This was our sewing room - with Jolene, Maureen & JoAnne in the photo.




We had a special art car display on Saturday and Sunday (after all the bad weather had passed through). What fun it was to see this quilt covering a PT Cruiser.

Here's the front of the car


And here are the 2 sides. I noticed that the kids are not in carseats!



Unfortunately, I didn't get the whole story on this so I don't know if it was made by just one person or was a group effort.

EDITED TO ADD - Thanks to Kristin's comment, I learned that the maker of the car quilt is a woman in her 80's and that she made it all herself! That's quite an undertaking. Thanks Kristin.

Retreating

I've been lax in blogging for the past week or so. No excuses for it, just lax!

I leave on Thursday for out state guild's annual retreat. It's held at a church camp facility in about the middle of the state. Classes are conducted by teachers from within the state. Some are part day, some full day, and some are all weekend. Rooms are also set aside for those that want to bring their own projects. It's always a fun weekend. I'll be in the BYOP room - I don't need to start any new projects.

I'll try to get photos while there, but in the meantime, I'll just have to post photos of the cute grandkids.

Noah likes to climb in the door frames. He thinks it's fun. I think it's crazy!

Hayden LOVES her riding toy. She's not very good at steering yet, so gets frustrated when she ends up somewhere she didn't intend to be.

Hayden also loves to be outside. She's always asking to go out. She even likes to nap outside. I think grandpa was almost asleep with her.

Chrystal decided that Hayden would be a pumpkin this year for Halloween and asked me to make this dress. The pattern is for a little criss-cross sundress, that I've made for her before. She'll be wearing some sort of top under the dress. I think Chrys said it would be black.

I was able to find pumpkin buttons for the shoulders.


See ya after retreat!

25th Anniversary challenge

My guild, Cobblestone Quilters Guild, celebrated its 25th anniversary last week. I was in charge of the challenge. The theme for the challenge was the basket that the guild uses as its logo.



We had about 20 entries - including an actual basket! My intent was to photograph each quilt individually; however, I didn't get around to doing that until after they had been pinned to the drapes and the ones up top were really too high to get a good photograph. (or maybe I'm just too short!)

We awarded first, second and third place ribbons all based on viewer vote. Two of the quilts were hanging for exhibition only as they exceeded the size requirements.

Here are the quilts hanging (click on photos for a larger view) My personal fav was Virginia's at the upper right of this photo. It has a dimensional basket and the background actually had a cobblestone road. It's unfortunate that the photo doesn't show it very well. My almost naked man is also in this photo.


My second entry was the basket on blue in the middle right (underneath the actual basket).


First place was Lynne Turner-Liro's whole cloth. It's kind of hard to tell that this is a light pink color.



Karen Kendo took second with her whole cloth. Both Lynne and Karen quilt professionally and have lots of ribbons attesting to their beautiful work.



Third was Donna Walters' original design. She used a combination of paper piecing and traditional piecing.



It was fun to see how each participant translated the theme.

TTT gang gets dressed up

Last night most of the TTT gang attended the wedding of Sheila's daughter, Julie. We decided to go sans spouses and acted as each other's dates.

The wedding was held at the Charleston Maritime Center and was supposed to be outside. Unfortunately Mother Nature did not cooperate and they had to set up inside. The weather did make for a really cool looking sky though.


In spite of the weather wrinkle, it was a beautiful wedding with a radiant bride. I was very impressed by the flower girl and the ring bearer. So many times the young kids get stage fright and do something unexpected; however these 2 did their jobs beautifully. During the special dances - bride/groom, bride/dad, etc the two youngsters stood patiently watching - holding hands the entire time. They were so cute!

Here are the TTTers - left to right - Janice, Maureen, Joanne, Betsy, Karen, Frances & Virginia. (click photos for larger view)



Another guest took this photo for us and caught Frances with her eyes closed.
Front row - Frances, Betsy, Joanne, Karen, me. Back row- Janice, Virginia & Maureen.


It was a wonderful evening and it was fun to see everyone without threads hanging off their clothes.

A second block

This afternoon I made a 2nd illusion block out of the remaining fabrics from my small packages of 1/8th yard gradated fabrics. I really like the illusion these blocks give.

Another Quilt University class

I seem to have become a professional QU class taker! Currently I'm taking a class with Karen Combs on Patchwork Illusions. I really love quilts with the illusion of depth so Karen's work has always appealed to me.

Today I stitched up my first Illusion block and I think it's kind of cool. The colors in the photo are a bit washed out.


More years ago than I can remember I purchased two packages of fabric - one orange, one teal - that were 8 step gradations. The packages contained only 1/8 yard of each fabric and I never really found a use for them, but they were perfect for this class. I will make another block using 3 more of the fabrics. Unfortunately I don't have enough to make a 3rd block.

Karen will be visiting Charleston next spring when she comes to speak at the Quilters of South Carolina spring meeting. I'm looking forward to seeing her quilts in person.

New Currency

I saw one of the new dollar bills today...