Gone…

Have you ever looked for something only to find it’s gone?

I have opened, moved, and unpacked every bin and box in my sewing room and I cannot find what I’m looking for.

The other night I started out looking for some samples I had made from the Bits and Pieces Book a few years ago.  I know I got these back from Southampton Quilts late last winter and was going to send them back to display again.  After I had gone through and looked everywhere the first time I realized that I also did not see the fabric I had bought for the back of my grandsons quilt. ?????  The quilt I need to be working on soon.  I can visualize both of these items in my sewing room.

Sunday I started at one end of my sewing room and opened everything, looked through every bin, box, and drawer.  I looked in the attic storage space, I looked in the storage cubby, I looked in the basement, and went through every other place that had a door, drawer, or cover to it.

I found nothing…

As I’ve pondered this over the past few days I realize I’ve also not seen a tote bag of quilting samples and some other finished pieces… I haven’t a clue where I could have stashed them.

I’m having a really hard time wrapping my head around this… I guess I should make a list of the things I haven’t seen so that I know what I’m looking for.  Phooey!

The worst part is now I have to go find new fabric for the back of my grandsons quilt… uuuugggghhh!

Shop Hop Weekend… in 500 Pictures

nah… just kidding about the 500 pictures!

I’ll put a slide show below of the pictures I took at Southampton Quilts during the weekend and the pictures my Quilty Friend Judy took of the Shop Hop Quilt at all the shops for me.  I had designed the quilt this year for the Hop so I was quite excited to see the design done up in so many different fabrics!

This was the 9th year of the Hop… I was one of the original 200 or so that participated the first year.  So it is exciting that this year there were more than 1,200 that signed up for the 3 day event with the 8 shops.

I was so happy to be able to go up and work the event.  Yes we were busy!  But it was a fun busy. 

I especially enjoyed seeing old friends!  Quilters are the Best kind of people!

 

Shop Hop 2010

Morning!

This is what it looked like a little before 7:00 AM here today.  No this is not what I woke up to… it was still very dark when I got up (and stayed up) today at 4:20 AM.  Since being sick I haven’t stayed up after making coffee, setting up breakfast, and packing a lunch for The Engineer so he can head out the door by 5:30.  I’ve gone back to bed and gotten up closer to 6:30… when the dog decides she’s waited long enough to eat and makes me get up.

I was upstairs sewing when the person on the local radio mentioned that it was a pretty sunrise and everyone should go look.  So I did… and I’m sharing it with you.

Oh yeah and this…  I’m heading up next week to MA to work at Southampton Quilts during the Massachusetts Shop Hop.  They have a 50’s theme this year… so I was thinking about making a circle skirt to wear.  I found some cute 50’s housewife-ish floral fabric – figured I could cut it up and use it in a quilt when I was done.  But before using the good stuff – I wanted to try a sample out.  Pulled out another floral I had – made up the skirt – put elastic in the waist – put a turned under hem on it. 

Really cute skirt… except that when you put a circle skirt on someone who’s short and a little ‘roundish’… well…

Think clown cars, trapeze swings, and fishnet clad ladies riding galloping horses in circles… all I need is some rope and wooden stakes to anchor it down.

I’m thinking a trip to Christopher & Banks is in my future… I still have a gift certificate!

Switching Things Up

For those of you who follow along via a ‘Reader’ of some sort – you won’t notice that I changed the layout and background a bit.  I’ve chosen a different Blogger layout and since it is Fall I’ve selected a fall background.  Not sure how long those leaves will last – my plan is to throw some quilt pictures into the background but I will have to take new pictures to make that happen properly.

I’ve also added a ‘Pages’ listing over on the side bar.  I have my University Class Projects List there… that is where I’ll track the projects I’m working on and their completion.  I’ll still yak about it in a blog post – but that will serve as a ‘one stop shopping’ place (for Miss Professor Beth) to track my progress.  There is also a link back to the most current Blog page… wouldn’t want you to get lost.

I did vacuum top to bottom yesterday… not that it much matters because the dog tracks dirt in all day long.

I cooked up the last batch of tomatoes yesterday and made tomato soup out of some of it for dinner and froze 2 quarts of sauce.  The leftover soup we’ll have tomorrow for dinner – tonight I’m making smoked sausage and cabbage.  The leftovers of that will end up in a soup… mmmm that is really good and all you need to do is add some chicken both.

I love it that it’s soup weather again… mmmm, mmmm, mm!

And just a little moment up on my soapbox…

Wouldn’t it be nice if the candidates who make false claims about themselves and their competition had to then make a commercial and state what they said that was wrong and apologize to the public.  When I was a kid I learned a valuable lesson when I lied to a friends mom when I told her that my mom said I could come over to their house after school.  After I got home - My mom made me call that friends mother and tell her I had lied to her and that I was sorry.  I never did that again.

Why doesn’t the ‘truth in advertising’ apply to political advertisement? 

I’d really like this candidate to run a write-in campaign…

Noneof Theabove

I think they would win.

I’m stepping down now…

October?? Already?

It seems like it was just yesterday I was listening to the annoying AC units wishing I could just throw open the windows and let fresh air in.  Now those units are off and what windows might be open are open only a tiny bit as it’s rather chilly out there.

We had quite a bit of rain last week and topped off with 7 inches one day.  The ground was already rather moist so it didn’t take too long for the ground water to push up in three places in our basement.  I wish I had taken a picture or video – there was a river flowing (really – making trickling noises and all) from where it was coming in - right into a floor drain in two spots and into the sump pump in the third. 

We have always (for the past 30 years anyway) put things up on pallets of some sort… a lesson we learned long ago when water came in a basement of a house we were renting.  We only had to clean that mess up once to know we didn’t want to do it again.  We also firmly believe in sump pumps… they only have to run once in their life times to make them worth the money and effort.

On Saturday The Engineer discovered the well pit had about 4 feet of water in it.  Good thing he had shut off the electrical supply to that earlier in the week when he was doing some wiring work.  Took several hours with a portable sump pump to clear it out – but no damage done to the equipment down there.  The well water is only used for the outside spigots.

On the quilting front - I did have a finish last week.  This is Star Whimsy from the Star Savvy - Laps From Fats book by Good Intentions.

The first picture is of several blocks before final assembly.  I pulled all my fabrics from the same line – but a couple of the lighter fabrics are a bit too light from a distance and especially with a flash.

The colors are very washed out in this picture… seems the lights here are too bright.

This is my first finish towards a PHD at Southampton Quilts -  Quilt University.

I am currently working on a BOM for a shop sample so this should qualify under my ‘Work Study – Coop Program’.  I’ll have some pictures and details later on it.  Blues and Browns… uuummm pretty!

Oh and a cute fusible applique wall quilt… more details to follow on that.

Now I need to go clean my house… it so needs to be done.  I also need to either cook or throw away those tomatoes… somebody please make them stop! 

I think the next nice day I’ll go out and pull the plants up out of the ground – that will do it!