Just Keep Sewing, Just Keep Swimming!!

 We had our guild quilt retreat this past Friday and Saturday.  We just stayed in town, and met in a church fellowship hall, but it was so much fun.  The theme was Stitchery Witchery!  Above is the pumpkin I carved for the event.  There was a table/machine decoration contest.  I didn't win as there were some really elaborate themes!

It was also the last regular season football game for my nephews, Carter and Jackson.  I had the guild members hold up signs wishing them good luck.  They didn't win, so finished 8-1, but did get a playoff spot, so have at least one more game this Friday night.  I missed out on some of the quilting games as I had my headphones on to listen at the retreat while I was sewing.

My favorite Show and Tell from the retreat!

Some of my retreat accomplishments......

 12 blocks for my Farm Girl Vintage quilt

My mystery block...........we had a list of fabrics and sizes to bring, then we got another clue every couple of hours during the retreat.........This pumpkin block was the result!

6 Dashing Through the Snow blocks (I feel like adding "And a Partridge in a Pear Tree" here).  

But instead, I'll share how our weekend just went (Seven Swans a) swimming along........

The hubs and I headed to Columbia on Sunday after church to a swim meet!  New experience for us.

This is Kenzie (second cousin from Omaha).  Isn't she gorgeous!  She's a freshman and was in Columbia for a swim meet all weekend at the Mizzou Aquatic Center.  We learned a whole lot about swim meets!  I even have a swim meet app on my phone now.  

She's in the top lane, lane 1 in this photo with a green swim cap.

We got to see her swim the 100 freestyle and the 1000 freestyle.  

 Just keep swimming........ I was impressed that some of her splits (I guess that's what you call them), got faster as the race progressed.  

The 1000 was the last race of the meet and required 40 laps!  Apparently all that swimming can really make you hungry because the hubs and I stopped at Dickey's BBQ Pit after the meet and devoured our meals!  I'm guessing Kenzie was devouring some pizza on the bus ride back to Omaha since she was the one who actually swam all those laps!

Christi

I've Got the Music in Me!

The Stitch by Stitch Quilters really got into the spirit of the Musical Inspiration Challenge.  Sit back and start adding songs to your play list!

"I Put a Spell on You!"  I loved this Halloween inspired quilt.

"On the Road Again" by Willie Nelson - antique cars embroidered and made into a quilt!

"Grandma's Feather Bed" by John Denver...........all homespuns with pillow ticking on the back!

"Radioactive" was really out of the norm for Becky!

John Denver makes a second appearance with "Country Roads, Take Me Home".  This was the neatest bag and it won the Challenge prize!

"Freebird"  The flying geese say it all!

"The Star Spangle Banner" was represented by this patriotic table runner.

"One Particular Harbor" by Jimmy Buffet........Judy had been to the east coast to see the lighthouses.

"My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music.  Carol had made bowl cozies for herself from kitten, mitten, and rose fabrics.  Clever!

"The William Tell Overture" aka The Lone Ranger Theme........Ellen made this horse table runner.

"Jessica's Theme" from The Man from Snowy River.  Kaitlyn had a scene sillhouette screen printed onto her fabric, then embroidered the first measure of the music and the backing fabric actually came from Australia.  She's one of my former piano students, and this was her "signature" piece of music.  I think we learned at least 3 versions of it over the course of her piano career.

"Wild Thing, You Make My Heart Sing"  was the song inspiration for this cute quilt.

"Little Boxes" was the song title, it was the theme music for the tv show Weeds.  Cute quilt made only from scraps.

And mine..........."Soft Kitty" from The Big Bang Theory.  I didn't get my own picture at the meeting, so had to take one at the quilt show.  There are 104 pieces in this, not counting the gray border.  It was definitely a challenge.

So, go update your play list and enjoy the music!
Christi

Corn and Pumpkins

As you can see, corn harvest is happening!  This photo was taken last Tuesday when I came home from work to find my natural privacy fence missing.  I had begun to feel better, so took some time to ride along in the combine with the hubs.

Here's my view from the combine...........

And here is my driver, talking on the phone while driving!

Unfortunately, the whole feeling better after the sinus infection that settled into the right side of my face was short-lived.  Wednesday morning I got up to discover that I was allergic to the antibiotic (I had been taking it for over a week) and I had a wonderful rash all over.  I went to the doctor and he changed the antibiotic and put me on steriods which really bother me, so I was back to sitting around and resting.  I had some binding projects to work on, and I had a little help.

Nemo tried to comfort me by nestling close while I was binding some smaller projects.

Here's our attempt at a selfie...........

Can you just feel the stress in him???!!!  He might have been a little stressed if he had realized just how many times I dropped my needle on him.  I would feel around his fur gently until I found it and he would just purr louder as I "petted" him!

What were we working on???

This is my own design.  I had been looking at pumpkin carving ideas on pinterest and was remembering a stack of carved pumpkins at the public library one year (a long time ago when we took Sarah there for story time).  I was contemplating trying something like it this year, but getting the right size pumpkins was going to be tricky.  So, I decided to make it in fabric.  All of the little squares are 1.5" and finish at 1".  I drew it out on graph paper, and had to make lots of adjustments as it first started out way too tall.  That bottom pumpkin had to be squished down a little (which is probably what gives him such crazy eyes!).  It was still pretty long, so I finally eliminated the mouth on the top one and scrunched the mouth on the second from the top.  For the eyes, I went back and looked at Sarah's Veggie Tales videos and tried to emulate Bob the Tomato, and Larry the Cucumber's eyes, but made with squares and half square triangles.  I tried to make each Jack-o-lantern with different shadings of orange, to give them a little more definition.  I think the top stem should have been made with a darker green so it would show up in the background fabric better.  I had originally intended to cut all the background fabric into 1.5" squares and then sew them back together, but as I got into the project, it started to seem a little silly to cut apart the same piece of fabric and just sew it back together.  The teeth are made from music note fabric, so it appears as though the teeth are a little dirty.  The eyes are just odds and ends of black buttons leftover in my button box..........none really match.  

I'm contemplating writing up a pattern.  There are some things I would definitely do differently, but I think it's pretty cute.  I'm calling it Stack of Jacks.

I also finished this Halloween Wall Hanging..........

This comes from a panel called Salem Quilt Show.  If I hadn't gotten my first idea for my Musical Inspiration Challenge Project finished, I would have used this and the musical inspiration would have been the Frank Sinatra tune, "Witchcraft".  But, my first idea turned out really well.............I just can't share it yet since we have our meeting tomorrow night and it will be presented at the "recital" with everyone's entries.  I'm sure I'll have lots of interesting pictures to post from that meeting.

I love all the colors in this wall hanging.  I just raided my 2.5" squares and strips and didn't really have to cut much of anything for this.

So, this wall hanging will be shown during show and tell Tuesday night, and then I'm mailing it to my sister.  She has the perfect rack to hang it on in her hallway.  Yes, it's a surprise and it will be a surprise to her because I'm pretty sure she doesn't read my blog.

I also finished binding a set of placemats that will be a Christmas present for one of my nephews.

These were made from homespun fabrics.  There will be cloth napkins from homespuns as well.  Again, I'm not worried about showing it before Christmas as my brother's family doesn't read my blog either.

That's all for now.............I'm sure there will be many more pics from the quilt meeting tomorrow evening.

Christi

Creative Juice

I'm sorry to say that my creative juices just haven't been flowing the last week or so........probably due to being sick, a trip to the ER a week ago, and in general just feeling lousy.  However, the juices are not coming back too quickly..........probably due to the good meds I've been on.  It was discovered last Monday at the dentist office that I have a really bad sinus infection in my right cheek.  This discovery was made after the trip to the ER Saturday night because of the intense pain in the right side of my face, jaw, and teeth.  The ER doc didn't really listen to me because he was sure it was in infected tooth and told me to see the dentist.  The dentist did one of those wonderful panoramic x-rays (yes, I saw myself as a Halloween skull!), and it was quite obvious where the infection was.  Of course, you could also see it in my cheek just by looking at me (which I'm quite sure the ER doc never did).  Anyway, I only worked a couple of mornings last week, cancelled all my piano students, and spent a lot of time on the couch.  I did read one book, and watched way too much television.  But that's all I really felt like doing.  Whenever I did feel like it, I went to the sewing room to do a little work on whatever was laying around.

This little Christmas tree wall hanging got sewn together.  It's made from 15 of the Bonnie Hunter leader/ender blocks I had done.  I'm going to send it to my mom to hand quilt.  

And the baby chick block from the Farm Girl Vintage quilt got finished.  

I finished putting the borders on my Friday Night Lights project during the Rams football game on Friday night (more on the football games later).  The binding is even ready.

And I finished sewing some blocks for a potential mystery quilt next year (mystery means no photos!)

So, in just picking up little projects that were here and there on the cutting table and sewing machines and feeling like doing little more than dropping fabrics back into fabric tubs, my sewing room now looks like this.

 Nothing started on the cutting table............

Note the box of tissues at the ready by the sewing machine.........

No spark of something interesting to come!  It's really kind of scary looking!

Leia and Nemo came in to keep me company one day.  They took the recliner, so I slept on the couch.

Apparently Nemo snores, so Leia moved to the window seat.

Cici has made herself at home on DD's bed upstairs.  I told DD that this is what happens when you stay away from home for over a month!

And this is Judith the newest addition to the Bentley cat brigade.  She is very sweet and loving to us, but doesn't care for other cats.  She stays outside and has made herself at home with us.  

Saturday I made supper for my in-laws.  Brisket, potato casserole, green beans, jello, deviled eggs, homemade crescent rolls, and cake.  They are celebrating their birthdays (Sept 30 and Oct. 1).  This was the mum we bought them and delivered.

I tried a new cake recipe.........caramel pumpkin cream cheese poke cake.  It was pretty good!

So here's hoping to a better week.  I'm really hoping to feel better.  I miss my piano students and would like to be doing something interesting in the sewing room

Christi

Iowa Travels

I'm finally finding time to share some of our adventures in Iowa last weekend.  We drove the pickup (more on why later) and were heading to Jefferson via a stop in Winterset to see the John Wayne Museum.  Unfortunately, I-35 was closed (I mean totally closed, all 4 lanes, both directions, with detours) before we wanted to turn off.  The detour seemed to be taking us in the opposite direction we wanted to go, so we struck out on our own.  I used my phone to find a new route, and we hit another detour.  After some gravel roads (in which I jokingly referenced Sarah's trip home from college for last Thanksgiving, saying I wasn't opening any gates, and there were some gates, but we didn't go through them), we finally arrived in Winterset.  We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant then headed to the museum.

These pictures are of Freedom Rock outside the museum.

There is supposed to be a Freedom Rock in every county in Iowa.  We also enjoyed the museum and John Wayne's boyhood home.

Then we headed on to Jefferson...............in the pickup because we were delivering this.

The hubs had made another fire pit.  It weighed about 250 lbs., so getting it out of the truck and into their back yard required part of the football team (they were hanging out there before the game, so we were happy to provide them with some entertainment).

So now Deb and Chad have a new fire pit in their back yard.  Notice the heart engraved on the tree trunk.

Then, we went to the awesome football game..........which was mentioned in a previous post!  However, I now know we were witnessing history at that football game.  When Carter returned 2 punts for touchdowns, he became the Rams single-season and career record holder.  He also leads the entire state of Iowa, across all classes in return TDs, punt return yards (279) and yards per return (39.9).  This is his first year as the punt return guy too.  So, history was made!

On Saturday morning, we went for a drive (I made them take me to Fairway to sign up for the gift cards that are given on the radio whenever the Rams score), checking out the new school that is being built, Deal's Orchard where I picked up some of the best cider, and we visited a wood shop where everything is done with hand tools.  I was allowed to photograph the shop, but not the furniture they had made...........which is too bad, because it was lovely.

Here are some of my photos..........

Here he is using a hand crank planer............it's blurry because he moved it so fast!

And there is a theatre in the back of the shop that does Broadway-style musicals.  It's called the Hickory Boy Theater Co.  They had just finalized what their next musical would be, but he couldn't reveal it yet.

There was the lingering scent of popcorn from the popcorn machine in the back and wood shavings from the shop in the front.

Wouldn't this be a fun thing to do????

And so, that pretty much tells the tale of our adventure in Iowa.  We made it back home without any detours, so that was good.

Christi