I'm Baccckkk!!!

Whew....it's been a rough month of May but I am finally back on track....i think.

I was off to Overland Park, Kansas from the 9th through the 15th for the longarm specific show of MQS. it was my first time there and i definitely had fun. i took 3 classes and filled my brain with new ideas. did not spend a lot of money with vendors, though. (except for one). i got a ruler from DeLoa Jones with 1/4" lines etched on it; some of Irena Bluhm's books. i took a class from her and she is so much fun and i learned a lot.

The biggest thing i bought was the Quiltazoid system. I was looking at the Circle Lord system but they couldn't answer my questions to my satisfaction. a gal in one of my classes pointed me in the direction of the Quiltazoid and told me to check it out. i liked it a lot and ordered the whole thing. they are relatively new in the market...their 2nd year...he is an engineer who builds them in his garage (for now). the price was terrific but i think it will go up as he sells more of them. i have about a 5 week wait to get all my goodies. check them out online   http://www.quiltazoid.com/    very cool stuff.

Then my grandson graduated from high school and my son came up from Texas for the hurrah. we picked him up at the airport  on the 21st and took him to see my sis's house in the country. while he was here we conned him into taking a window air conditioner UP to the second floor. and a stove and frigerator DOWN to the first floor. having a son with muscle always is a plus in my book. we put the stove in the alley for a giveaway and it was gone in less than 24 hours. and the frig will now live in the downstairs kitchen. after the graduation party and ceremony in an extremely hot school gym with about a zillion people in it, we had to take my son back to the airport at 3am  on the 24th so he could catch a 6am flight home. sleep was catch as catch can for the weekend.

here is the graduate...shaking hands and getting the diploma.

and here is my son and his son. i can't believe he wore that dorky straw hat but he loves it. LOL the grandson is going to college close to home and taking nursing classes...hope that works out well for him.

Then my sis and i went back to her house and did yard work for a day and inside plaster work for a day. the house is slowly getting prettied up.

after coming home and chilling for a day or so i am finally getting back into my routine. so, last night i finished my tomato block for the veggie quilt. my dh didn't recognize any of them as tomatoes. oh well.

So, off i go to seeing if i remember how to quilt after all this time away from home. talk to you soon.

Corn

I got the corn done last night. dh thinks the one without the corn showing looks like  a rabbit. when i showed it to him without the other ear he didn't know what it was. i don't think it looks THAT bad but now everytime i look at it...i see a rabbit!  darn him anyway!

There was another type of corn that had the corn showing in the middle but a 'flap' of husk covering it...3D type. it was kind of cool. depending on how i put the top together there might be more veggies in the borders or something.

 

This is probably all you will hear from me until i get back from MQS on the 16th. then i shall probably have lots to share.

Tomorrow is scheduled for packing and mowing once again if it doesn't rain. and it sure looks tonight like it is going to rain.

We went to Bill's funeral today. the graveside service had the full military honors with the 21 gun salute and the bugler playing Taps. it was very moving...i had never witnessed it before. watching them fold the flag and give it to Ruth brought a tear to the eye. Bill had lots of relatives and friends there to tell him good-bye and i believe Ruth appreciated all the support. and they placed one of the shell casings from the 21 gun salute inside the flag when it was folded...i never knew they did that, either. learned new things today....always good.

Would you ask Picasso to paint your garage?

Why is it that people think if you have a sewing machine that you patch or mend or fix things. i used to do that and sometimes still do. this is one of those times.

My hubby's buddy brought me 2 jackets. one had a tiger on the back and dragons on the sleeves. he wanted those embroidered items put onto the other jacket. so i said...'sure, why not'. it sat in the studio for a couple weeks and i looked at it once or twice and thought about it a bit.

Today i decided to tackle it. my first thought was to cut it out and fuse it to the other jacket and then just stitch around it. but they were both nylon and i figured they would melt under the iron. so i cut them out, leaving some space to turn them under. i decided to cut the tiger in a circle. it has letters on top of it but we didn't want those. the dragons and the tiger was a bit too wide for the back of the jacket so i put the circle of the tiger kind of over the edges of the dragons. we won't even talk about the tiger jacket being blue and the other jacket being marroon. LOL

I had to stretch out the bottom of the jacket and tape it to the table then try and pin the designs in place and keep the lining from bunching up at the same time. it was a pain...i think it would have been easier to just sew another jacket. when i cut out the tiger, it did not lay flat so i put some batting under it to take up some space.

Once i pinned them down with about a zillion pins i stitched around them and then went around the tiger and one side of the dragons so the batting wouldn't shift. the designs went from one side seam to the other all the way across the back.

LD liked it and had a big smile on his face so it was a success and that is all that matters. oh, and i embroidered his company name, Stampede Recording, on the front of the jacket, too. he says he bought the jacket because it has the "S" on it. LOL
 

LD is the guitar player for their band, Country Crossroads. They are building a recording studio in part of our barn. My hubby has been learning how to record the music onto CD's. I have a feeling there are going to be some hours of music shenanigans out there soon. but they say they are soundproofing the place so i shouldn't hear anything.

We shall see.

Celery

Celery...i'm told it is good for you. but i haven't found too much use for it. ok, perhaps in egg salad or tuna salad. i think i have a jar of celery flakes in the pantry for cooking...doesn't get used too much. some people put peanut butter in it...i say yuck to that. hahahaaha

This was another persnickety block...lots of skinny pieces. the first one had a lighter background and didn't have enough contrast, so i trashed it. so, i made 3 blocks all together and all of them turned out different. paper piecing is hard work. LOL

DH wanted to know why they weren't green...they ARE green...green stripes...just not dark green.

Next is corn...surely that will be easier.

Eat Your Veggies!

Asparagus

Here is the asparagus block. i intended to make 3 stalks of these but they were so persnickety that i barely made it through 2 of them.

Those are some tiny, tiny pieces in there...some of them 1/4" or less. i had to give up after 2.

And now i am dealing with celery and corn. the first celery i made i threw out...there wasn't enough contrast to see what it was. so the next one came out better. i am going to make 1 more of them. those pieces are really skinny. i might have bit off more than i can chew on this quilt but i will prevail.

I am going to be missing in action for a week or so after Sunday...i am going to MQS in Kansas for the week. taking some fun classes and doing a little quilt drooling and just maybe some retail therapy.

I am trying to get some home chores (mowing) done around here before i go and i still need to do laundry and start packing. and Friday is pretty much taken up with a funeral. our dear friend, Bill, died Monday night after trying to come back from a stroke for over a year. he was Jigs' 'daddy'. of course, Jigs is still hanging around our house...where the action is. LOL i don't know what will become of him. i have a feeling Ruth might be moving and probably won't take Jigs with her. he is a farm dog through and through.

Keep on keepin' on.