June SBS (Sylvia's Bridal Sampler) Challenge Done

With one day to Spare I completed the 5 challenge blocks plus 2 from the BOW list that I needed to make. I got to choose the Blocks of the Week for July. B-8 Mrs Cleveland's Choice, J-3 Farmer's Daughter, F-4 Old Maid's Puzzle D-5 Square and Star,K-1 Road to Oklahoma,C-9 Grandmother's Pride, D-10 Boy's Nonsense That brings my 30's SBS to 47 blocks made so far. I don't plan to finish this one in a hurry like the last one. If I don't make all 140 I will finish sooner. I haven't worked much on the 30's SBS this year. It was fun to play with these fabrics again.

Design Wall Monday - June 28, 2010

Before we left to go shop hopping last week I sewed up these 4 D9P blocks with the "Aloha" fabric from Jennifer Chiaverini. I have been anxiously waiting for them to come to the Thread and Bolts shop where I sew. Just ask Lynn. The outside pieces are the main floral fabric that will be the border. I have to make a few more blocks to make a lap sized quilt at least. There are some Digital quilting patterns we downloaded called "Hawaiian Beauty" that I want to try on this quilt so it won't be on the wall long, I hope. I had to wait until today to put them on the wall. Busy week-end. I took down my Black, White and Red SBS Swap blocks so I look at these. Another SBS swapper has her quilt all together, set on point with red cornerstones and black sashing. It is stunning and I may have to see how mine look on point. Check out other Design Walls at patchworktimes.

Crazy Shop Hopping!

Lynn W (my quilt buddy) and I made the mad dash over to the west side of Washington this week and boy are we CRAZY! The Western Washington Shop Hop is happening so we both printed out the over 50 shops flier and left Wednesday in the AM! Our first stop was Maple Valley where we got the patterns for a 'leaf' block made with the Shop Hop Fabrics. They also had the Shop Hop pins and a pin from their shop. The shops, all but one, had a "finishing kit" to purchase along with the Pattern and we just had to get them too... We followed the shops on the map around the lower west side going to Puyallup, Orting at the Wild Rose Quilt Shop, sponsor of the GRAND PRIZE Quilt retreat. This lady was sitting outside the shop so we had the raffle quilt ladies take our picture with her. At Parkland Parish they dress up as "church ladies" and even have a Quilter's Confessional. A 13 year old girl had a Cat quilt she made for Cancer awareness. She was selling the raffle tickets. I forgot to take her picture. Tacoma (2 shops), & Des Moines. We saw so much Eye Candy in the shops, some was even in the bathrooms... you never know where you will get inspiration. Then we got the bright idea to travel to the farthest north that we thought we could make in one day and work our way back. So next was Mt Vernon...where we had the young lady in front of the store take our picture. On to Stanwood (2 shops)Both had the Pastel Tulip Quilt as their Raffle quilt. One had the full sized quilt and the other had a mini version. The guild member who sells the most tickets wins the mini quilt. In Arlington we were able to purchase past years blocks too, Cute little sewing machines and a car in front of the shop with awnings even 3-D. At Smokey Point...the shop is called "AUNT MARY'S QUILT SHOP", they had popcorn and the pattern for last years block. Then on to Everett where we got the "bunny" block and we stopped to get our favorite Jack in the Box Milkshake. Here are the blue skies we witnessed while traveling on the WET SIDE. Down the road next was Bothell. We thought we arrived with just minutes to spare and saw the ladies packing things up in front of the shop. They wouldn't give us their pattern or stamp our passports, saying we were 5 minutes late. It looked like a cute shop, we were weary so we just went to our hotel where we collapsed on big fluffy beds. Dinner was Soup at the "Denny's across the parking lot. We were too tired to eat the sandwich we ordered so it went in the fridge over night. I called my Cousin who gave me the phone number for Pacific Fabrics. We were looking all day in every shop for the Jackie Robinson "Roses" Fabric that we used for our Design Challenge. I need more of the Black that goes with it. We didn't see it in any of the stores and no one had the Jennifer Chiaverini "Aloha Fabric" either. Friday Morning we had breakfast and got back on the road. It was hard to decide where to start since we'd missed three shops to the North. So we went to the shop in Bellevue (hard to find, really, we had to call them for directions several times)where we saw the Raffle Quilt with a center Design of the Seattle Skyline. This trip is the closest Lynn has ever been to the Space Needle. If we had the time we spent driving around and around downtown Seattle we could have gone up she said. But we needed to find the Dr Office and go for her appointment, the real reason for the trip... Also on the agenda was a stop at the Sewing Machine repair shop. We got a lesson in taking the tension apart. Here is where Lynn had to park while I ran into the shop at Pikes Place Market. They were kind enough to stamp both passports for us and didn't have a finishing Kit to purchase. Pike's place is a place that I've been but never can find when I've gone to Seattle with Paul alone. Maybe next time over there we can find it. The shop hop was a last minute, make the trip more fun idea. We saw parts of our state we'd never seen before and met some very nice Quilt ladies who helped us navigate and made our trip more enjoyable. Most were amazed at how far we'd come from and liked our shirts. I told them we traveled this far to show them. Of all the 16 shops we didn't see any of the OWL blocks that are in the Shop Hop Quilt on the poster. I wonder WHOOOOO had the Owl patterns? We got squirrels, fish, trees and flowers. Major SUI's and WHIMM's from going over there. We did have some fun and got our 16 shops required to turn in our passports at Ballard We even got to show them our "Ring Around the Rosy" Design and gave them instructions to VOTE. Only a few days left... have you voted? http://www.animasquilts.com/Entries.html

Design Wall Monday 6-21-10

Happy 1st day of Summer! I was at my WASIQ (Washington State Internet Quilters)Retreat in Leavenworth, Wasington this past week and I worked on several of my UFO's that have been on Design Wall Monday. Friday night while everyone but Lynda, Denise and I were asleep I put one up on the makeshift Design Wall we had and took this picture. This is my "WASIQ Siggy Quilt" that I've been adding signatures to since the 2008 SWAP. I now have 90 squares signed and the final outside Border is on for good. I had taken it off to add more after Expo this year. Lynn and I put the outside border on to complete the 'slanted stars'. It is ready to be quilted. YEA! I took several projects to work on and only one didn't get worked on at all. Pretty good for me. My "Secret Project" uses five 1/2 yards of fabric and will appear on my design wall in July after I unveil it at Guild. I only played with the block pieces on Sunday since my Mom and Grandma always told me, "You'll have to pick those stitches out with your nose if you sew on Sunday". Anyone else have a grandma who said that??? There were 16 WASIQ Retreat-ers this year and we took two parting pictures to get everyone in one. Check out the Design Wall posts by clicking Mr Linky at Judy L's Blog

Happy Birthday to #1 DD

I would never have started a Blog if it weren't for NaDell. I am happy to wish her a Happy Birthday from 'cyberspace" this year. I'm going on retreat and Dad is at Girl's Camp. She was born when we lived in Mesa, Washington. Our 3rd child, she has 2 big brothers. I was so happy to finally have a baby girl to curl her hair and make frilly dresses for... too bad she really didn't like her dresses frilly, but when she was little I got to choose them. She always got a lot of comments about her red hair and where it came from. I say she was sent directly from Heaven where my mom and Dad picked her out for me. That's why her name is so unusual... She was named after my mom in a way. I took the first two letters of NaOla, added Adell- capitalizing the "D' like the "O". She has had to correct people all her life to spell it right. Even the newspaper got it wrong calling her "Maybell". It's fun to look back at what she remembers about her childhood and see how she has grown. She does a lot of things like I did when I was in Umatilla, always busy serving others and volunteering. She makes life more fun for her family and all of us who know her and love her. Hope her day is a Happy one. I know 9 years ago how happy she was to get married on her Birthday. Congrats to Andy & NaDell, I'll never forget that Day! OXOXOXO

Shameless Plug...

http://www.animasquilts.com/Entries.html Ok, Friends... I'm asking for your help! Click on the link above and check out the entries for the Animas Contest. My entries are on the bottom part of the first page. Numbers 22, 23 & 30 are the ones with my name on them. #30 is in collaboration with my Fellow Quilter; Lynn. It's your choice of course which one you vote for. But please VOTE! The winner gets the fabric to make her whole quilt design and the design will be published in a Quilt Magazine. VOTING INSTRUCTIONS 1. Place the Block # of your choice in the Subject line of the email. 2. Email: Jackie and Friends at AnimasQuilts.com 3. Vote between June 15 - 30, 2010 4. Only ONE vote per email address.

Design Wall Monday 6-14-10

My design wall looks the same as in the Saturday's post- here, so I had to use the design Wall at Lynn's to show my current project and Animas "Roses" Contest entry (1/4 quilt). The voting on the Blocks begins tomorrow. I'll be posting the link for that in the morning. Or you can google "Animas Quilts" if you want to see the Blocks now. Check out other Design Walls at Judy L's Blog

SBS Swap Blocks arrived

This week, My White, Black and Red Swap blocks arrived. They are so nice and came from all over the world. Ireland, Israel, Canada, Missouri, Indiana, Virginia, Florida, Mississippi & Colorado. I put the blocks from the Red and White Swap and Blue and Brown up on the wall with them. Just to count them all. Here is my version of Marti Michell's "American Beauty" done in my favorite Robyn Pandolph fabrics again. I got it on the Long arm late Monday evening and worked on it all week. I had to stop and start many times and make many choices of what stitching to put where in the Borders. That took a lot of time. This is how I left it Friday night. Saturday after our trip to the Temple I went out to finish. It took another 4 hours. I didn't keep track of the hours but I used 14 1/2 bobbins. One more UFO off the List DONE!!!

Design Wall Monday 6-7-10

This is what my top looks like after the sashing stars are all done. It needs one more border so while it was on the design wall at Lynn's I put up what I want to use for the border. Pictured below is my choice. Lynn says it needs to be something different. We spent some time just choosing the center squares for the stars. I like what we finally found in the Robin Pandolph Basics line. Quilt guild is this Tuesday and I had hoped to have this done and quilted to show the ladies. This is our Guild Block of the Month and we are doing the basket block for June. In this quilt it's called Bunny Hop. So let me know if you like my choice. Check out other Design walls at Judy L's Patchwork times

Long Day - well spent

Paul and I spent a lot of Saturday on the road. It was a beautiful day with very few sprinkles. Our first stop was supposed to be at the Columbia Park to watch NaDell and Andy's girl's Dance Recital practice. Paul was too nice and let me sleep until after the time we should have left. So we stopped and saw Joe who put some more pictures on the re-writeable CD's I had made to take to Umatilla later that day. I scanned a bunch more Friday evening. Grandpa played Wii Bowling with Colby. Then it was off to see NaDell and Andy at their house and show her the quilt. The girls came to try it out for naps. hahahaha Next we went to the Columbia River Temple with the Turners and Jordan who will leave for his Mission in Brazil soon. the group shot will be on the private Turner blog. But here is Me with Wendy and Sylvia. The final stop on our loop was Umatilla to celebrate with my Uncle Don's family his 80th birthday. He is the last surviving brother of my father. I had fun gettting to see many of my cousins that live far a way in Idaho and Utah. The bonus was seeing my neice and nephew that we haven't seen for at least 6 years. Here we are with my father's family and Uncle Don. Uncle Don has many grandchildren who love him. They all said how he was so funny. Many memories were shared and beautiful music played and sung. My memory is that I wouldn't be here if my parents hadn't followed him to Washington. I rode my first horse and Motorcycle at his house. I didn't know how to stop the Motorcycle so I laid it down and my leg got burned on the muffler. OUCH! I remember spending time at their home with my parents, playing "annie, annie over" and "no bears are out tonight". I'm so glad we could share the evening with them all. Sorry the picture is so dark. This is him with my cousins.

Memorial Day- 2010

I know I'm slow, but had to take time to play with my fabrics after the fun day with the LONG ride. Paul and I woke up early and picked up Janessa and Jackson to drive to Moses Lake where we met up with my only sister, Roma and Gordon, her DH. I had hoped for a NO-RAIN day. In Moses Lake it was beautiful. The Cemetery was covered with flags and flowers. This grave was surrounded by a heart of peonies. We added a few and took pictures as we found the headstones of other friends and family and placed flowers. Our Mom called it "Decoration Day". We even found an old classmate of mine that is now family (shirtail relation anyway). Ron & Debbie Kerkes. Next it was on to MESA, where we had a Memorial Day Picnic happening. We used to get all the "Crowther Family" together and have picnics every Memorial Day. I thought it would be mean to invade Grandma and Grandpa at their house with all of our grandchildren this year so we invited them to join us in Mesa Park. Grandma asked if the rest of the family could be invited also. I said, "Sure, it's a big park, right?" It was so nice to get together as many as could come. Paul's count was 39 Crowther descendants in attendance. We had to take a picture of the little Great- grandchildren of Gordon and Zora. And one of the original G&Z Crowther Family. Diana and I agreed that someone needed to take the pictures so we weren't in the family picture. Pete and Cary were working. Thanks again to MILTON for wanting us to get together this Memorial Day. I think he has always been the one to ask, "Are we Invited?". He had to work, but he did get to come, even if it was late. Above you see Milton on the zipline. Even 85 year old grandpa Crowther went down once. Here's the top of the Zipline where the line of people are patiently waiting for their turns. The toys at Mesa were fun for the kids Young and Older. Here is Joseph coming down the zipline with Sam. Colby and I went on the swings way up high too, but no one took our picture.I took one of him after I got off. Here is Paul and some of the Crowther cousins on the old Teeter Totter. Seth spun Jackson around on this old disc. He was giggling so hard. and when he got off he was still spinning. Patricia came the farthest flying in from Vegas for Shannon's softball tournament and Graduation. Shannon had left to go to another party, Brenda and Michelle are pictured with her. It was Lisa's Daughter's 8th B-day so Lisa and Jose's family didn't get to come. Lastly I have to post a picture of me on the Zipline. My hands cover my face, but you know it is me by the "QUILTER" on my shirt.I did get the Blue and Brown Candy Kisses Quilt binding all done enroute. As we turned off on Clinton I took the last stitch.