A much needed get away....Quilting Retreat

If you have never been on a retreat I highly recommend it.  There are so many available retreats from card making, scrap booking and Quilting but the list goes on and on and on.  Going on a retreat is so much fun, you get so much done and you get to meet like minded people that inspire you to be the best you can be!  You might even make a new friend or two or three or eleven!!!!
A friend from our quilt guild, Carla Kennedy <<<her blog  organized a quilt retreat at the most beautiful place you can imagine Retreats by Marge <<< a link to the retreat.  It was magnificent and I do mean magnificent!
I meant to get there early so I could visit the quilt museum and the local quilt shop but all the yard long beans I had picked and put in the fridge to can "later" were starting to look sad so I had to can those before I could leave.  Here are those delicious beans all canned and ready for winter munching!

Everyone had the most beautiful project they were working on.  Some would make you cringe with envy!  We laughed, talked, sewed, and of course we ate, and we ate well!  I don't know about everyone else but I had and awesome time and am so happy Carla took the time to organize it.  I can't wait till next time.

So here is that view I was talking about... Honestly it was hard to drag myself off of the porch to go and sew. The weather was awesome, the view was awesome...but so were the ladies!  So next time you want to just get away think about doing a retreat!

Spooky Halloween Cookies

Every year I say to myself that I'm going to take the time to make and decorate cookies for Halloween.  I do it for Christmas but time always seems to get away from me on Halloween.  What got me motivated to actually follow through this year is my niece.  She's been deployed and will be away for the next 6 months.  Yes, even through Christmas.  So I planned on doing several things for her to keep her spirits up during this time.  I send at least 4 letters a month to start.  For me, that is a feat in it's self.  I also found out she loves antique dollies so I went to some local shops and found a few small enough to stuff in an envelope with a letter.  I also planned on sending her a small Christmas tree with lights and ornaments.  You just can't go through Christmas without a tree!  Anyway I also wanted to be sure to send care packages and one of the care (or two or three) I told her I'd send her cookies.  So thus the reason I actually got in gear this year.

I found this video on how to make the cutest pumpkin cookies ever!  I often watch Sweetambs videos, she is so over the top talented!  She posted this video and information for Halloween for free.  She does sell videos on several technique at a low price so you should go check her out if you want to learn how to decorate cookies.  Here is the link to the pumpkin cookies I made :  https://www.sweetambs.com/tutorial/halloween-cookies/

Here are the cookies I made after watching the video, I also made some ghosts and bats just for more fun, now mind you cookie decorating isn't in my real house but I did enjoy it anyway and I don't think they look too bad.  So if I can do it so can you!

Had to share this...beautiful

Post by Interesting Things.

Bird House for Quilt Show raffle

I was racking my brain about what the boutique could donate towards the Tri-County Quilt Show raffle. I considered making another light box but they are pretty expensive to make so....I was wandering about some garden shops, I love all the great things you can find for your garden at these specialty garden centers.  I was looking at the bird houses, I love bird houses.  I've made a few very primitive ones and have been meaning to make something more special.  I even looked for patterns but there are none to be found except for very simple ones that really no one needs a pattern for.  Anyway as I was looking at these bird houses I noticed the price tag on them..WOW is all I can say.  This one here was $295.00, of course my mouth fell open when I seen the tag.  I loved it but didn't love the price tag since there wasn't more than $30.00 invested in it at most.

After spending the day visiting my favorite garden centers and looking at all the awesome bird houses I decided that a bird house might be a good auction item.  Since they are so expensive to purchase surely we could get people to by tickets to try to win one of these beauty's.

So here is a picture of my bird house creation, When the glue is completely dry I'll try to remember to put up better photos.  This is a fairly large bird house, it cost me about $70.00 to make because of all the doll house items and gingerbread and shingles.  I had lots of scrap wood so I didn't have to purchase any wood.  I added close up's of the window on the front.  If you look inside you will see a quilt shop.  That is my favorite feature of this bird house.  I painted barn quilts on the front and back and named the quilt shop "Ole Bird Quilt Shop". I am happy about how she turned out and I hope someone will love her!  I may have to make one for myself!

Glue isn't all the way dry on the little group of spools.  I'm holding them up with a drill bit..:)

Quilt Works Kindness is amazing!

As I've told you before I'm part of a wonderful quilt guild full of great people that love the art of quilting and this year I've been chair of the quilt show boutique along with Mary.  We are in charge of making sure the boutique has lots of great stuff for people who visit the quilt show will want or can't resist purchasing.  We have a workshop each month (at Quilt Works, they donate their workshop for us to use)where members of the guild attend and help us make the items we've decided to sell at the quilt show.  As you can imagine it is expensive to make items to sell and the guild covers the cost of this.  However we wanted to earn some money to help save the guild a few dollars on our supplies.  We decided on light boxes.  We had planned to raffle them off then later found that this wasn't an option because of the guilds tax status.  So.... when Quilt Works in Cypress found out our predicament they offered to sell the light box for us in their shop...isn't that awesome!  The first one sold then a lady came into Quilt Works and said she wanted to purchase that light box!  So they asked me if I wanted to make another...and of course I did!  Quilt Works is one of my favorite quilt shops (actually my favorite) because of their large variety of fabrics and notions and their huge work room. .....and they are so awesome.  For them to take time out of their busy days to answer questions about the light box sitting on the counter and then to sell another one is over the top.  Not too many business would want to be bothered, and this light box isn't any small item either.  It took up lots of room on their counter, it's 27x20 inches.  If you are ever in Cypress Texas and want to visit a quilt shop that has everything in fabric that you'd want and that has these kind of generous people that go out of their way to help people, I promise you will not be disappointed!  They have hearts of gold.

Yard Long Beans OH YEAH

We love to garden and we garden all year round.  We are starting to really get the hang of it and we no longer plant just to watch stuff grow!  We now only plant vegetables we love and we love our new found vegetable "Yard Long Beans".  A lovely woman who purchase a couple of my counter height gardens brought me a little baggy of pods full of seeds for these beauties.  I didn't plant them the first year, I just added them to my ever growing seed collection.  Well this year actually only about a month ago I finally started 3 plants from these seeds.  They came up in about 2 days and after about 1 week I planted them into my bean garden.  Well in a very short time we had beans!  When I say beans I mean BEANS.  These things actually grow a yard long or longer and they taste like a cross between green beans and asparagus if you can imagine.
Well, we absolutely love these beans and can't believe I've lived this entire time and never have had these tasty little beauties.  So being that we love them so much, 3 plants will never do so...I set off to build another bean garden.  Bean gardens can't really be counter height, they need to be on the ground because they are climbers.  My new bean garden is complete except ten 40 pound bags of soil wasn't enough, I need at least two more.  Here are pictures of my yard long beans and my new bean garden.  Hope you like it, if you want to know how to build it...just ask and I'll give you instructions.

Those above grew this long in a day...no joke.  By the time I picked these they were more than a yard long and thicker.

Our Quilt giveaway project

Do you remember a post I did a few months ago.  I showed you one row of the quilt the chairs of the boutique and a couple helpers were making.  Well everyone got theirs rows in and I got the top all sewn together so I can show you just how adorable it is.  You can enter to win this quilt just by making a purchase at the quilt show boutique.
I don't know if any of you have ever assembled a quilt that several people helped to sew the blocks but I must tell you it is not as easy as you would think.  And actually it would be much easier for one person to make the quilt.  The reason....well somehow the people who design and manufacture sewing machines (my guess is they are men) can't seem to figure out the quarter inch.  I mean really isn't a quarter inch the same always or does it fluctuate or something....<laughing>  well because of this "fluctuation" everyone's blocks, rows and finished quilts will all be varied in size.  So putting a quilt together where many people have so graciously helped you can be a challenge.  I knew this before I decided to get together and make a quilt for the quilt show...but you know what, it makes it special and well, it still turned out beautiful and because we all made it we can ALL be proud of it.  I sure hope people are inspired to visit the boutique for a chance to win this beauty.  Guild quilt shows support many wonderful charities so please plan to attend any in your area.  The ladies of the guilds work hard all year to help those in need.
Anyway here is our quilt top, and it was fun to make. Now we need to find someone that will donate time to do a beautiful job quilting it.

A Blog worth it's weight in GOLD

I want to share a couple finds with you.  If you are anything like me and love inspiration these two sites will surely fit the bill.
Here is a sample of one of the cute quilts she has made:

So just in case you want to follow the blog here is the link.

Ulla's Quilt World

and for more interesting quilts here is a FaceBook page I found by browsing Ulla's Quilt World:

Chica Fiapo
I hope you enjoy my finds as much as I did.  Have fun trying to recreate the beauties on these sites!

Cross Stitch OH MY

So it seems that cross stitch is back on the scene.  My niece has discovered the joy of making those little x's that create a stunning piece of art!  My goodness, I haven't crossed stitched since 1993.  I burned myself out on that after creating oh about 50 pieces.  I only saved a few for myself so I thought I'd share with you.  I still have all the "stuff" needed to make anything in cross stitch that my heart desires...but the desire isn't in me again yet.  I do feel a little xstitch inspiration coming on...just not full blown yet.
I hope you enjoy some 90's designs all in cross stitch!

and this one I made for my mom...but now I have it as just one more memory of her.  

I taught her how to cross stitch and she gave me her very first one.
Here it is and I love it.

My Irish Chain Quilt nearing completion

I found this pattern on the Missouri Star site video's section, it's called Irish Chain.  This is so easy it will make you sick!  I found this "fabric for a cause" at the Spring Quilt shop and purchase 3 jelly rolls, and a fat quarter bundle as well as backing for any quilt I decided to make using it.  In the Missouri Star video for this quilt there is no borders but I'm going to add boarders using nearly an entire 40 piece jelly roll.  Can't wait to show you.  This will be the largest quilt I have ever made.  It is a king size quilt, it is so large I had to take it to the quilt shop to take the picture.  I promise to take another picture once the borders are on.  You are going to be so jealous that you'll have to make one for yourself.
This quilt takes 1 - 40 strip jelly rolls plus 8 more strips of assorted colors and 1 - 40 strip solid (I used white and I cut my own jelly roll for the solid fabric) and 6 yards of the same color solid as your solid jelly roll.    Very quick to put together!
Here is the video on You Tube but please be sure and visit their site because it has so much to offer.

Mad rush to no where!

It dawned on me yesterday that my friend and neighbor's birthday was the next day.  I was in a panic of what to do for her birthday.  Since she is such a wonderful friend and neighbor I like to always give her something that I think is special and here it was only one day to do just that...so I rushed around thinking, looking on line for idea's....  Then I finally found it.  A little matching kitchen set.

I sat down at my computer, I found an image of an apple that I like then I digitized it.  I dug through my stash to find fabric that would go with her kitchen and found a pattern for the long double pot holder you see there in the back and for the dish towels I just winged it.  All that sounds like a lot but really it didn't take long.

Then I decided I'd expand on the apple theme and make her an apple pie!  So I went to the store, picked up some granny smith apples and of course some ice cream.  Oh and I also picked up a couple steaks, after all it was my anniversary!  Okay, so once I got home I started the apple pie right away.  I dug out my favorite pie crust recipe.  Pealed and put the apples on to simmer (so I could get more apples in the pie) and in a matter of an hour or so I had a 6 inch apple pie all ready for delivery.   I need to deliver this a day before her birthday because I'll be out the entire day of her birthday.

So I'm now ready to deliver my goodies to the birthday girl.  I give her a call to let her know I'm coming over with a surprise...and no answer...  Then I go to my PC to email her and to my surprise she's posted on FB and well...to my horror she is in SEATTLE....  How could I forget!    LOL now, the rush is over and there never even needed to be a rush cause she's not due back till Sunday!  Anyway a trip to Seattle is definitely better than an apple pie so she still is having a wonderful deserving Birthday, and when she gets back...well she'll have a frozen apple pie to thaw!

Lesson learned....WRITE things down if your memory is failing you!