Western Washington Quilt Shop Hop 2011

It has been a busy week around here. Didn't spend much time in the house though. Monday I had a number of errands to do but I spent a little time out in the berry garden first. Tuesday I spent the whole day outside working and then it was craft night.


My niece, Katie arrived in time for craft night and in the morning we headed out bright and early to start our shop hop road trip. We made it to 17 stores before closing time at 8 pm and then drove a couple of hours back home. Yesterday we headed out again to be at our first shop at 9 am when they opened and made it to 20 stores before closing time. Thank God for GPS to help us find all the shops without too much trouble.


We made a few purchases on our travels. We each bought a couple of paper piecing patterns from one shop. They are from MH Quilt Designs. We also bought some fat quarters. But if you want to make it to around 20 stores in a day you can't dawdle!


We were still frustrated by some of the blocks we got from the various stores. Not sure what some of the store owners are thinking when they design them!


We saw several quilts we thought were pretty cool. One was an awesome applique quilt but I held back from buying the pattern since it is all hand work and I have so many hand projects waiting for completion. Though I am thinking I will order it because it is just too hard to resist!


Another quilt we saw is called Geese Atop Your Cabin at Gee-Gee's Quilt Shop in Yelm. Katie and I both saw it when we used the restroom at the store! When we got out to the car I asked Katie if she had seen it and she had so she pulled out her graph paper and colored pencils and drew a block so we wouldn't forget it. Today we decided to make one or two blocks to try a couple of color combinations. I sewed and she pressed and trimmed and here is what we came up with:

As you can see in the last picture the triangles are just folded squares that are caught in the seams. I am pretty sure there will be several of these quilts in my future. Probably the first will be using up some of my 1.5" strips and using either black or white for the centers or triangles. After that will probably be a black and white quilt with various bright colored triangles and centers.

Secret revealed

Another busy weekend for me! Thursday I took off across the state to spend the weekend with my sister and her family. Her youngest daughter graduated from high school on Saturday and there was a BBQ party on Friday evening. On top of all that my daughter and the grandkids came up for the celebration too! Lots of commotion that is for sure. 

On Friday morning my job was to make a Graduation Barbie cake. My sister made the mortarboard, complete with tassel! She also created the sashes and cords out of ribbon and some silver cording to represent the sashes and cords my niece would have for graduation. I also added some paper sleeves and a section around the body to look more like a graduation gown instead of a ball gown. She turned out pretty well I think!


We also surprised my niece with this graduation quilt. There are blocks made by several quilters in her life that represent various interests of hers. Her high school colors were red and white and her college colors will be black and gold, hence the color scheme. The top was put together by my sister and I got the honor of quilting it. She was very excited about it and very surprised!


On Saturday morning we took a walk to a local coffee shop and got coffee for the grown-ups and cocoa for the little ones and then walked over to the park so the kids could play and we could reserv seats with tape for graduation that afternoon. Just after we got home from our walk the skies opened up with rain and hail and wind so we had to postpone our trip the Fantastic Sam's for about an hour for my granddaughter's much needed hair cut - she had to tip her head back to see out from under her bangs! 


The sun came back out and stayed out through graduation which was awesome since graduation was held outside! After graduation we enjoyed a turkey dinner then my daughter turned over custody of the grandkids to me and headed home. 


Sunday morning the kids I headed out and met my other daughter and her husband for coffee and then strted our trek across the state. An uneventful trip filled with chatter and singing and a couple of stops at rest areas to let off some steam! We got home, got unloaded and the kids headed outside to see what was new. I started dinner and our son arrived home just in time to eat. 


We've been having fun at Grammy World including driving to the airport yesterday morning to drop my son off for his adventure to Korea to visit his girlfriend who has been back home in Korea for about 6 months.


I was able to deliver one of my owl hats to a friend who was at the graduation party and got another finished. I now have two more of the main hats finished and I am working on the eyes and beaks so they can be put together and ready for delivery. I got a couple more orders so I still have 5 to get made! At least that is something I can work on while the kids are here.

Recovering slowly!

Here is the purple quilt. It is all finished and I will be delivering it tomorrow. The pattern is called Grandma's Scrapbook from Judy Martin's book Scraps.

I tried a new kind of crocheted hat as we were driving across the state last weekend and got the top sewed up last Tuesday but didn't get a picture of it until yesterday! Not sure I am excited about this one but it works. I might have to try it again with adjustments.

This is the latest project I have started. It will eventually be 2' X 6' and along with several others will hang in our church. The plan right now is to have a set of green ones and also white, blue, purple and red for the seasons of the church year. They will hang on some not-so-attractive dividers that are used to hide the daycare's furnishings during worship and other church activities.

We had a great time at Relay this weekend. So many moving moments - watching all of the cancer survivors walking that first lap in their purple shirts, walking the track during the luminaria ceremony and listening to all the names read over the loudspeakers and that final lap celebrating 'more birthdays'. If any of you ever get the chance to take part in a Relay for Life event I would encourage you to do it. 


I had several smaller quilts and some other small items available for sale at the event. I sold several pillowcases but the big hit were the owl hats! I had two finished hats and both sold but I was able to keep one of them at our booth through Relay as a model and took orders for 5 more! I will be kept busy for a while with those!


I managed to get about 1 1/2 hours of sleep Friday night so I came home very tired. My hubby was very good to me and went out and got some teriyaki for dinner before I headed to bed fairly early. I am still a bit tired but at least I am functioning again!