Trip to Philadelphia

Just before Thanksgiving this year, I traveled to Philadelphia with my daughter, Kelly, She was attending an important writing conference with speakers such as Nicholas Sparks and Julie Andrews. While she spent her days in workshops, I spent mine walking through the historic district near the convention center and hotel. Our evenings found us getting caught up, not only on our days away from home, but on our lives at home. We cried a little and laughed a lot. We are friends as well as mother and daughter. We had a corner room at the Loews hotel on market street with an incredible view of the city. I hope to return to Philadelphia one day with more time to explore.

Grandchildren

Just one more tidbit for now. My daughter gave us a beautiful granddaughter and then when she married three years ago we acquired granddaughters by marriage. yay. So related to that birthday I spoke of earlier is a gift from two special little girls. I addition to a really cute pair of Sponge Bob Square Pants pajamas my car was also "tagged" by those same little girls. Enjoy

November

Having dispatched October with a post about the trip to Quilt Festival in Houston, I am now into November with another birthday to report. Sigh.......... (68) Disney remembered, as did TGIF, Macy's, JCPenney, well you get the idea. Okay this was an especially nice birthday this year and really, I simply want to share my birthday cake. Well, not literally as of course the cake is long gone. We have a really wonderful bakery not very far away. My husband who tries very hard, but often waits too long, remembered this year to order the BD cake at least two weeks ahead of time. This bakery is really popular and sometimes at holidays, a month is more realistic. The cakes not only look wonderful, they are really delicious! So enjoy the pictures and remember, the cakes at Charm city cakes can cost as much or more than $1000. Beth's Bakery, so much less. Happy Birthday to all of you.

Halloween

I know! I am terrible at keeping current on this blog thing. I really do think about it and check often to see if there are any patient people still watching. Needless to say, there are not many of you, but I love you more for your loyalty and so once more I promise to try harder once again.
Halloween was a fun day here in MO. For one thing for the first time since we moved here six years ago, the evening was relatively warm and we had quite a few trick or treaters. One of my favorites was a group of three young people dressed as mimes who "said " trick or treat in sign language! How cool is that? Of course my very favorites were the children in the neighborhood looking god as Luke Skywalker, Queen Elizabeth, fairies, hobos, and many more. This was our first year to have children driven in to the neighborhood from what I can only assume are poorer areas. I have to say they were sweet, charming and fun. I was able to greet them this year with and old relative of mine. She is a little the worse for wear as she passed in the late 1800's and resides for most of the year in Mincy Cemetery, a half hour south of here. What I know about her is that she was a merry sort of soul and while originally designed to be scary, she does miss the mark because she simply will not stop smiling despite dozens of spiders and a few small mice. Isophenia is simply a great fan of Halloween. By the way, just in case you ere confused, she is the one on the left!!!

Quilt Festival

Quilt festival in Houston this year was wonderful as always. Karen, my wonderful friend from CA was my roommate. Carolyn, also from CA was also there. My husband's cousin Gladys from Louisanna comes every year and we get together to catch up. I never know how many friends will make the trip but it is a wonderful venue for a visit. I am so happy that MaryAnn, also from CA, stayed over after Market so we could connect once again.
As always, there were the most beautiful quilts and I thought I would share a few with you. Three to be exact.
But before I do, I want to put out a call to those of you who are like me, a traditional quilter. You are needed! The vast majority of entries were contemporary art quilts and while I have no problem with Art quilts, out of almost 400 entries there were only 37 traditional quilt entries. We exist, there are a lot of us and we need to share. I dare you!!!
The bottom quilt is called "On The Wings of a Dream" by Carol Bryer Fallert
The middle quilt is "Santa Claus Comes To Kirara's Hometown" by Ayako Kawakama ( My personal favorite
The top quilt is "Snapshot, Shannon's Bantam" by Denise Havlan
I hope you like what you see.

PIQF

Home from Houston Quilt Festival and excited by all I saw! I will share more of that in a few days. Today I want to talk about Pacific International Quilt Festival and my quilt " In My Garden"
I have not had a quilt to enter in competition in many years. Life gets in the way and time flies and suddenly it has been ten years, This quilt has been in the making for more than ten years and frankly I did not expect to do well with it. However, this morning I found it online and so here it is. It will belong to my daughter Kelly, when I have finished playing with it. I think she will be as happy as I am.

More about scissors and thimble

I think this is a really pretty picture of my thimble and scissors and so decided to include another view. I find it interesting that a simple change in color for the background can change the look of the exact same items. It reminds me once again of the importance of color in quilting. However there are so many valid choices that a little experimentation is always in order. Sometimes I know exactly where my quilt is going and where it will end up. More often than not, however, the quilt comes together over time with those decisions made one at a time building on what has come before. Looking closely at the thimble I am sure you are beginning to get an idea of the wear beginning to show.

Moving up we have a closer look at the thimble. Can you guess how many holes there are and how much is simply wear? I guess I am a little weird because I really love what has happened to my thimble. It feels like a coming of age, not that I am not a little old for that. The final picture is very cool don't you think? Two holes and the rest are holes waiting to happen. I told you John is a good photographer didn't I? As I have gone over and over the pictures ( 304 of them ) I realized that I have a possibility of putting together a pretty nice art piece to hang in the sewing the sewing room! I'll share that too sometime whether you are interested or not. Look at this, two blogs posted in a week! maybe something good is happening.