Judging At Cowlitz County

 Today we were up early and off to pick mom up. We stopped at Starbucks on the way. 

Arrived around 9 am and met the women we were to work with. There was Karen, Karen, Karen and others. lol Karen was the gal that called asking us to judge, Karen 2 helped mom with her quilts and Karen 3 was recording the information as we were going. 

They had some awesome quilts. I had more blues then red or white. I gave 1 white ribbon to someone. I gave about 6 reds. A lot of quilters didn't have the quilts squared up. So, the quilt waved or bulged out. There were more quilt that could have been Blue Plus if they had the quilts squared. 

I think we taught some of the gals what we were looking for. I had one that was half square triangles, and there was no rhyme or reason to the quilt. I tried to see if I could find one, but I couldn't. I judged it on workmanship and not because of the rhyme or reason part. I gave her a blue. After it was judge, I found out it was Karen 2's quilt. She laughed at me about judging this one. She was watching me try to find a rhyme or reason. She said it was a block the guild gave out. She did a good job on the piecing but can't remember if that one had the quilt squared up. I had a couple quilts that would have been in the top running, but the machine quilting was bad on the back. A lot of threads showing. 

This was the quilts after we judged them. There were 100 quilts. We started at 9 am and finished at 2 pm. We had lunch in between. 

Then Patrick came back and picked us up. We stopped at Red Lobster for supper and mom paid because she told Patrick she owed him for his Birthday (January). LOL 

Came home and got backing and batting cut for Val's quilt. Printed labels for Val. Pulled out certificate paper for Debbie. Have a folder for Val and Debbie. Brought up the BE boxes for Sandy to take home. Will stop at Debbie's tomorrow. Taking stuff to Sandy as well. 

I'm still not Happy Stitching/Happy Quilting!

My Hawaiian Quilt Is MIA!!

 This morning I received a call from mom asking how many quilts I gave her for the Christian School Quilt Show. I told her 3. She had the one by my mother in law, hers, and OH - Hawaiian quilt is missing. I am freaking out! My best quilt! My own designed quilt! My gift to my husband quilt!! UGH 

I waited for Nancy to get home. Called and she didn't have it. Thought maybe Suzy had it.....called Suzy and NOPE she doesn't have it. I also found out Hildi's Baltimore Album quilt was missing too. Not happy!! 

This quilt took a long time to work on! 

If anyone has seen this quilt, please, please let me know. I want this quilt back. 

I pretty much worked on playing games today. My mind was on my missing quilt. I then pulled out Sophie's bead work and started working on the word chart. I have 3 pages done with the number of beads in each row. I have 80 pages! So, it's going to be an on and off thing. When my beads come in, I will set up and get started on working on it. I'm getting excited about working on it. 

Then it was time to go bowling. no matter what I did, I couldn't get my ball and me to work together. I bowled a 185, 134 and 135. REALLY REALLY BAD! At least I bowled over 100!! I'm almost to the point of quitting. Let's see what next week will bring. We won 3 games. While we were bowling I did get a text that Hildi's quilt was found. Now it's my quilt that's missing!! UGH!!

My day didn't end up being Happy Stitching/Happy Quilting!

Judging At The Fair

 This morning I headed over to moms. We then picked up Nancy and headed to the fair grounds. We arrived in time to get started. We were judging quilts by 9 am. There were quiet a few. 

This was my first time judging quilting. I found it went pretty good. I didn't have many that were "perfect" but at least 3 or 4 each division. Mom was lucky to get the hand quilted quilts to judge. I would have loved to have had those. I found a couple that were red ribbons but most I gave a blue. I found it fun to do. I enjoyed it. There were some really good quilts. Some had trouble with the binding, but most did an awesome job on the binding. I can tell David was part of that. It's a shame David is no longer with us. I did miss him today. I did learn a few things while watching mom. I did ask her help a couple times. She agreed with my judgement which made me feel good because she's been doing this for over 50 years now. 

I asked Rita how I did in my embroidery and she said "good." They wouldn't show me! lol - So, I will have to find them on Tuesday to see what I did. I did see that I got best of class on my beaded ornament. Not sure how I did on the Winter birds or the embroidery. That will have to wait. I think they are in two different categories. What fun!

After it was all over, I went home with mom and then came home. Mom called while I was getting supper at Safeway. She told me Nana has cancer. It's not good. She has a small part of her kidney working. It doesn't sound good at all. As I was telling Patrick, it sucks because we are around people and friends that have or had cancer. He's in the stack as well. 

When I got home, I decided to play a few games for a little bit. I enjoyed looking at my new book that arrived today. It's "Creative Stitching" by Sue Spargo. REALLY good book! I will use this more than the book I have for Brazilian embroidery. 

So, today was a good day! I enjoyed judging and hope to do it again next year. That makes it Happy Quilting/Happy Stitching!

Quilt Show Today

Today was the Christian School Quilt Show. All the proceeds goes back into the school. It's a great show! Most of the quilts are hand quilted.

So, I knew mom would be working at the quilt show selling raffle tickets. She really didn't want to be involved with the show this time, because she and dad always did it together. Even when she wasn't doing the quilt show (they had a quilt show for 20 years here in Centralia), dad was always going and enjoying the show as much as she was. I decided I would meet up with her at noon and we'd do lunch together. As it turned out, I met up with her and Ethel. We had the potluck lunch in the back room. It was soups. I had some chili. It was pretty good.

When I arrived, one of mom's quilter friends saw me and showed me all of her quilts - they had them displayed in the entry area. She took me all around the show as well, chatting and telling me about the quilts. I did good till we came around the corner and dad's QOV quilt was on the wall. I started crying. Trouble was, Jeannie got me going when I walked in, by telling me her bad day yesterday,being the anniversary of her brothers passing, her in laws passing, and it being her Birthday to boot! So, every time I walked back into the quilt show, I cried. People were looking at me wondering why I was so upset. On top of that, I ran into a lot of my quilting friends and they asked how I was doing - NEVER ASK ME THAT - because I started crying all over again. I much have spend the last 48 of crying 9 hours or more! It just hits and I can't stop. The interesting part - dad knew it would be hard on me and tried to prepare me, but nothing in this world would have prepared me for all this.

After lunch, I went to the funeral home and picked up dad's ashes. I took them home to mom. I had him in the front seat and said, "I'm taking you home, dad." I put his ern next to his chair. I was at moms by 1:30 pm. She had called to ask where I was, and I told her I had to wait to get dad. Then I told her "dad's in the front seat." I think she thought I was going mad!

Went around the yard and took photos. She's got some really pretty flowers growing.

I realized mom had to be at the neighbors, so I came on home.

This is the quilt frame that Donna gave me. I'm not sure how it goes together, but I'll look that up when I decide to try it out. It's supposed to be one of the top frames out there. I'm just not sure how big it will quilt.

I went back to watching TV and working on my cross stitch> i"m really liking the way the variegated thread is working out. It's really turning out pretty.

Well, I'm another day without my new computer. I'm back to my old lap top. Not really sure how much longer this will last either. I need to get my photos transferred to a thumb drive and call it good. At least tonight this is working out fine. I'm seeing the battery life is very little, and it is a new battery, so thinking the lap top is getting close to its last legs.

Okay, off to try and finish April's design, so I can be caught up for the time being. June I won't be so lucky.

How has your day been? Hopefully - Happy Stitching/Happy Quilting!!

Any Chance For A "Do Over?"

Went to Cherrill's this morning. Then headed over to mom's. Decided to get a hot chocolate at Starbucks. I had a free drink, so I picked a drink up for Patrick as well. He wasn't there, so left it on the desk. Then headed to moms.

I had all my stuff with me, I thought! Got to the house and there were most of the gals there. Of course, when that happens, I have to find another place to sit. All the good chairs are taken. So, I ended up in a chair in a corner, which was fine with me. I pulled out the QOV top to finish the eagles on the blocks......and I looked for the eagle fabric to use.....and I looked again. Nope, the fabric wasn't in the bag. Which meant it was still on the table...so I thought! I had the quilt that mom and I are working on, but I didn't want to pull that out and work on it. Which meant, NOTHING to work on. So, I played moms games for her - she asked me to. We talked about going out to eat next time. We have the reservations for a place downtown. When I got in the house, everyone was picking stuff in the kitchen. There were books, fabrics, patterns, and anything to do with quilting in there. Three of the gals brought their stuff they didn't want anymore and what our group didn't take was going to the quilt show's shop to help the Christian School in Centralia where they have the show. It's in April, but everyone drops stuff off at moms and she takes it to the school where they store it till the show. There was so much there! I couldn't believe how many books where there! Funny, but I only took one book. I did take the walking foot for my sewing machine. Then I did pick a couple fabrics. Mom cooked a vegetable soup - with chicken and turkey broth. She had stuff in it that I didn't care for, so I took the broth........well, come to find out she used the turkey broth from the turkey we had. Which explained why it had a "fatty" taste to it. I didn't eat it. They had desserts - all pumpkin desserts. I had a couple...still not good.

I got ready to leave and mom had some stuff she wanted me to do. Nothing new there. I returned the stuff she ordered, called the company and cancelled the order that was on back order. I packaged it up and had it ready to go. Then I took all the stuff everyone brought - that no one took - and put them in the back of the van. By the time I had them all in the van, dad was ready to help. lol

This is what I had done by the time dad decided to come help. lol

Next I was heading home. It was already 2 pm. I wanted to have Patrick meet me at Michael's to get my (now ironed) birds framed. He didn't want to do that yet. We'll do it after the year is over, so I had to put it in a "safe place" so it didn't get wrinkled again. NOW, let's see if I remember where that "safe place" is. As I was looking for a stiff board or something flat to keep them safe, I found a cross stitch piece I worked on over 15 years ago!! I thought I thew it away!! Now I have it, then I had to go looking for my kit! Luckily I found the kit. Now I have one more thing I need to finish....ugh.

Once that was done, I also found the fabric for the eagle. It was on my counter downstairs! I think someone was cleaning house and put it down there. It had been on the table for FOREVER, so I don't blame either one of them for putting it there. I put it with the quilt top and cut out the eagle I needed.

I appliqued the top eagle down, then I fixed the bottom eagle and rounded him off. So, it's done and I'll take it to the meeting on Tuesday. Not sure if I'll stay, but I do need to take this back to the gal that asked me to do this. THAT's what I WOULD have had done, IF I had taken the fabric with me.

Now it's Jeopardy on TV and I haven't done squat! (Excuse me, I did do the eagle - but that doesn't really count). Now I need to decide - quilting or cross stitching.

Well, since I didn't do any cross stitch yesterday, I may do that. Depends on how much time before going to bed. Lately, we've been going earlier because neither of us have been sleeping good. I usually play games before bed, so who knows.

Life is still going, I'm still trying to do stuff....and it didn't happen today. If I could do a "DO OVER" I might actually get something done - by remembering what I needed to take with me!

Oh, well. One day of visiting with friends and looking like I was quilting. I didn't even get any genealogy in. Darn. That's okay, I can live with it. I can also live with being Happy Stitching/Happy Quilting!

A Visit With Jeannie Austin!

Today I was up and walking with Ruth. We got in 2 miles. I'm getting better at getting more steps in.

I went over to the quilt show at the Christian School in Centralia. Had a great time and visited with Jeannie Austin. Showed her what I was doing on the eagle block. She loves the colors I used for the wings.

I'm working on the post, then I can get the body of the eagle done. I'm hoping to have it done here pretty soon so Donna can get a quilt put together with all those stars.

This is the latest quilt mom finished. It looks prettier up close. It turned out great.

This is Jeannie Austin's quilt - both of them actually.

I love the eagle in the middle and am planning on doing that in one of my quilts.

While we were at the quilt show, Donna found this book of 1911-15 newspaper patterns. The ones on the top where applique. It cost me $30 but got mom to go in with me on it. I went through the patterns when I got home! The best part is most of them are embroidery patterns that I can use in my Brazilian embroidery! This is going to be fun!

One of the other quilters was telling me her Aunt saved a lot of these and she has those. She said she will gladly give them to me. I told her I'm a history buff. I love to see what they did years ago. This is going to be fun! I can think of a ton of designs to make! This will get me to do designing yet!

Tonight is going to be working on the eagle. Unless I change my mind and work on the Cat Nap. I do need to get that done as well. Asked Patrick if he has plans for the weekend. So far, no, but I do think we will be going to the movies. I do want to get back down there and quilt again this weekend.

Time will tell...time sure does go fast....I have tons of things I want to do...I'm getting there SLOWLY.

I was checking on the classes and stuff at "Seminar" for Brazilian embroidery and it's going to cost me about $700. UGH BUT I think it will be worth it. We'll talk about it on Monday at our meeting. I am taking a couple afternoon or morning off, to work on what I'm learning. I need to SAVE my money so I can have some extra to buy stuff with....lol

Okay, it's time to get my exercises in for the day. Excited about getting back to Happy Quilting!