Not quite Wordless Wednesday

My Boss got me these beautiful hyacinth for Administrative Assistant Week!

We won't talk about the gifts that Zorro has been bringing me...

Amherst Quilt Show, part 2

Ready for part 2 of my trip to the Amherst Quilt Show??

Let start with some mini quilts...

And then some basket quilts...

A cat quilt where I'm not quite sure I like the concept of cats *IN* jars but it's cute

And a few other random quilts..

Love the alternate setting for the Arrowhead blocks

Great design for using up those random charm squares.

There were tons of great ideas...now I just have to use some of them :)

Design Wall Monday

I'm back to the point of being out of half hexie papers to work on my Twisted Hexies project. I'll put some of the rosettes together to free up some papers but pretty soon I am going to have to put the larger rosettes together to have more papers.

If I did my math right, I've used 300 half hexie papers. I don't mean that I've basted 300 (it's a lot more than that since I reuse the papers as soon as they can be removed) but that I actually own 300 papers to work with. Someday I'll figure out how many pieces are actually in this quilt...

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for piecing this top!!!!

Feline Friday - 4/25/14

Momma - I think you chose the perfect path!!!!
Don't listen to what Uncle Tommy says about you...

Thursday mishmash

I'm almost finished with the name badge holders! I think there are just 2 more to put the straps on.

With no better place to put them for the time being, they have been hanging here:

Dad and I made it years ago - It's tiger maple with a vintage crystal door knob, brass plate and brass key. I have a small collection of door knobs and a large collection of skeleton keys. Have I ever shown you the keys I use to pull back the sheers or the coat closet we made with door knobs? Some day...

I've also been organizing some of my random hexie projects that seem to be lying around. Someone (I wish I could remember who) dropped off these brand spanking new never been used specimen bags at the LQS for Hexie Club. People give me funny looks for using them but they are the perfect size and actually have 2 compartments - can't get that from good old Ziplock. LOL!

Not Quite Wordless Wednesday

I missed their prime but this neighbors lawn is often wall to wall crocuses in the spring.
It doesn't look like they all came up this year.

My DARLING family for Easter Dinner:
brother Tom, unimpressed SIL Kristie, more interested in his choco rabbit Tyler, Ryan with a prize winning smile, Dad  playing the ham and Mom who moved out of camera range while I was taking the pano.

Sorry for the glare from the gorgeous sun!

Amherst Quilt Show - part 1

As some of you will recall, my recent FARTs began with going to a not-so-local quilt show. I went because I thought they would have pretty quilts, some new-to-me vendors (they did!) but also as a test run for when Bonnie Hunter comes to teach classes in the fall (which is a mere 147 days, 20 hours, 51 minutes and 3 seconds away). The trip thru the city of Buffalo, made me second guess wanting to take a weekday class that started during rush hour, but I still think I am going to try to take 2 of her classes.

The quilt show was hosted by the Amherst Quilters' Guild and held at the Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village. I didn't realize until after I left the compound w/out getting my hand stamped that we could walk the village. Maybe this fall...

The main quilt display is hung in a central room and they are hung from the ceiling which I thought was a wonderful look. I do think some of the "aisles" were a bit narrow for the crowds and a bit dark for photos but given the choice, I think this might be my fav way to hang a show.

This was the best of show quilt. It was just gorgeous but you can see below just how tiny the pieces were.

There was just one hexie quilt...

But there were several bird quilts.

This was actually a mini and hand quilted with 3D flowers

This bird was a woven background. I've used this technique before but never with the curved "seams."

The guild had held a contest for "no touch" signs. I'm hoping you can enlarge this and read them:

This next one had to be my fav tho:

You're right, I'm likely never to do this kind of applique but I did enjoy the quilting itself. I think this was the only picture I took of quilting at the show. It's funny how some shows you photo the quilts and others you photo the quilting.

I loved the texture of the next quilt. I need to use this technique for something and soon. Maybe for a zippered bag?

I'll be posting more pictures later this week but if you can't wait, here is the guild's website with more.

Design Wall Monday - 4/21/14

Thankfully I'm not doing weekly stash reports 'cuz the last few weeks have done me in!

I realized Friday morning that I really didn't have enough vinyl in my stash to make name badges for my conference next week so I went off on a VART**. You know that I came home with some fabric as well...

These FQs are from the store with the vinyl. I've already cut into 5 of them for name badges, 3 are saved for my POTC project and the bottom right went in to my pile of fabrics with hexies on them!

Oops, almost forgot the stencil I bought - I though it would be fun for quilting mugrugs.

Then on my way home, since I was already driving by, I decided to stop at store #2. Check out their vintage purple door knob!!

I've already used 4 of the 5 FQs but the red is the perfect red for my POTC project. This will be the tiny squares in the sashing. I'm sure I bought much more than I needed but it's so hard to match reds that I would rather have extra to maybe use in the borders or something.

And then I finally got home to work on those badge holders. I work assembly line style so I cut them all out and then I sew all one step and then all of another step. Eventually I get a little sick of that so I just went ahead and finished a pile of them.

Tonight I'll go back to assembly line finishing the others...

This next pic was actually a goof - probably anyone with an iPhone has taken one of these but I just thought it was cool and didn't want to hit delete. I doubt I could have taken this if I tried.

**Vinyl Acquisition Road Trip

True Confessions Feline Friday - 4/18/14

Hey Z - I'm sorry we fight like cats & dogs - you really are my favorite brother...for now, anyways.

Momma still hasn't shortened the new jeans she bought 2 weeks ago...or the new pants she bought in December. What is this big fancy Bernina for anyway? Momma claims she likes her broken-in holey jeans better...something about they just don't make them like they used to...

Momma didn't make the bed again and I'm ok with it!

Hoppy Easter to all our favorite felines from Midgie, Squeaky and Zorro!!!

HeLP for Hexie-aholics

Hello and welcome to another edition of HeLP for Hexie-aholics, our monthly Hexie Linky Party!!!

As part of our Hexie Night at the LQS, we have a Birthday Club. When it's your birth month, the other hexiologists give you basted "hexies" in whatever color you have requested. Last year was our first and we exchanged 3/4" hexies - you'll recall the pillow I am making with my purple hexies.

This year we are exchanging 1.5" 6-point diamonds. I bought the papers a while ago but they were too small for my intention at that time and they got put in the drawer while I worked with a bigger size. Now that we are going to play with the 1.5" diamonds I decided it was time to make something with them - not only as a sample for the girls to get ideas for their birthday diamonds but also because I've had this picture pinned for some time and I wanted to do it in EPP (the original was done with paper piecing and not with diamonds).

I'll be adding diamonds of a darker orange around the outside edge.

Please don't ask what it's gonna be when it grows up!

Ok, Now it's YOUR turn to share an EPP project of any shape or vintage!!!! Don't forget to link to a specific post. Let me know if you need help linking properly or fixing a link. I'm looking forward to seeing all of your projects!!!

Quilt Guild report...

Yesterday everyone I saw was talking about the horrible weather  - how cold it was (30F really only feels that cold cuz it was 80F the day before) and all the snow we were going to get. Supposedly between 1 and 4". I thought that would be the perfect Wordless Wednesday photo. Well here ya go:

How is it the weather peeps can always be so "off" and still keep their jobs?
I suppose I best give you something more interesting to look at than my tiny tiger lilies...

Last night was Quilt Guild. We had a trunk show based on Deb Tucker's tools. Gorgeous quilts! I took pictures of several hunter star quilts. If I ever get my blue and green batik HS done, I'll try one of her other layouts - they were all about fabric placement.

Ten new fabrics for my stash!

I had completely forgotten that there was going to be a sale on someones stash fabrics. Most were FQs but some were just pieces. Can you believe I got the whole pile for just $3??!! Pretty close to the amount of fabric I got at the quilt show for just a fraction of the cost. If I hadn't run out of time I could have picked out more. Hopefully they will bring the bins to next months meeting too!

Everything looks better upside down!

I also received another fab gift from my secret sister! The chick topped porcelain cupcake is actually a candy dish and it came stocked with choco!! The plates are adorable and I can't wait for this coming weekend to use them with the napkins I forget to tell you about from last month's gift. I already had the Easter cactus - it was the only yellow one at the store so I grabbed that one up pretty fast - I've been looking for one for eons. The black & white goofball you've met before but he seems to approve. Thank you SS!!!!!

F.A.R.T

So clearly my priorities are a little off today cuz I took so many pictures of my meager purchases that I won't have any post space left for pictures of the quilts in the show. I guess I'll share those next week since I have something planned for tomorrow and Thursday is HeLP for Hexie-aholics.

Without further ado - here are the meager purchases from my recent Fabric Acquisition Road Trip (a phrase I stole from a friend!).

As usual, there are a few things I forgot to photograph. You'll see the black batik FQ I got for the project I'll share for HeLP and you'll probably never "see" my door prize since it's a batting. It's poly which is new to me but I'm game to try.

These half yard pieces were BOGOfree. Can't pass on a yard of fabric for just $5!! I thought the fabric on the left would be awesome for fussy cutting EPP shapes, POTC or otherwise.

Just some random FQs for the stash. I've had the butterfly fabric before and used every square inch so I was happy to find another piece :)

The colors are way off on this photo for some reason (just compare the mat color in this and the other photos), sorry. The fabric on the left is a shot cotton with purple and blue threads. I've never worked with shots but have wanted to for many years. No design ideas for it yet but it's probably a safe bet that it will be hexies, a mugrug or a zippered pouch. No matter what, the first project will be for ME.

On the right is one of Moda's candy packs - 2.5" squares of fabric. The FQ is a coordinating fabric. No specific ideas to use these yet but I'm open to suggestions...

So...can you guess what these are for?? LOL. This vendor was selling hand dyed fabrics in all kinds of luscious colors. She also had precut squares in these cute plastic boxes. There are 6 shades of each color and I think there are at least 25 different colors in the box. Since it's 6 shades of each color, I can make a hexie rosette from them. I haven't taken them out of the cute box to play yet but I'll have to pick a center rosette color and then a color(s?) for the path. Based on Karen's post yesterday, I am thinking of doing a triple path. It could prove interesting color wise but it will also make the project a bit larger since I only bought the one little box. This might have been my fav purchase of the day.

Last but not least I hit the scrap bins. It was a $1 for a quart sized bag. Big deal you might think but when the guild ladies kept telling me to stuff in more and more fabric, what was I to say?

Just check out how much I had crammed in to that same little bag! Imagine how big the pile would be had I fluffed some of the fabric. I imagine my scrap bins will acquire some new pretties and my pile of tiny scraps for Julie will also acquire some too.

Happy Tuesday from WNY where it's currently snowing...