Southern Hills Shop Hop

Saturday my mom and I, along with a friend went on a shop hop to the Southern Black Hills. We hadn't been to any of the shops in a couple years, so it was fun to see each shop. The first shop was The Quilt Shop in Custer, SD. I found so many thing I couldn't leave there! I had seen the Sandy Gervais Thanksgiving line online, but hadn't seen it in any quilt shops until Sat. I picked up the panel and two coordinates.

I also found this fun Quilters panel. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but it's super cute and I'm sure I'll find some way to use it.


I also picked up a box of Minkee 5" squares that I plan to use for a baby gift. I also found the Sewline pencil/tracing combo, some Aurifil thread, and the templates to make a Winding Ways quilt. It's on my list of quilts I plan to make next year.

Then it was on to Edgemont to Nuts & Bolts. It's in a very small town, but it's a great shop and there was so much to look at.

I picked up a fat quarter packed in a glass. We each got one and then went next door to the soda shop and each got an italian soda. I also picked up a t-shirt and postcards.

We continued on to Hot Springs to Heart Songs Quilts. It just opened last year, but I loved the outside!

I found a great panel for making a camping tent for a card table.

I also found a cool panel for a little boys race car quilt. I have a little boy in mind to make this quilt for, so it will probably get done quickly.

We had a fun day together and we all found some great things we don't have at our shop.

Sweatshirt Jackets

This week I made sweatshirt jackets for mom and I. We had bought the fabric back in Nov. but I just wasn't sure how it was going to work out to quilt it on my frame. I ended up spray basting all the pieces and attaching the fabric and it worked out really well. There was probably more waste, but not as much as I expected. I serged them together and made the binding on Wed. After the rodeo Thurs. night I sewed the binding on to the jackets. Friday morning I got up extra early and sewed the binding down. I threw them in the wash before I went to work and Paul dried them for me. Mom and I wore them on Sat. when we went shop hopping in the southern hills.

The fabric is quilting related. I need to make us bags to match now, but they turned out great and kept us warm all day. I'm glad that I used our shop hop as incentive to get them done.

Halloween Wall Hanging

Last weekend i quilted this wall hanging and put the bias binding on it. During the past week before the concerts I hand sewed the binding and hanging sleeve down. It's all ready to be hung in my office in October.

I did a straight line squiggle across it, a first for this type of quilting for me.

This close up shows the orange thread a bit better. It was fun to quilt like this and I really enjoyed how quickly it quilted up.

Fast & Furious Week!

This has been a fast and furious week! The Central States Fair is this week in town and mom, two co-workers, and I got fair passes for the entire week. Monday night was Dustin Evans and Rodney Atkins. Dustin was great as usual and I added all his CD's to my MP3 player this week. Rodney was incredible! I was rather shocked at how many of his songs I knew. Tuesday night was Doo Waa Riders which were an old band. Paul and his mom met me under the tent for a funnel cake, where we saw Ed and his friends. Blake Shelton was the second concert and he was awesome. I've seen him in concert before, but he was even better this time. Wed. night I stayed home as I don't enjoy rock concerts. I serged together both of the sweatshirt jackets that I am making for mom and I. I also made 511" of bias binding! It was a 35" square I had to use to make that much binding, but it went together fast.
Last night we went to the rodeo. JJ & Ryan were both riding and several of my former students were also participating. I still enjoy cheering for all of them and hope they do well. The rodeo got over early, so I put the binding on the jackets. By 11 I had it all on, but needed to sew it down. I got up an hour early this morning and sewed all the binding down and threw the jackets in the washer. I put them in the dryer while I got ready. I'll have to take pictures tomorrow when we wear them. I also finished the binding and hanger on the Halloween wall hanging I made for myself. That's three finishes for me this week! It may be all I finish this month, but I'm so happy to have these projects completed.

Mom's Halloween Wall Hanging

August has been a slow finishing month for me. I've worked on lots of projects, but don't have many finishes to show for it. I've gotten tired of doing bags and purses, so I decided to work on some wall hangings and other UFO's. I've worked on my RWB Siggy Quilt, the jungle baby quilt wall hanging, cut out the zoo baby quilt, and got part of the top of the teal/brown quilt done. In the past week I've cut out 3 tablerunners, quilted all the pieces for 2 sweatshirt jackets, and quilted a Halloween wall hanging for myself. Thurs. I quilted my sweatshirt jacket pieces and then put a Halloween panel on the frame to quilt for my wall at work. Friday night I put the binding on my Halloween wall hanging. I've been sewing it down while waiting for the concerts to start this week. I should have it done by the time they are done on Tues. night. Since I had the machine ready and the thread on, I quilted this wall hanging for mom. She had given it to me a while ago, but I hadn't been doing a lot of quilting. It seems like when I start quilting on the frame I do several things at a time and then quit for a while. It just needed a little squaring up of the back and a bit of the batting sewn together. Total time, I think it took me less than an hour to quilt it yesterday. Mom's wall hanging just needs eyes!

After I got it done yesterday I put mom's sweatshirt jacket pieces on the frame and quilted all of them. It's been interesting quilting without a backing. I spray basted the pieces to the top fabric and then stretched the top as though it was the bottom piece. Then I quilted the pieces, front, back, and two sleeves. I'm hoping to get them all serged up on Wed. night. I'm not going to the rock concert that night, so I should have enough time to get them done and then I just need to put the binding on both jackets. Sometimes I just need motivation to get UFO's done. Mom and I were planning to go to a trunk show on Fri. night, so I wanted to get them done. I don't think we'll be going now, but I'm so close to finishing that I want to get the jackets done. I've had the fabric to do these since Nov. I also have to do bias binding on them. I made bias binding for my wall hanging this week and it went together perfectly! I think I can do it now without too many problems.
Saturday after work Paul and I went to the demo derby at the fair. It was so good and lots of fun to watch. I hadn't been to one in a while, but it was fun to cheer on my classmate and friends of my little bro. My little bro works for Olson Towing now and they sponsered a car, so I cheered for it. Ed's the youngest of my two brothers, but was always the bigger one, but not so much anymore! Ed has lost a considerable amount of weight and has turned into a very handsome man. I'll always be his little sister though, since he's almost a foot taller than me. I'm so proud of him! His motto: Put down the fork! So true are those words to live by.
Last night mom, a co-worker, and I went to the Chris Cagle/Heidi Newfield concerts. Heidi was okay and I was so looking forward to Chris Cagle, but he had to cut it short after about 30 min, because of lightning and very strong winds. I was so disappointed because I have seen him in concert twice, once from the front row and he is so good! Tonight we are going to Rodney Atkins and Dustin Evans. I love Dustin Evans and I think I have all of his CD's so I'm excited!

Teal & Brown Simple Day at the Lake Quilt

This week I've been working on a quilt from a pattern called Simple Day at the Lake. I decided to make it bigger, so I included a few more fat quarters. I had it all cut out and about half the blocks done. Tonight I finished the rest of the blocks and sewed them all together. Now it gets a solid border and then a squares border. I picked up this fat quarter pack in OH, but the offwhite really shows up in the picture.

This is one of my favorite batik lines. I'm hoping to get it to at least a double size so we can use it on our bed. I'll probably quilt it with a verigated teal/brown.
After I got this far, I quit for the night on this quilt. I worked on spray basting a sweatshirt to some fabric so I can quilt it to make jackets. I'm hoping to get them done by next weekend, but we'll see if I can get them on the frame yet this week or not.

Prolific Online Quilters Meet

A couple weeks ago Michele B. from Maryland emailed me with a few questions about things to do in the area. We emailed back and forth and I gave her some suggestions. This weekend she arrived in the Black Hills with her family. Daughter Laura saved the day by helping Michele find the shop. It was pouring rain when they arrived, but they were able to spend some time at the shop looking around. It was great to meet Michele for the first time. We are both members of the Prolific Online Quilters group. I hope she has lots of fun on her vacation in the Hills as there is plenty to do.

When I got home I was exhausted and didn't have much quilting mojo. I just was kind of at a loss for what to work on and I had a huge mess in my studio. Too many things to do and too little time! Finally I settled on working on this wall hanging for Mason's room. I got all the applique pieces put on before calling it a night. I have to pick up thread before I can do the applique stitching.

When I got home from work last night, Paul gave me this pink rose in the beautiful swan. It's absolutely gorgeous and made my day. He also grilled ribs, made tuscany veggies, and Grieme potatos for supper. It was nice to have a homecooked meal I didn't have to cook.

See the purple in the picture? It's my new purple rotary cutting mat, to match my new purple tutto for my travel machine. I'm loving the new purple accessories, since Jen made me a bunch of purple bags to go with it all.
After supper I cleaned out my fabric closet. Grandpa made each of us kids a small cabinet which we each still use. In college mine was a food pantry, but now it's my fabric cabinet. I cleaned out all the fabric and put in the newest fabric for projects, as well ast the projects I'm working on. I put all the old fabric that I'm not using in my fabric drawers in the closet. Now I feel like I have my quilting fabrics/projects organized and not stuffed in an overflowing cabinet.
I pulled out the sweatshirts for jackets and plan to work on them this week. I need to pick up some thread and I'll be good to go with the quilting.
I'm hoping to have a great quilting week since I won't be able to do much next week during the fair. A bunch of us girls at the shop all have tickets for every night! Chris Cagle, Heidi Newfield, Rodney Atkins, Dustin Evans, Blake Shelton, three nights of rodeos, and demo derby. I'm skipping the Stix Concert I think.
Happy Quilting!

Stitchin Chix Bag

Last night mom and I got together with the girls from work and made Stitchin Chix Bags. They turned out awesome and went together so fast. They are going to be the bag for Bag Ladies next month. They went together so fast and really were quite easy to make. I finished mine in about 2 hours. Here's my finished bag.

I used a fun decorative stitch and King Tut thread for the handles.

This is my original fabric which is super cute. I picked it up at the shop in Chamberlain last weekend on our shop hop.

I found a print for the lining in a shop in Luverne MN.

Runaround Bag

Last week when I was at Jenn's I worked on this runaround bag. It's been in my UFO pile since about November of last year. I finally got around to working on it, but then didn't have the pattern with me to remember how to lay it out. Last night after I finished my Stitchin Chix bag I pulled this out, layered it up and finished it in about 10 min! I love how fast runaround bags go together, but I never seem to think that when they are laying around. This is the last of three, so it's made from the scraps, so most of it is all the same except for the back.
The Front

The back

I have a pink/brown one cut out and mostly made, but need a back pocekt to finish. I'm hoping I can get it done this weekend.

Girls Weekend Quilts & Vines 2009

Last weekend Mom and I had a Girls weekend and traveled to Sioux Falls. We took off around noon on Friday. We stopped at The Quilt Shop in Chamberlain. They have tons of samples and we found some great quilting related fabrics. We checked in at the hotel, had "Driving Miss Daisy" our GPS find a great Mexican restaurant, and stopped at Joann's. Then we were back to the hotel to set up our machines and start sewing. We enjoyed the hot tub and met some bikers headed back to MN from Sturgis.
Saturday morning we got up early and went to the Quilts & Vines Outdoor Quilt Show. It's located at a vineyard/winery north of Sioux Falls, near Renner, SD. It was a great show and we saw some amazing quilts. My favorites included this deer quilt, similar to the one I made Paul.

A Winding Ways Quilt which I would really like to make. I love the colors in it.

A bargello which I really would like to make as well.

A great Halloween wall hanging.

A bargello flag, similar to the kit I have to make one.

An awesome applique wall hanging. This one is a bit different one than the ones we have in the shop.

The grapes on the vines. All the quilts are displayed on the vines of the vineyard/winery.

Two Stepping Stones Quilts made with a variety of prints. I have the pattern and have been wanting to make it, but the one on the front of the pattern is solid colored. I loved these made out of a variety of prints.


Mom and I left the quilt show when it got so humid we could hardly stand it. We went to Always My Design, a great quilt shop in Dell Rapids. Then we went in to SF to Heirloom Creations. I found the panel I had been looking for and several other coordinates. We had lunch at Panera Breads and then went to Luverne MN to The Sewing Basket. Neither mom nor I had been there before, so they had lots of fabrics unique to us. We got a couple fabric books. Then it was back to SD to Brandon where we stopped at Quilted Memories. Then in to SF to Dutch Rose quilt shop. We had a great time touring all the quilt shops in the area, with stops at other shops we don't have in Rapid City. We had a great supper at Spezia before heading back to the hotel. I worked on the blocks for my signature quilt. I got a few done, but I have more to do. Sun. morning mom and I met my college friends Nich and Jon and their son Mason for lunch at Camille's. It was a great little sidewalk cafe and I really enjoyed it. We made a few more stops before heading home. We arrived home by 7:30, so it was a great fun weekend with mom.

Sewing at Jenn's!

Last night Jenn had invited me over to her house to quilt. She made a delicious nachos supper and then I gave her the quilt I had made her. She loved it! I also gave her a matching pillowcase and purse and Wyatt's Baby quilt and burp clothes. Olivia seemed to think the quilt with the clowns could be hers. She loved the little wonder wallet I gave her and found all kinds of treasures to put in it.
Jenn with her quilt:

She was quilting a quilt and I had brought several small projects to work on. I made a checkbook cover and wonder wallet to go with each of the purses I made recently. Then I worked on a couple runaround bags and got them almost ready to be put together. I cut out a wall hanging I'm making for my friend and worked on the 4 patches, but I was getting tired so I quit after I got one set of the 4 patches done. I'm hoping to finish up the top tonight, but we'll see how much I get done.

We had some nasty wind/rain last night, but by the time I left it wasn't too bad. I'm so thankful it wasn't nasty driving home. I had a great time and can't wait to get together with Jenn to sew again. Thanks Jenn!

Butchering Chickens!

This weekend mom and I were asked to do a quilting demo/quilt show at the County Fair. It went really well on Saturday and I think those that attended learned a lot. We did two different demos, Quilting for the Clueless and Bags, Bags, Bags. After the demos, we shopped in the variety store and found some great fabrics we don't have at the shop. It's always fun to go there as I got fabric and Paul got fishing lures. The store has everything! We had supper and then headed for my parents place. We got changed and loaded up the pickups met up with a cousin, my bro, and my niece and we headed for the river to go fishing. We left about 7PM and it was the perfect evening. There was no wind, it was cool, and there was a full, bright moon. We caught about 10 and they cleaned them about 10:30... but then we caught 5 more and it was about 12:30 before they cleaned the next batch. I caught a 1.6 pound catfish! By 1AM we left for my parents. By the time we got to bed it was nearly 2! My bro asked if we'd help butcher chickens the next morning and I said sure if I got one. Dad and I headed down to my bros at 9 on Sun. morning. I've included a few pictures of the process, but it may be a bit grose, so procede with caution!
We were greeted by the roosters and a few hens. My bro caught the hens. Dad and I held them by the legs to carry them out of the barn.

Holding 2 roosters in my hand.

Then my bro hung them up and cut the throats.

Then he scalded them to get the feathers to come loose.

Dad, SIL, and I picked the feathers from the birds. We did 10 total birds.

This is the first bird I cleaned myself. It's a big roaster bird! It's about the size of a small turkey.

We cleaned them and brazed the hair off and then put them in the cooler. We put them in water and froze the birds to eat over the course of the next year. It was an interesting experience and I learned a lot. It was really hot, 90, but with a breeze it wasn't so bad in the shade. It got to 102 in the afternoon. We got done about 1PM and then went back to my parents where Dad, Paul, and fixed lunch for my mom's birthday. Mom and I had a very enjoyable time visiting and pulling out a few UFO's to work on. We came home early as we knew we would have to deal with the biker traffic. The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally started today and there are a ton of bikers out and about in the area.

July Quilting Accomplishments!

This was an extremely productive month and I feel like I accomplished so much.
My goals for this month included:
Thread Sewing Bag - 5 Done!
Finish Lickity Split Binding - Done!
Chez Moi Grommet Bag - 2 Done!
Chez Moi Happy Hour Quilt - Done and Labeled! My friend should receive it this week... so stay tuned for pictures if I can get her to pose with it!
Make Signature Quilt with Rosie - Top, Quilt, Bind - Moved to August Goal

In July I completed:
3 Cosmetic/Sewing tote bags
Thread scraps Bag for by my machine
Chez Moi Grommet Bag
Wonder Wallet and Checkbook cover
Another Chez Moi Grommet Bag
Quilted a quilt for Kathy
Made Leslie's Curtains
Pillowcases:
~Leslie
~Paul
~Me
~Chez Moi
~Pop Parade
Baby Burp Clothes
Snapshot of Friends
Au Natural Claire
5 & Dime
Al Fresco Claire
Pink/Brown Grommet Bag

I started the Peaches and Dreams Quilt, Won a Drawing on the I Have a Notion blog, and had a great group of ladies for Bag Ladies. I also read Black Hills by Nora Roberts which is an excellent book!

My August Goals include a few UFO's and I'm sure there will be a few new projects completed as well!
Red/White/Blue Rosie the Quilter Signature quilt
Barnyard Friends Baby Quilt... baby is due at the end of the month!
Zoo Friends Baby Quilt
QAYG Runaround Bag
Halloween wall hanging

Attend Quilt Show & Quilt Retreat