Memorial Day Sale Anyone?

Can you take a guess at what we purchased over the weekend?  It arrives TOMORROW!!!! 

Blogged about HERE over on the family blog.

Love from Texas!

Memorial Day weekend, a time of gratitude

 I received an email full of Memorial Day cartoons - but these were the two I liked best.  This weekend's holiday is a time of gratitude for all the ones that gave us something we can never properly repay them for. Our Country's FREEDOM. 

Thank You!

Love from Texas!

walmart fabric

I guess it's been at least 2 or 3 years now since walmart started pulling fabric departments out of their stores.  Each time I've shopped over the past year, I've noticed a significant change in our department. Getting smaller and smaller each time I'm there.  Down to just the back wall and one other section for thread.  Well in recent months our store under went a WHOLE STORE REMODEL.  I'm talking - moved departments from one side of the store to the other and new floor, layout - I no longer know where anything is...  So imagine my surprise when I rolled my cart around the corner and found this.

Three isles of fabrics!  WOW! I would have never thought that they'd still have a fabric department - especially after the whole store remodel, but that's cool with me!  It's still one of the few places to find lisconsed cartoon characters like Carebear, Spiderman, Dora or Little Mermaid fabrics.

They even have a small section of precuts - trying to copy the idea of charms, and jelly rolls only these fabrics are SOOOOO YUCK!  So thin, I could see thru them without even touching them to examine.  Nice try, but no thanks. 

There were these batik strips that might be OK. Love their colors... but right now I don't have a need for them.  I do have a need for one of these two bolts though the brightness sorta spoke to me...  I didn't have my Round Robin Quilt with me, but wouldn't one of these make a fun backing fabric to use??? Can you guess which one came home with me?

I still think that if anyone who doesn't quilt but would like one - would be better off to just go to walmart and buy one.  $19 and you choose T, Q, or K size!  You can't even buy a rotary cutter for $19!!

If you guessed the fabric bolt on the LEFT in the photo above - you would be right!  The one with the purple swirls on the bright pink batik... I think it will work perfectly for my backing on the Round Robin Quilt.  I laid it out on the kitchen floor and the colors looked perfect.

Guess what else I bought.  Actually I went back the next day, the kids with me, so they could pick their own fabric for future pillowcases.  Paul Thomas chose robots, Olivia chose Care Bears and Nora wanted tie-dye peace signs.  Can you tell they are excited about new pillowcases!? lol

 

I also spotted this book - which I took a photo of to help me remember the title. 

Have you heard of him or seen this youTube video from one of his inspirational talks to school kids?  I saw it shared on facebook sometime last year and was really touched. How great it would be if everyone had his attitude in life.  I want to finish up the book I'm on and then add his to my new Nook Color soon.

HERE is his interview video while interviewed by CBN.COM and more videos click HERE

Love from Texas!

Nora's First Recital

 

This weekend was a busy and exciting time for us.  Nora had her first ever recital and did a full dress rehearsal Saturday morning at 8am with a performance that night at 6:30 and then another Sunday after Mass at 1:30.  I hope to post more photos soon - but the one above of her and her dance partner just before going out is my most favorite photo of all. ;)

CLICK HERE to watch her perform on youTube.  This was the first performance Saturday night.

To see all the photos I took during the recital CLICK HERE where they are uploaded to a folder on facebook.  I don't think you have to be on facebook to view them.  Let me know if there are problems.

Love from Texas!

Do you Google? Google Reader your blog list that is??

 Like most people I know, I start my day at the computer by checking out facebook and reading the most recent status' of my friends on there... this morning Pat Sloan had posted this:

• Pat Sloan  going to have a blog fest today... read and comment and catch up on 852 blogs I follow!
  

  2 hours ago · ·

Which got me to thinking.... I wonder how many blogs I follow?????  Hummm...

I know that by clicking on my blogger profile it will come up a list of blogs I follow but those are just the very few that I've left there on that page... as for me - it's much more convenient to use GOOGLE READER and that way no more bookmarking and worry with saving it some where in case of a computer crash...  I can access it by logging onto ANY computer where ever I am.  Home, laptop, friends house, or library.  I can even use my new Nook Color and access my favorite blogs while in the parking lot of McDonalds!  You know we have a lot of picnics in the van thru the busy weeks in between the kids' activities.  (the Nook Color was my Mother's Day gift this year and I'll blog and show ya later)

anyway - with the GOOGLE Reader it's a lot like having open an email program all day in separate internet window.  Blogs are listed and you can categorize them into folders and when a blog has a NEW post, their name shows up in bold and a number to the side indicating how many new posts there are. At any time you want to go directly to the blog - just click the link.

I have my folders set up like this:

• applique blogs
• AWESOME blogs  (these are so my favorites are near the top and easy to find)
• Book blogs
• Designer's blogs
• Friends Blogs (actual people I know in real life)
• HGTV quilter's blogs
• Modern quilter's blogs
• Mom blogs
• Other blogs of interest
• Quilt Shop blogs
• Recipe/Food blogs
• Redwork/Embroidery blogs
• thequiltboard members blogs
• Blogs I'm Following (this is a defaulted folder and linked to the blogs you click to FOLLOW ME in blogland)

From the above categories I counted up a total of 239 different blogs.  Do you think that is a lot?

What if I told you that I also counted up the blogs at the bottom that have not been assigned a category listed above yet... and there were another 374 of those!!!!!?  That's a total of 987 blogs!  No wonder my counter gave up counting the entries and always reads 1000+ unread posts. :P 

What about you? Do you have folders you assign blogs to in your Google Reader?  Oh and it doesn't matter if they use blogger, or typepad or whatever... you can add them to your list. :)  Enjoy!

Love from Texas!

100 bolts of 1930's on the wall.... 100 bolts on the wall...

100 bolts of 1930's on the wall.... 

100 bolts on the wall.

Take one down, pass it around,

99 bolts of 1930's on the wall!

Can you imagine 100 bolts of 1930's reproduction fabrics?  All under one roof!!  

 

While blog hopping today I came across twiddletails' blog and she is celebrating having 100 different 30's bolts in her quilt shop and to celebrate she is having a little charm pack giveaway.

You can hop on over and enter to win - she's sharing the love with FOUR lucky readers.  :)  I hope that perhaps I'll be one of them as I la,la,love 1930's!!!

Love from Texas!

My Batik Round Robin is HERE!

Almost two years ago I was asked to help with a block making project and was mailed a fat 1/8th of two fabrics to use for any block of my choice.  I blogged about it HERE.   I had enough fabric that I was able to make an extra block to keep and it sat around for nearly a year with no purpose in mind... until...

Quiltaholic decided that she'd organize a Round Robin swap while we all counted down the months to the next Circle of Friends quilting retreat hosted by the HGTV quilters in Charlotte, NC this year.

I last blogged May 4th, telling you a little bit about my participation in the Round Robin project, but since my last post, my husband has traveled to Oklahoma City, OK and also Indianapolis, IN leaving me to fend for myself with the kids, which translates to = I'm too dog gone tired to make a blog post or even quilt after the kids are in bed at night.  aka too LAZY to do anything other than read facebook pages of friends...*sigh*

The beginning of May was also the end of the twin's preschool year, and we had our singing program a week ago today - and also in addition to that business, last Wednesday we left town to go to Kentucky for a funeral of David's Uncle... so I have not had the time to post to my blog, sorry!  It was a quick trip and although I did pack my laptop, I never once even got it out of the back of the van since we left Texas Wednesday, arrived to KY on Thursday and left Sunday headed back home and arrived sometime after 1am Monday this week.

However - I have lots of photos and will share two with you tonight...of my Round Robin that arrived in the mail the day before Mother's Day!  Tonight, I uploaded them to facebook real quick and shared while waiting on David to get home from work so I could leave to attend QUILT GUILD tonight! Eeeek! I got to go!! :)

I took my RR with me for my Sew-N-Tell item this month. I couldn't wait to have it quilted first... I'll show it again after Margaret does her magic to it. ;)  But take a look, isn't it beautiful!!!

I made the center block, called "Mississippi Star" that I found HERE designed by Judy Martin.  I mailed it first to Virginia Beach, VA where "Ambher" added the teal and white borders.

 

Then it was mailed to Liverpool, NY where "lakequilter" added the "Trip Around the world" looking block border. Love that golden yyellow and how it ties in with my center block.

My quilt was then mailed to Pawcayuck, CT where "Auntie Reba" gave my Round Robin VIP treatment! She did such beautiful applique work to it and the fabrics she used for the background for the flowers on her boarder were made from batik fabrics that she purchased in the capitol of Bali, Denpasar when she was visiting the Indonesian island!!! I can NOT believe she was so generous to share them with me! WOW!

Finally my Round Robin Quilt traveled to Charlotte, NC to "craftyladyage821" finished it up with a rainbow of colors in her piano key style border! I la,la,love the bright orange floater border and final boarder to frame it.

It's perfect, and my only regret is that I didn't get to be there IN PERSON this year for the BIG reveal in NC.  I was so pleased with the outcome of my Round Robin quilt. My group did an awesome job and I love the bright bold colors of the batik fabrics they each used.

Any suggestions for a name for this beauty??? It's my first ever anything made with batik fabrics and I plan to hang it up in the sewing room.... and possibly enter it in next year's guild's quilt show???  

Love from Texas!

The Big Round Robin Reveal

Last weekend 80+ HGTV Quilterers met for the 5th Annual "Circle of Friends"  (COF) retreat.  This year it was hosted by Quiltaholic and held in Charlotte, NC.

I participated in the Round Robin Project in the months leading up to the retreat but jsut before Christmas I made the decision to drop out of going to NC for the retreat.  I hope the ladies in my group like what I added to each of their Robins and even though I've only seen a cell phone photo of my very own quilt, I can tell already that they did a fabulous job with it!  I read on the boards today that Quiltaholic is making a trip to the USPS today to let all the little ROBBINS fly away home to those of us who didn't get to make it.

I can't wait to receive it and show it to you here! Stay tuned!  At that time I'll make a post and share closeups of the parts of the above quilts that I worked on. :)  I knew at the time I wasn't allowed to show photos on line, but I took several to blog about later :)

You have to be a HGTV Board member to view any photos posted there - however I think THIS LINK will work to let you get a peek at just SOME of the quilts in the Round Robin.  Mine is not posted there...I'll try and see if I can remember who it was that did share it on fb over the weekend...

Love from Texas!