GLHQ Quilt Show -- Don't be late!

I've recovered from my wicked sinus infection/near death experience this week and am soooo ready for the second day of the 2015 GLHQ Quilt Show.  Today was the first day of the show and by all accounts attendance was great, visitors were loving the show and vendors, and I can't wait to see it all tomorrow.

If you live anywhere near Detroit please take a couple hours out of your Saturday and make the trek out to see a wonderful quilt show.  And if you come, please seek me out and say hello.  I'll be manning various roles, helping with the vendors and tabulating the Viewers' Choice Award, given out at 4 pm!

Chunky Monkey Lilly

I'm battling some sort of sinus thing that popped up yesterday.  Lots of sinus draining and coughing, which hurts my chest.  Loading up with a few OTC medicines and going to be early tonight.

Thought I would share a couple of pictures of my adorable granddaughter Lilly.  She's a real chunky monkey but oh, so cute.

Her first selfie:

She loves to take a 'bath' in the shower, with the water spraying on her.

She looks just like her brother -- I love them so much.  Just wish I could see them more often.

Get up and GO!

Whenever I have vacation time burning a hole in my pocket I love to travel.  I learned of a website that helps you plan hotels, attractions, and food stops along the route.  It's called www.roadtrippers.com and it looks pretty sweet.  How often do you find yourself in a place where you don't know where to stay, what to do, or where to eat?

You can choose from several categories to populate your map and where they exist, there will be ratings for the spot, too.

I think I'll be adding this site to my Favorites list on the right side of my blog for future use.

Here's a screen shot of my local area and a handful of the helpful things that could be found.

Sesame Street Madness

Last Sunday I treated my daughter and grandson to Sesame Street Live at the Fox Theatre in Detroit.  First problem was I thought it was at the Fisher Theater.  We paid to park, hurried into the Fisher Theater and snapped several pictures of the wonderful architecture.  As we neared the theater entrance it was quite apparent we were at the wrong theater!!  Yikes!!!!

We hurried back to the car and made our way to the correct theater.  As we approached the parking structure a very nice man guided us to the perfect parking spot, close to the theater.  This was very helpful considering Denver's short legs and my poor running ability.

Once inside the magnificent theater we headed to the restroom, passing loads of kids with plastic Elmo spinny-light up toys.  Of course I had to buy one for Denver.  He was mesmerized.

The show was wonderful and our seats in row D afforded us a visit by several of the show's characters.

It was such a fun afternoon.  Denver was asleep by the time we exited the parking structure!

I was never able to take my kids to such a show when they were young -- no money for things like that and their dad would never agree to such an a 'extravagance'.  Now that I'm a grandma I won't hesitate to give my grandkids a fun time like this.  Looking forward to our next adventure!

I have to say though, that there was one very strange incident.  A couple of women and their kids arrived about 30 minutes late and took their seats adjacent to me.  Not 2 minutes after they sat down the woman next to me sniffed her infant's bottom and proceeded to change his diaper ON HER LAP.  EGADS -- why in the world would anyone do such a thing in a fine theater with loads of people nearby???

Orange, orange, and more orange!

The past week and a half has been chock full of activity.  Mystery Quilt Day was last Saturday and I managed to sew the top and backing in one day (record for me possibly?!) for a quilt for a special soon-to-be 1 year old.  His father is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, hence the Volunteers fabric, picked up last April on my way back from their home in Atlanta.  Don't spill the beans!

The front:

The Back: 

I used a Weeks Dye Works variegated 40 wt thread in the bobbin and Glide 40 wt Cream thread in the top.  Had to keep re-filling the bobbin, argh, but glad to finally have a project I could use this thread for.  I think I've had it for about 10+ years, still in the original wrapper.  Sheesh!  I used MasterPiece 50 wt in orange to sew the binding on.  It's a bit brighter that the binding but I'm ok with that.

Back close up above and Front close up below:

I pieced this quilt using my Juki F600, aka Hazel, and quilted it using my Juki 2010Q, aka Queenie.  Hazel is a dream to piece with and Queenie does a fabulous job quilting.  I serged the edges using my Juki MO-1000 serger before adding the binding.  I sewed the binding on using Hazel and used foot D, the stitch in the ditch foot, to sew the back of the binding down from the front side.  It is soooo much faster for me to do it this way compared to hand sewing the binding to the backside.

And for the most part, you never see the stitches on the front edge of the binding.  Sweet!

I think I'll make a pillowcase from the remaining pieces of the quilt fabric.  I want to use it up and move on to the next quilt!  I'll be mailing these out to Owen after the first of the month.  Woohoo -- done ahead of time!!!  Such a good feeling.

Life is Good!

It really is.  This morning I was thinking about how good life is.  I've had plenty of times where I thought I really couldn't go on but I have.  How did I get to be so strong?  Maybe it's genetic -- my grandmother and my mother were both very strong women.

As I was thinking about it this morning, way too deeply I might add for 8 am, I realized that even the bad times really have made me stronger.  Do I wish I had never had the bad times?  Sure.  But in the end it has been these rotten experiences that have made me appreciate what I have and who I know.  More importantly, though, it has been who I choose to love.

Life really is good.  I can't imagine life without my sisters, my kids, my grandkids and my friends.  Each one of them makes me richer beyond Bill Gates.

For good measure, I did buy a few Powerball tickets for tonight's drawing.  Oh think of the sewing studio I could have.......

Handy Hints

For those of us who use an iron regularly here's a great video on keeping it clean, courtesy of Professor Pincushion.

And here are the top 5 quilt colors for 2015 -- in case you are inclined to adhere to the 'rules'.