Wool Coat #2

Sometimes I find that I spend most of my Saturdays just doing chores.  You know -- washing, cleaning, vacuuming, etc.  Today, I got all of that done plus I was creative -- I finished Wool Coat #2 !!  I can spend the entire day planning, sketching, erasing, and never getting to the felting.  I sketched out some whimsical birds and a sunflower (thanks Joyce!).  Everything evolved over the course of the day but I'm totally happy with the end result.

I started by needle felting some yarn for the legs ~~

In the end this is what I created ~~

Two wild and crazy birds!

And here is the completed back of the coat~~

The front of the coat was embellished on the right lapel ~~

I took the coat with me to Right off the Sheep to get some feedback from the ladies.  They agreed that the flowers needed the extra orange trim and the birds needed 'wings', so I made those adjustments when I got home.

Juices are Flowin'

I'm busy, busy, busy tonight.  Working on Wool Coat #2 -- felting what I hope will be a great design on the back.  I love that the lining isn't attached so it will be one less finishing thing for me.  Here's a hint about the design -- tweet, tweet!

Check back tomorrow for pictures!  I'm such a tease.......

Thursday Thoughts

Don't you hate it when you can't find something that you use all the time?  Especially something that you KNOW you used recently.  I have wasted spent the last 2 1/2 hours looking for my needle felting tools and foam.  Not items that I would have put away somewhere as if I didn't expect to need them anytime soon.  Oh, no.

Sometimes when I'm in a 'tidying up' frenzy I put things where there's space or with similar items.  The only good thing about tonight's tirade is that I was able to organize my bedroom and craft room somewhat.  Nothing that would pass inspection but at least I've captured in my mind's eye where things currently are.  It's a lot like the old Concentration game.

So now that I've found my tools and selected some roving I might just get to work on embellishing another wool coat.  Or I might decide that it's too late, my eyes are tired, and the light at 9:30 PM isn't exactly the best for doing something creative.  Not to mention that I'm still in an internal tizzy over the trouble in locating my tools.  

Charlie Chaplin once said "Nothing is permanent in this wicked world - not even our troubles."  He was so right.  Everything is right with the world, now that I've found my tools.  Time for bed....

Creative Juices

Today was another beautiful Spring day and with the sunshine came all sorts of ideas for my wool coat embellishments.  Flowers, birds, leaves, grass, even dragonflies.  I know it's a bit early for dragonflies but so many people like them that I think I need to put them on my coats.

I hit a couple of Value World stores after work in search of more coats.  Have you ever taken a road you don't usually take and then when you're stuck in traffic, remember WHY it is that you don't take that road????  Yep, that was me tonight.

I did find one new coat but it doesn't have a size tag so I'm guessing it's about a size 16.  I'll need to find someone who normally wears that size and have them try it on.  I took it straight to the cleaners for the usual $1.99 cleaning and will pick it back up tomorrow.

I think larger sized coats need larger scale embellishments than smaller sized coats.  Right?

Anyhow, I'm sketching designs tonight.  I think it's better to have a basic plan from which to needlefelt from and this will help with deciding on scale and color.  Love those colored pencils!

Happy to be Home - Part 2

When 9 women get together there's bound to be a lot of interesting things going on.  One thing for sure is there will be plenty of great food.  We had wonderful breakfast casseroles on Saturday, prepared by Kathy.  The usual tasty Sunday waffle breakfast, prepared by Jackie, and a couple of meals where we just ate leftovers.  Don't you love those weekends where there's so much food prepared you think your refrigerator is going to burst?   I have to say, though, that I must not have paid any attention whatsoever to our planned meals, otherwise I would have known that Deb had planned Chicken Salad Sandwiches for Saturday's lunch.  Why would that matter??  Because that's what I planned for Sunday's "Linner" that we had so that Deb and Pat could be on the road by 3 PM.  Both versions were fabulous and plentiful.   Diane made a delicious and healthy soup to go with my sandwiches -- I love parsley Diane, really.  Mary made a wonderful Apple Bread Pudding for our "Linner' dessert.

No one can ever say they've gone to bed hungry during our Chicken gatherings.  We also don't run out of creativity or the 'panic' buying that comes along with this hobby.  We gathered for one last group shot on Sunday before Deb and Pat headed off ~~

Monday morning the six of us packed Mary's car, said our good-byes to Jackie and her husband Jerry (the 'Rooster' had returned to the coop) and headed back in search of the fabric that nearly got away.  We drove straight to Renee's House of Quilting, again.  This time I took pictures.

I perused the racks of wonderful Czechoslovakian glass buttons ~~

Others scoured the shelves of quilt fabric ~~

Diane found some fabric to use for curtains and such, ordering a bolt from the shop master Glen, who is also known for his fresh baked cookies ~~

Shop mistress Renee showed Kathy and me the samples she had made from an acrylic template set that I had been admiring ~~

Notice her lightning fast hands?  Maybe I could get more sewing done if my hands moved that fast!  Alas, I walked away from the templates, which I now deeply regret.  Might get them next time.  

We headed back toward Grayling for one last stop at the Icehouse Quilt Shop.  More must have fabrics were selected and we made our way to the outlet mall in West Branch were we all found some great values at the Eddie Bauer store. 

After a bite of lunch at the nearby Taco Bell/KFC and a gas fill up we were finally on our way home.  Or so we thought.  A few miles down the road the tire pressure sensor came on in Mary's van.  Uh Oh!  The last time that happened, Mary said there was a blowout!  We stopped at a gas station and all piled out of the van.  Standing around like a bunch of women, a man finally approached us, looked the tires over and told us to ignore it.  Wrong -- there was too much pressure in each of the tires -- should have been 35 PSI and there was 42 PSI.  Mary corrected the tires and again we were on our way.  Safely.

I always look forward to getting away with my friends.  We have enough in common to get along, enough differences to be interesting, and enough love for each other to make it all work.  Can't ask for more than that.

Happy to be Home - Part 1

I love going away.  I love going away with my quilting friends.  I even love coming home.  Mostly because I love sleeping in my own bed.  I got home tonight after a long weekend up at Torch Lake at my quilting friend Jackie's lovely home.  9 of the Chickens were there and 2 were missing -- missed you Sue and Judy!  We had a fabulous time, filled with lots of sewing, knitting, eating, drinking, and merriment.

We began our adventure by meeting at Joyce's house with the plan to take two cars.  Small problem.  Both of said vehicles were filled to capacity so there was no room for Diane!  It was like a Chinese fire drill.  All sorts of things came out of one car, into another car, so that everything could be re-configured and the eight of us were on our way!

Our first stop, after the rest stop, was the Icehouse Quilt Shop in Grayling.  I think we were all stunned.  This mecca of a shop has been a destination for quilters for years and their inventory was disappointing.  Normally packed to the hilt with fabric, books, and notions is was decidedly sparse.  I hope they can hang on.  We made our purchases and headed to the local diner for lunch. Here's a shot of the eight of us ~~

Then we were off to Renee's House of Quilting in Williamsburg, where many yards of fabric were purchased. I was cautious and only bought a few buttons and fabulous applique quilt pattern (thinking of a wool version sometime in the future...).

Following our delicious Chili dinner, prepared by Carol, we presented Jackie with our hostess gifts which shocked the pants off of her ~~

A few months ago Jackie had suggested that we make a friendship quilt using a gift box block.  We would all need to make 12 blocks of the same design and swap them so we'd each have a variety of blocks for a quilt.  It was vetoed because most of us didn't want to have to make twelve blocks.  Jackie was disappointed that we didn't share her enthusiasm for the project.  So Kathy decided that we should each make Jackie a block and present her with the blocks when she hosted us this month.

Jackie was tickled and we were thrilled to surprise her.

Each of us brought projects to work on and we were very productive, even though we managed to take care of 8 bottles of wine in three evenings ~~

Isn't that blue bottle a beauty?!  The wines were all fabulous.  I brought the Pacific Rim Riesling (under $10 at Costco) and it was good enough to put on a weekly list.......

Here are a few pictures of the projects we worked on:

Kathy brought her project from the Kat Campau workshop and made another one, creating a 'series' ~~

She's really enjoying exploring this new technique.

Diane and Joyce worked on hand projects ~~

Carol worked on dishcloths, among other things ~~

Deb worked on her floral blocks, auditioning setting block fabrics, and decided on a couple of great Kaffe Fassett fabrics ~~

Pat and Mary worked on various machine piecing projects (sorry no action photos) and Jackie worked on knitting her granddaughter's First Communion Cape, which was lovely but she's running short on the yarn.  I checked Ravelry for more yarn and sent out a note to see if someone might be willing to sell a skein.  Gotta love Ravelry!

I managed to finish 5 hats this weekend.  So glad to make good progress for my shows.

I snapped a few photos of different rooms in Jackie's lovely home:

The Great Room, where we did most of our eating, drinking and crafting ~~

The Sun Room, where we drank our morning coffee and tea and watched as the sun rose over the lake~~

I loved this 'bouquet' of Kaffe fabrics that Jackie made as a centerpiece when Kaffe visited the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island for a weekend workshop last year ~~

Here's Jackie's Gammill long arm quilting machine ~~

It has its very own room!

That will have to do for tonight.  It's late and I need to get to bed.  Back to work tomorrow.  I'll post the rest of the weekend's story and pictures Tuesday.

Still More Quilts

 I don't want to short-change the pieced quilts that we saw at the OCQG show so here they are:

The first one, Grace's Girls, was made by Della Carian's quilting group~~

Next up is a colorful beauty by Ruth McCormick of Rochester Hills ~~

This wonderful basket quilt was made by Erena Rieflin of Rochester Hills ~~

But back to some more fabulous applique quilts:

You just can't go wrong, IMHO, with a wool applique quilt and this one from Marlee Smearing of Rochester Hills hit a bulls eye~~

I love this one by Karen Fisher of Oxford ~~

Isn't that a yummy pineapple block??

Here's another fantastic applique quilt, made by Jan Jump, of Maryville, TN ~~

And here is the Lotus, by Darlene Garstecki of Hot Springs Village, AR (see yesterday's post for her other fabulous quilt) ~~

As you can see by the blue ribbon, this is a prize winner -- 'Superior Machine/Domestic Quilting' in this case. Outstanding!!

Here are the last quilts for tonight ~~

I love the quilt, made by Letty Martin of Lake Orion.  It's called Lucky Stars and was made for her son's wedding.  Positively gorgeous!

And the jacket next to the quilt ~~

was made by Nancy Partridge of Rochester Hills.  It's call Popped my Top and I think it's outstanding.  Love the colors!!

So that's it for my quilt photos.  Hope you weren't A. Overwhelmed, B. Bored.  I sure loved the show and I enjoy sharing the photos with you.

I'm off to Torch Lake tomorrow with my Chicken friends so I won't be posting for a while.  I should be home on Monday so look for an update then, as long as I'm not too pooped from all the fun we'll be having.

Hope you have a super weekend!!