Random thoughts

This morning as I was reading blogs I ran across some interesting thoughts. At Magnolia Bay Quilts, Kim referred to a blog on on Dawn Heese site, Linen Closet Quilts, about being a better blogger. Sometimes I think what is going on may not interest anyone. Actually, since we came back from my husbands family reunion earlier in August, I have just plain been in a funk. No machine sewing, a little hand work, cleaning out a couple closets, putting some card making supplies in order and a little reading. This past week, sewing started looking up. I had purchased this great book by Mary Lou Weidman recently, and have been thinking about trying one of her great ideas.
Recently, I had won this great tote bag, and fabrics from her blog Mary Lou and Whimsy Too.
She has such great ideas and creativity. Maybe I need to step out of my comfort box.

Last Saturday my husband and I drove to Lincoln, Illinois for a balloon festival and outdoor art show and flea market. The balloons did not launch at 5:00 as it was too windy. They did, however, have a balloon glow. About 17 balloon were blown up and tethered at dusk. As the sun went down you could see the "glow" as they light up their balloons. It was fantastic. You could walk around the crew and balloons. The announcer would give a command and the balloons would light all together.

This was the only "special shape" balloon called "Sea Fantasy." It was so cool to see. There were was a fish and a star fish and a dolphin attached to it.

Here are 3 other balloons being inflated. On our way home we stopped in Plano, to see if we could catch a glimpse of any changes on the Superman movie set. Did see this overturned car. We have found out that there is a sequel being considered to this movie. Everyone is anxious to see it and check out all the area where filming has been so far. Movie is not scheduled to come out until June 2013. Bummer!! There is a site on Facebook devoted to this movie and Superman sightings.

At our scrap club meeting this past week Donna showed this darling pinwheel quilt made out of half square triangles. It is such a sweet wall hanging.

Last but not least this is what I have finally been working on. It is the "Zippy Strippy" bag by Atkinson Designs. As you can see 5 are done, and 5 more need zippers. Naturally, I don't have the right color zipper. More shopping to do!

I am keeping busy, but at a slower pace right now. I am getting ready to go on a quilt retreat at Iron Mountain, Michigan the middle of September. My friend Pat and several of her quilting buddies and I are going to "Quilt Camp". I think they are going to work on the "Civil War Diary"quilt, and I am going to work on one called "Apron Strings". I need to start pulling fabric.

Have a great week, and thank you for stopping by.


Mary

Superman in Plano, Illinois this week

Superman is being filmed in Plano, IL this week and next. They have really done wonders to make Plano into Smallville. We checked out the town on Friday evening, along with a lot of other folks with cameras. They have added buildings, changed store fronts, and fixed up other buildings. This is the Smallville Realty. The pictures on the window is of real houses in the area. These buildings have all been added. The store on the left is supposed to be selling boxes and packing materials. The supplies are in the store. The one with the yellow awnings is a bakery. The baked goods are in cases in the store. There is talk that a tornado is supposed to go through the town, which is why you see parts of buildings blown away.

This house is out on Route 126. It was by accident that we found out about the filming out here. Andy went with his Dad and took a couple pictures he thinks Amy Adams is in. We have only been by these areas about 5 times. Anyone that we know that wants to see it, we have been taking out. It will be fun to see if we recognize all this when the movie comes out.

It has been a lot of fun following this. When you are familiar with an area, it is fun that it is going to be in a movie. We are looking forward to when this movie comes out.

On the sewing front, nothing! I have lots to work on. Have done some hand work. Did reorganize the dining room table where my card making supplies are. Would like to finish up several cards. Soon, I will have to start working on Halloween and Thanksgiving cards. Think I know what I am going to do on with Christmas cards.

You would think that being retired you would have more time. Wrong! I am just as busy as when I worked. Do get more sewing done though. Did clean out my clothes closet. That was a major accomplishment.

We finally updated and got a new computer. The other was so slow, it felt like forever to do anything on it. Now we have Windows 7. Naturally my old files are not compatible with this version. We went from Windows XP to 7. My friend Sharon came over to help convert everything. What a job for her. I had no idea it would be so much work. I have disks for Foundation Factory, from windows 95. Can't get them to load. Two major jobs were my quilt book inventory and my recipe book. I was afraid I was going to have to redo them again. I think that would have been 3 or 4 times I have loaded that information through the years.

That's it for now. Hope everyone is having a great week. Weather has cooled a little. The rain today was good.

Needlekeep is Done!!!

This is another project done!! I am so pleased with how this turned out. This was a kit. There is some of the fabric left over. At least enought to start another one. When I showed it at one of the quilt clubs at Prairie Stitches in Oswego. I had several friends say they would love to have one!!

It has a place for needles, scissors, and thread. I love the little basket on the front. I do love basket patterns!!

Have a great quilting day tomorrow!!

Back from Vacation

We are back from our trip to Buffalo, New York for family reunions. We had a great time. One of Ron's cousins came from London, England. It was fun to see him, as it had been several years since he had attended. We visited with 2 sets of family and caught up on so much. Naturally there was a lot of eating. They have a sandwich called "Beef on Wick" that is to die for. The beef is usually cut from what they call a steam ship round and piled high on a bun that has caraway seeds and kosher salt baked into the top. It is soooooooo good.

We came home stocked with Saylens hotdogs, Wise potato chips, Loganberry juice, and Nances mustard. Let's just say there were 2 coolers full of good eating for the next several weeks. Surprisingly, the food that was frozen, stayed frozen, even though we stopped in Cleveland, Ohio for the night on the way home. I brought home a new plant, and naturally some fabric.

One of the most wonderful places to visit is the 5 and 10 "Vidlers" in East Aurora, N.Y. It still like the the old days. Wooden floors, glass dividers on the counters and filled with all the goodies you can remember. Through the years they have expanded into adjoining stores. You can spend hours there checking out everything. It is a child's delight. All sorts of toys. Fisher Price had their headquarters in East Aurora. When new toys were produced they would first be introduced at "Vidlers".

There are 2 quilt shops in town. I did have to check them out as well. Only picked up a couple of fabrics. Found a cute pattern for notebook covers and fabric to make them.

While I was in the car going to and coming from Buffalo, I did get the binding done on these 3 quilts. The Butterflies is a top that had been done for several years, but not quilted. A few weeks ago I took 5 quilts to be quilted. This one and the next were part of those 5. It is such a great feeling to finally have them done.This was a sampler from "The Civil War Love Letter Quilt" that I made about 3 years ago. It too had not been quilted. Now it is done as well!!

This last quilt is the one I made from the fabric I won at the Bermuda Quilters Guild in June. This picture shows it just as a top. I did in the ditch quilting on it and bound it and now it is done as well! Yea for me. That has to be one of the fastest projects I have done. I had a few things I could add when I got home. I love to collect "stuff" to put on my quilts.

I also made about 20 hexagon flowers. I have picked up 2 denim shirts I want to decorate with the flowers. They can become additive. Some I want to applique to squares to make into a small quilt.

Today, for some reason I pulled out some crocheting. I have tried to make dish clothes. Let's just say, I can sew better then I can crochet. My husband asked if I was starting a new hobby! Little did he know I have tried to crochet since I was in grade school!! No, I am not starting a new hobby, just working on something else from a long time ago!

I need to get outside for a few minutes to fill my bird feeders. Looks like all of them are empty. I miss watching the birds from the window by the computer.

Kerry Anne's Quilt

Today was the day I presented Kerry Anne her quilt. I had picked up the quilt over the weekend and put the binding on. Jane, her mother has been visiting this week. They had gone to the Mayo Clinic, in Minnesota for some more testing. Unfortunately, the diagnosis is the same, ALS. As I have written before, she had been diagnosed with this disease earlier this year. I walked with her and her family and friends for ALS in May. This picture below was on her teams t-shirts. It was quite a moving day. Kerry Anne's family, from Michigan, Iowa, Indiana were here to support her and her own family. Kerry Anne has husband Jim, and three darling girls, Jacqueline, Hannah, and Mya taking care of her.

Kris Young, of Lavender Quilts, was kind enough to let me know that Moda, had created a line of fabric for "Collection for a Cause" in the fall of 2010 that is called "Hope" and a portion of the sale of this fabric is going to go the ALS. I naturally chose this fabric to make this quilt.

During the day of the walk I took pictures of Kerry Anne and her family and printed them on to fabric to use as the center of the squares in the quilt. I just started adding fabric and made the blocks. I did have to size them to accommodate the position of the pictures. The color designated for ALS is red.

Here is Kerry Anne and her Mom, Jane.

They are reading the back and checking out the quilting. If you click on the pictures you can see the detail. Wendy Yates, of "My English Quilter." in Plainfield, Illinois did the wonderful quilting.

Here is the finished quilt.

I hope everyone has a great week. We are shuffling off to Buffalo tomorrow afternoon. We will be attending two family reunions this weekend. We will be gone until Wednesday the 10th. Stay cool! Happy Quilting