QuiltCon Countdown

I enjoyed our guild's Sew Day on Saturday and made big progress on my Easy Street Mystery. I finished two last big blocks and 11 setting triangles Sunday and Monday. Woo hoo! All I need to do is press everything, lay out the blocks on my design floor, and sew it all together. This sucker is going to be huge. Way beyond my attention span, but all the little mystery pieces kept me going. I'm pretty thrilled to have all the blocks done.

There was some Shrinky Dink action in the house last night. I forgot how amazing they turn out and how fun it is to watch them curl up and shrink. The color on them is amazing. I found a kit at Michael's for 90% off, so it was well worth 29 cents to occupy a little one and see the amazement on his face while they baked. I have a few sheets of the plastic, so we'll have to make more some day.

I've been collecting my supplies for my QuiltCon workshops for a few weeks. Today I assembled them all together and made sure I had everything. I'm missing a palette knife, but I think I can make-do with something similar. I'm taking three workshops: Color Your Cloth, which involves batik/wax resist, and is taught by Malka Dubrawsky; Machine Applique with Debbie Grifka of Esch House Quilts; and Blockprinting on Textiles by Lizzy House.

I'm bringing my gigantic suitcase my parents gave me for high school graduation. I hope it hasn't dry rotted. ;) I'm also hoping it doesn't weigh over 50 lbs. when I fill it, because I'm sure I'll find a few things to buy while in Austin. I may have to leave all my clothes in the hotel room trash when I leave. Well, at least the dirty ones.

Inspector Gadget bought groceries yesterday, so I guess he'll play chef while I'm gone. I bet I'll miss some good eats, but I won't worry about everyone starving to death. I really thought they would eat pizza, tacos, burgers, fried chicken, sushi, and Chinese takeout while I was gone. I'm a little proud! Of course last time I went out of town they set off the smoke alarm and the fire department came. I'm sure that was just a fluke.

I noticed a few blog announcements about pattern theft. Sew Hooked and Artisania have blogged about it. It appears a creepy company calling themselves Los Angeles Needleworks is stealing free tutorials from popular blogs and selling them for their profit. Whaaa?! This is outrageous and illegal. I cut my sewing teeth on free tutorials and am in debt to the giving nature of those bloggers. I hope the thieves are shut down quickly and have to pay everyone back. And that their bobbin runs out at the worst moment. :P Spread the word if you can.

I Love Rain!

It's been such a nice weekend with rain off and on. We really needed the rain and it kind of cools things off. A little steamy, but cooler. I had some spare time to catch up on things around here. The house block above was made for me for a swap I hosted. Love the geranium in the window!

Three minis are done. The bottom two have homes, but the top quilt is just something I wanted to try. Meh.

Played in the selvage pile for a little while today. I couldn't decide what to make, so this simple wallet seemed mindless enough. School starts tomorrow for the high school child. I hemmed her Denny's law magnet uniform skirt this morning. I'm sure it is not short enough, but it is supposed to be a uniform, not a mini skirt. I'm sure I'll hear about it in the morning when I place my breakfast order with my little fashionista. Kind of sad she has to wear a waitress outfit on the first day of school. Oh well, she can resume her cool wardrobe on Tuesday. College starts next week for the college kid. Yikes, I have a college kid! How did that happen? Tuition has been paid, id and parking decal obtained, books purchased, etc. I haven't had to do a thing! I'm so fortunate to have self-sufficient kiddos. I hope they both have a fun and successful school year.

Busy, busy, busy

Dusted off the ice cream maker and made some coffee ice cream for the kiddos. Bad Grammy used to feed my babies coffee ice cream when she babysat them on date nights. I think she "dosed" them right before we picked them up! I kid about the dosing, but my kids have always loved coffee ice cream. Kind of odd for kids. I used Starbucks coffee beans. Intense. I'm not a fan of ice cream, but I tried a spoonful and it was pretty good. I want to make a Coke Zero Slurpee for me next.

I received two pretty doll quilts from my swap partners. It's so fun to see what everyone creates for these swaps. If you want to see more, I have a gallery here.

Not a lot of quilting going on, but I did find these batik strips when I was organizing. I'm sewing them together for a little coin quilt. Lots of wild color and fun prints in my beloved batiks. I'm itching to take a sip of the Butterfly Block Kool-aid, but I haven't found the time yet. Once again, distracted by blogs. But all the cool kids are doing these blocks. Maybe I'll find some time this weekend.

Uh oh, look who hooked up her scanner! Beware friends and family! I am 12+ years behind in putting photos in albums. Bad, bad me. I think it might be easier to scan them all now. But then what about the 20 photo albums I have? Ok, never mind. I'll never find time to scan all those photos. I couldn't resist this one though. My little kidlets circa 1996 I think. We were in a photo studio and my daughter was posing as the waif for some ads I was doing to beg money for a charity. I'll have to find the photos for those ads. I made her look pitiful! Aw, the tricks of advertising. It might be fun to set up this shot present day. I'll never get them to hold hands, but I'll see what I can do.

My Baby Is A Graduate!

This little guy is headed to college! He won't be attending his dad's alma mater, but will attend mine! I can't believe he is a high school graduate. That was a quick 18 years! We were very proud that he maintained a 4.0 GPA his entire senior year. He's taking the summer off to work his first job at one of our theme parks and will start college in August. It's hard to get a picture of this kid now that he's mobile. I propped him up a lot when he was a baby!

Little sis and I whipped up this decadent peanut butter cup cake to celebrate graduation. Austin didn't want a big deal made over graduating, but I don't think he minded the cake. It was delicious by the way. A sliver will do ya! They were eating it with vanilla ice cream, but my cellulite was saying "no, no, no!" Of course our cake wasn't as classy as these numbers, but we were going for taste! The entire family loves Reese's Cups.

Got a little start on some quilt blocks from this tutorial. I'm not too sure how big this quilt will get. Or how quick I'll get bored making the same block over and over! I'm using leftover strips from a honey bun. I'm hoping to get the top together during the long weekend.