IKEA Goodness and Scrappy Trip

It was a great weekend over here! 

 I have a lot to share but will break it up into a few posts. 

 My hubby and I put my IKEA cubbies together on Saturday. 

 I pulled a muscle in my back this week so I have not been able to do a lot of moving or

 packing up Christmas (still). 

 I managed to snap a pic of him assembling the bigger unit.

Here are the units all assembled. 

 I did take the dragons down and that shelf too. 

 That's where my TV will be going.

I ran over to Cori's and picked up some stuff that I ordered too. 

 She ave me the cutest little silver bunny and a gift certificate for my Christmas present.

I love that girl!

I don't know if it was just me but I had no idea that there were words on The Proberbial Quilt pattern!

I guess it makes sense but I just thought it was cut up stuff.

I also bought some bias bars. 

I need to make some bias strips for a quilt, for an auction that I had committed to.  

The auction was put on by my daughter and some o her friends to raise money for Wolf Haven via the Teen Wolf Sterek fandom. 

I bought some panels to use to make the quilt. 

 As I was in my *new sewing room* cutting the panels apart and making the squares all the same size, I laid it out on the floor. 

 Hmmmm.  

How to put this together. 

 I laid it out like this and then it hit me...BAM!!! 

 I will keep the wolves like this and copy them on the right.  

That leaves a whole in the middle so here's where my brilliant idea comes in...

The fandom is Sterek.

 The 2 characters people in this group are shipping are Stiles and Derek. 

 Derek has a triskelion tattoo on his back. 

 I can use the bias bars to make a triskelion for the center block!!!

Cool right?? 

 I sure hope I can pull that off!! 

 Yeah, embrace your fears baby!!!

Then, and I totally blame Jeannette, 

I made a scrappy trip around the world block.  

She wanted me to cut a 2.5" strip from every piece of fabric I was putting away.

That would have taken way too long!

 I wanted to try the block and see if I even liked making it too before I committed to an entire quilt.  

It was fun to make up this block. 

 Now I have to decide if I want to make it all scrappy or use the fabrics from this line. 

 Peacock with Alison Jane Smith.  

I bought quite a bit of this and along with a few solid prints this would make a great scrappy trip.

So hubby brought up some tubs of fabric and I put those away, unpacked my closet and now I see two more bins waiting for me now too.

I went upstairs to my sewing room around 1:30 and when I looked up it was 5:30!!

OMG I am so in love with having my own space.

I do need an ironing space upstairs though. 

Running up and down the stairs kind of sucked.

Any suggestions for a small ironing space?

I will be having some fabric and other things up for sale on my blog tomorrow.

If you are interested in anything please email me!

Have a great night!

Back to work for me tomorrow, UGH. 

I just want to keep playing in my new space.

~XOP~

AQS Quilt Show In Grand Rapids

I went to Grand Rapids to see my dad last weekend and managed to do a few fun things as well. 

 I arrived on Thursday afternoon and did a lot of cleaning! 

 Then a blog friend and I met for dinner. 

 Brenda from Ladybug Dreams.  

We had the nicest time and our poor server didn't quite know what to do with the 2 of us!!  

Thanks for a wonderful night, Brenda. 

 I am looking forward to seeing you again real soon.

Friday morning I went to the lawyer and dropped off some papers and

 then headed out to the AQS quilt show.  

There were several exhibits within the larger show. 

 There were guild challenges, and the Altzheimer's quilts and an Japanese exhibit but

 the two I was the most excited about 

were some of the works of Gwen Marston and the Egyptian tent makers quilts.  

It was the first time the tent makers had shown their quilts in the US.  

Their quilts are actually the inside of the tents and they are

FABULOUS!!!

I have almost 100 pics from the show so I am just going to show a few from the show in this post. 

 If you want to see them all please go to my Flickr and view them.  

I think you will enjoy the virtual show! 

 Ok so here goes

Two of my favorites from the Tent Maker exhibit

All the bird quilts were stunning!!

Although the tile looking ones were impressive too!  

All 4 of these quilts were HUGE!

One of the artists was there working away.  

Notice his tools, and the backing cloth.

There were some beautiful Japanese quilts but these two were my favorites. 

 Check out the quilting on the dragon quilt.

Then there was the Gwen Marston exhibit.  

Some of the quilts were made by her and some inspired by her.

The quilt called the Loading Dock was there and it was stunning!!!

I loved these robins

I could not even believe how many pieces were in this quilt! Fantastic!

I thought this one was so original and FUN!!!

It's funny but as I have been doing a lot driving lately I saw a scene very similar to this one and thought how it would have made a great quilt.  

I guess she beat me to it!

This flag quilt gave me goosebumps!  

So amazing!!

You know how I feel about Halloween, this quilt was hysterical!!

Another very impressive quilt was this street scene, almost like a photo.

I bet you want to know if I bought anything right?  

There were a TON of vendors there.  

I did buy a few things.  

On the trip to GR I stopped at Keans in Mason and guess what they had in the clearance bin?  

You are seeing that correctly, just over 2 yards of this print!!!  

I was sooooo excited!

I picked up a copy of these 2 books at a very good price! 

 I have taken couple of classes with Suzanne Marshall and her applique technique is so good!  

She was a wonderful teacher too.  

This is a great book.  

I aspire to take a class from Gwen someday too.  

See that little tool in the bottom left?  

My friend Brenda told me about that.

  It is a seam ripper with an eraser type end that works to get the loose threads off your fabric after you break the threads with the seam ripper. 

 I am hoping it works!!

I HATE picking out those threads, don't you?

Of course I can't resist black cats and Halloween but I did try not to go overboard.  

Love these both!!  

Just look at that cheeky grin!

That wraps up the virtual quilt show.  

I have a LOT more photos on Flickr so hop on over there and take a look.  

I have to share my Saturday too as I was at a work day with Amanda Jean and 

some other amazing women!! 

 I promise to share that soon.  

~XOP~

Michigan Stash Dash

I have been MIA lately and I'm sorry about that. 

 Life continues to be very busy over at my house! 

 I did make the time to go on the Michigan Stash Dash 

with some of the Wednesday night quilters, Shirley and Barb.  

We had an excellent time!  

I tried to restrain myself and did ok, still need to work on it but not too bad overall. 

 We went to 7 shops! 

 I'm going to share what I bought at each shop. 

 Photos of some of the shops are on my Flickr if you want to see them.

We started at the Lake Street Mercantile and that's where we took the bus from.  

They did a really nice job and kept us on time and home early!  

Also the BEST chocolate doughnuts I have ever had!

The first actual stop was The Quilting Season in Saline.  

A small shop but nice. 

 They had homemade cinnamon rolls waiting for us there! 

They also had this amazing rug!

This is what I bought there. 

 A half yard of MSU Spartan fabric that I don't own. 

 Imagine that?

 

The next stop was Bits and Pieces in Wayne.  

This is where I bring my Bernina for her yearly spa visit.  

I stocked up on a few essentials while there and talked with my sewing machine boyfriend, 

Jay, while I was there.  

(He is the person that gives my machine her spa treatment and he is fabulous!!)

Next stop was Quilt-n Friends in Sterling Heights. 

They had a very nice shop, but I didn't buy anything there.

I can't remember which shop came next but I think it was Sew Elegant in Fort Gratiot. 

 (but I could have this one mixed up with the next one, but whatever you get my drift right?)  

This shop has a LOT to choose from, but I restrained myself! 

Just look at that butterfly from Hushabye!! 

 They still had quite a bit of Hushabye left too (see photos in my Flickr).

We stopped at Sew Together in Richmond too and I bought a Frixion red pen and this magazine.  There is a great pattern for those mermaids from Kellie Wulfson in there!

There was quite a bit of time from the second to last and last shop 

so we did some of this while on the way to it.

Mother and daughter, so adorable!

The last stop was my favorite (and I knew it would be).  

The Quilter's Garden in Fenton. 

 If you haven't been here you should go.  

Fabulous shop!  

I found LOTS to love here.

Some peacock fabric for pillowcases for DD1 for Christmas.

This great wreath pattern that I have been looking for for a long time.  

I need to try these, especially the Halloween one!  

And look at that adorable apron! 

 It is just screaming for some vintage modern!

I refrained (just barely) from the pattern for this ironing board cover but will probably buy one later.

I didn't buy these patterns but I was tempted. 

 An owl, frog, pig, cat, dog, raccoon and more.  

Can you see that flip flop in the bottom left of the tree (blue and yellow) so cute! 

 Made from a regular flip flop and they put some kind of base over it and 

used twisted the yellow for the part you slide your foot into.  

I didn't happen to see a pattern for that but we were not the first bus there.  

I may have to track that down, they were really cute!

Then they had this wallhanging.  

It was so cute!!  

Reminded me of the Peanuts gang.  

They were out of the pattern and the kit too. 

 I'm on a list.  

Will see how that goes.

I did buy the newsprint for the hats though.  

How could I resist?

All in all a very successful and fun day!  

Shop hops are such fun aren't they?

More soon!!

~XOP~