South Carolina Galaxy & State Fair Judging!

Through a mutual friend I made a new friend who lives in South Carolina -- Joyce G!  Joyce does absolutely stunning machine quilting and just quilted two lap quilts for me -- which I'll show you when I get the binding finished.  Anyway -- Joyce made my Galaxy quilt and quilted it and it's wonderful!  She was kind enough to send me a photo. 

I think it looks great!  BTW:  The black image at the bottom is Joyce's dog Rocky.  I hope he likes the quilt as much as I do!

Greg and I are heading to Ames today to visit Reiman Gardens.  I really want to see their rose gardens and the butterfly house.  Unfortunately, we're under another "heat advisory" until Wednesday night so it's going to be beastly hot.  Thankfully, they've got several buildings that have A/C so we'll have places to get cooled off.  I know conditions won't be ideal but this is the opportunity I have so I'm going to grab it!

Actually, we're visiting The Gardens on our way to Des Moines for the night.  I'm judging at the Iowa State Fair tomorrow -- which is my very favorite quilting gig!  I'm a little nervous simply because I've been told that they've received a record number of entries this year.  That's wonderful!  Last year there were 860+ entries in the quilting categories -- everything from centerpieces, table runners and miniatures to king size quilts!  .....this year there are even more??!!!  Holy Buckets!!  This is gonna be FUN!!!  I'll keep you posted!

Derecho

About 10 days ago we awoke to a siren sounding at about 4 a.m.  Pretty frightening to wake up to that!  Our area got blasted with very powerful straight line winds which I've since learned is called a "derecho."  I've been told that in our area the winds reached 139 mph!  We were very lucky.  We lost some very large tree limbs, our patio table was smashed and we had a couple days of clean-up work but really -- considering the damage in the surrounding area -- we're just fine.  One of my cousins lost the roof on her home, a family from our church lost their entire home (which was only 8 years old), and several farmsteads lost every building on the farm.  They're not even able to estimate the livestock or crop damage yet.

I honestly didn't get too shook up until we took an early morning drive to check on an elderly relative.  There were power line poles broken off and scattered across the country road like twigs -- one after the other after the other..........  Power lines laying all over the roads and in the fields, trees broken off (not uprooted, mind you -- BROKEN OFF!) and pieces and parts of building and farm equipment scattered all over the place.

It was a number of days before the folks out in the country got their power back and of course, this time of year the heat and humidity were terrible.  

I'll say it again.  We were VERY LUCKY.  We had some huge branches on our roof but they didn't do any damage and our patio table was smashed.  Big deal.  No one lost their life that we've heard of and that's a true blessing.

Here's our poor patio table.  I have no idea where the milk jugs came from but they ended up on our deck.

Overdue Update

I've decided that I'm a terrible blogger.  I get so busy "doing" that I don't even think about "posting" until long after the fact and I never seem to have a camera with me when I need it.  I'm sorry.  I'll try to do better!  Okay. 'Nuff said about that.

Looking back.........  we were getting ready to vend in Paducah when I posted the last time.  We had a wonderful time -- as usual.  I've said it often -- Paducah is my absolute favorite show!  I LOVE doing that show.  This year the show turned out to have some real challenges associated with it.  The whole town was getting prepared to be FLOODED!  We arrived in town with a little trepidation because we knew the situation was getting very serious and we weren't sure, at that point, whether the AQS would even be able to hold the show.  Silly us!  In a matter of 36 hours Bonnie Browning and her astonishing corps of people managed to relocate several HUNDRED quilt entries, several HUNDRED vendors and I-don't-know-how-many classes.  Add to that getting new maps printed AFTER re-routing all the various free bus routes that transported people to all the new venues.  It was a Herculean Feat and I don't know how they managed it.

I know there were a handful of disgruntled vendors and I imagine there were a few attendees who  decided to stay home but overall -- it was a really outstanding show!  The attitude seemed to be that "we're all in this together so we might as well have a good time!"  It was absolutely great!  We didn't even have any bitchers or complainers show up in our booth -- which is REALLY unusual!  (It seems like there are always a couple of those no matter where you go.) 

All in all -- the show was good (albeit a lot more exciting than we anticipated!), people were wonderful, sales were just fine, the food was great and once again we had a wonderful time in Paducah! 

Here are a couple of photos of our booth in Paducah.  I should have gotten our sign in the photo!  Never thought about that!

I've really enjoyed the last couple of weeks because I was finally able to spend some quality time in my sewing room.  ('Bout time too!)  I got another row of blocks made for my scrappy pineapple.  I think this quilt is going to grow from a lap quilt into a larger one.  I really like these pineapple blocks and they're actually fun to make.  I've been working out of my tub of 1 1/2" strips -- so that REALLY makes it easy!  Yup, this one is definitely going to grow.

Spring Has Arrived!

I planted some bulbs last fall and I've been waiting (not so) patiently for them to come up.  They not only came up -- they're blooming!  What a treat to look outside and see these sunny little flowers from my kitchen window!  Now I'm waiting for my crocuses......... 

When Greg and I decided to get married we received this guy as an engagement gift.  (Can't explain it -- sometimes you've just gotta go with it.........!)  We love him and he comes out every year and sits on our front stoop waiting for Easter.  By the way -- he lights up!

I've actually been doing some sewing in an attempt to get ready to vend in Paducah.  I'll be selling my own patterns but I also demo and sell patterns from Little Foot.  They're top-method foundation pieced and once you realize how easy they are it's pretty mindless -- which is why I can demo them (and talk to people while I'm doing it!)  I finished 12 blocks of Hunter's Star.  I like it!  Now I just need to get the other 12 blocks finished.

Getting Back To It

I actually wrote this post a couple of weeks ago and never got it posted because I was interupted.  Anyway-- I actually DID get this little bit of sewing accomplished while my hand was healing.  My handis almost (but not quite!) back to normal.  I still have a little pain when I try to do or lift too (which I'm sure will go away eventually) but overall it feel SO MUCH BETTER than prior to the surgery.  I'm glad I had it done.

I couldn't stand not having my hands on fabric for any longer!  I had this runner that I'd machine quilted quite a while ago but had never bound.  I managed to get the binding sewn on before I had my surgery in hopes that I'd at least be able to do some binding.  It wasn't working for quite a while.  I'd try a couple of stitches each night......  and each night I'd be able to do a few more than the day before so I just kept at it.  A couple of days ago I was finally able to do the last 18" of binding.  HURRAY!!!!!  I now consider myself ALMOST back to normal!  It's nice to get something finished! 

Recovery!

Okay.  I'm still dealing with the carpal tunnel surgery.  It's really surprising how many things take BOTH hands to accomplish -- or at least make easier.  I've been doing fairly well but it's been frustrating to me to actually have time to work on designing or sewing -- and I can't do either one!  I've been using my left hand to run the mouse (and I'm getting better at it!) but everything takes SOOOOO much longer and I don't have the patience for that.  When I'm designing I need to get my ideas down in a hurry -- before I foget!!  Left-handed "mousing" just doesn't cut it!  Sewing blocks would work just fine but I don't have anything for my new design cut out and I can't use a rotary cutter or scissors yet.  Once again -- frustrating!  I"VE GOT STUFF TO DO AND I WANT TO DO IT!  Okay.  I'm better now -- maybe.......!

For any of you contemplating CT surgery -- got for it!  I had very little pain after the surgery; far less than I expected and certainly less than I've been putting up with for the past few months!  My hand and wrist already feel better even though I'm still restricted to no lifting with my hand and they haven't removed the stitches yet.  So -- I'm hoping that in a couple more weeks I'll be back to normal again.

For those of you who want to see the icky stuff I've included a couple of photos.  One with the cast they put on after surgery (which came off a few days ago) and another of the stitches (which come out tomorrow).  BYW:  The purple stuff you see around the wound is the marker that the surgeon used.  I think I'm going to have to use Goo-Gone to get it off! 

 

I didn't much care for his stitching.............  Honestly!   But I guess that's not the point!