Counting Down..

Today is Tuesday. I'm leaving bright and early Thursday morning. The boxes are piling up in the dining room. The car gets packed tomorrow. I'm off to Quilt Market in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Fortunately, it's only a 2 hour drive. I have so many things I want to see this trip to Market. I promise to bring back all the new, very cool things that I find. Here are the new designs I am taking.

Lily Pads Table runner

Marmalade Throw

Palumbo's Puzzle Throw

Ravishing Rayven Throw (This was designed for my Great Niece, Rayven Rose)

Stop by and see me if you are going to Market.

Dilly Dallying in Houston

Hey all!


I was Houston for Quilt Market last weekend. What an amazing place to be! I left Erie, Pa Wednesday, just as the temperature was dropping. It was in the 40's when I left. The drive to Houston took 2 days. It's about 1500 miles. It's a fairly easy trip, as long as you don't mind driving. I stayed on the highways all the way. There are plenty of gas stops and rest areas along the way.

We went in Friday to set up the booth. I love that anticipation right before the show. The booths were so amazing! Attendance was down this year, but we still had a good show. Here are new designs I was showing. Pleated Paradise has pleated sashing. I've got some great new ideas for Pittsburgh in the spring.

























Now that I am home again, I can spend some time with my new longarm, well, new to me anyway. It came about a week before I left. I have it set up in the basement and did not have time to even thread it. I spent last night trying to figure it out. I put some muslin on it to play with and got it threaded. I had the hardest time with the needle, mostly because I was trying to put it in backwards. I think I've got it now. I wanted to get it going because I know my sisters will want to give it a go on Sunday.

I'm having the Great Cookie Bakeoff on Sunday. Every year we get together to make Christmas cookies. This year we decided to make them Halloween cookies instead. The whole family is coming over. I think I'll have about 16-20 people here. We're having Butternut Squash Soup, Pumpkin Bread, Macaroni and Cheese, Pumpkin Pie, Sweet Potato Pie, Mummy Meatloaf and Shrunken Apple Heads. Did you catch the theme? We're making Halloween cutout cookies and spooky spiders that look like chocolate haystacks with eyes.


I may need another vacation after all this...

Happy Halloween everyone!

Just in case you were wondering...

In case you've been wondering what I've been up to... I am deep into market preparation mode. I am going to have a booth at the Fall Quilt Market in Houston this year. I am so excited and a little nervous. I knew it was going to be quite a bit of work, and of course it has been. I have 4 new quilt designs. Sorry, you'll have to wait a little longer for those. In addition to finishing up my quilts, I have been researching everything else that needs to happen to go. I think Honey is going to out together some poles to hang the quilt in my booth for me. All of the draping needs to be fire retardant, so I have had to figure out how that all works. Of course I need to make a sign with my name on it, oh and the pole covers. Sleeves to fit over the poles to make them pretty. You just can't go to a show without those! When I first considered going to the show, I thought, "Well, I've done motorcycle shows before. This can't be that different right? It's still a show." Well, silly me. This show is very similar and at the same time, very different. This show is much more about how pretty everything is and the booths at Market show all the time and attention pretty gets. I'm just trying to make sure my booth doesn't stand out like a sore thumb or like I put up a big sign that said "THIS IS MY FIRST SHOW!" Yes, in caps with the exclamation point. In the end, it will be just fine. I'm very happy with my quilts and my prospective booth layout. Here are the boys, by the way, helping me get ready. They have worked so hard! Bailey Boy has been out helping PaPa. They have worked their little paws to the bone!

The Quilting around Chautauqua show was last weekend as well. I had 4 quilts in the guild room and 1 in a vendor booth. Those will also be going to Houston as soon as I go pick them up. I ran out of the house without my camera, of course. I don't have any great pictures of the quilts. I did have a friend take a picture of me in front of Jan's quilt. It was set up with a copy of Quilter's Home in front of it.

Here's a little teaser as well. This project has so many of those things I like, lime green fabric, bright colors, curves, paper piecing. I'm going to try to use freezer paper for my templates this time. You can buy the freezer paper in sheets to go through the printer. I think that sounds a whole lot better than tracing each plastic template 36 times. They come in 50 sheet packages in both letter size and 12 x 15. I'll have to use the letter size. The larger pages won't go through my printer. C. Jenkins make it. http://www.cjenkinscompany.com/C_Jenkins_Freezer_Paper_s/2.htm

I've been doing some research on batting as well, but that will have to wait until next time. I have to give the bamboo batting a try first.

Have fun stitching!