Variations

My friend Marilu made this wall hanging variation of my Down on the Farm quilt.

I love the fabrics she used!

A Week Without Children

My two youngest went off to camp this week leaving my husband and I without children in the house.  

A sneak peek into our near future.

I thought I would have a lot of time to get my projects done but . . . well, time goes so fast!

I did manage to accomplish a few things:

#1 -  I transformed this old folding table.

Before:

 After:

  Why yes, I did just throw a piece of pretty oil cloth on top and called it transformed.  Easiest project ever and you saw it here first.  I should write a tutorial.

#2 - I recently purchased some stencils in preparation for my Summer Campish Class at Whimsy Cottage, so of course I had to spend hours playing with them.

How else would I know if they would help me teach the class?

I painted many pieces of fabric but forgot to photograph it. Oops.  

I also also painted my shirt, fingers, elbow and bra.

I'm pretty talented that way.

#3 - I went out to dinner with my husband and oldest daughter who lives downtown.

We had a wonderful time.

Nothing like a little Olive Garden Salad and bread sticks to bring the family together.

And shoe shopping.

Daughter needed some new shoes so we went looking with her after we stuffed ourselves.

My husband just LOVES shoe shopping.

He's a good man.

#4 - I prepared and gave a presentation on fusible machine applique for my quilt guild.

I was busy painting and almost forgot about the presentation.

It's a good thing I've been working on this Amy Bradley Pattern so I could use the blocks I'm making as examples:

Some day soon my quilt will look like the one on the package.

I was a bit nervous about the presentation because there are so many talented quilters in our group but they are all so wonderful they made me feel very comfortable.  I hope they learned something.

5)  I went grocery shopping by myself.  This isn't an unusual activity actually but I really hadn't put shopping into my plan for the week until my husband told me he didn't have lunch meat to make a sandwich.

  The poor man, I do neglect him so!

And while he is perfectly capable of going to the store all by himself, he is also the one who slaves everyday to bring home the big bucks so I thought I'd be kind and go to the store to pick up a few things.

While I was at the ginormous grocery store that includes so much more than food, I decided to look at sandals for myself.  All the shoes were on sale and I had a good coupon too.

Looking for shoes for myself is an unusual activity and a real pain at times (notice how much bigger my right foot is than my left foot?!) but I did manage to find a pair of sandals I liked.  They cover the scar on my right big toe from when I broke it a few years back they are comfortable.  I wore them all week at work but today, all three girls told me that they think my sandals are ugly.  Can you imagine?!  Maybe I should go back and buy them all their own pair.

and finally

#6 -  Most of my time this week was spent working at or recovering from Shop Hop.

The Wasatch Front Shop Hop is a big event put on by 15 quilt shops.  Every shop has prizes to giveaway, in store discounts, games and lots of fun.  Quilters often travel together in small and large groups and make a big deal out of the four day event.  This year's theme was "The Greatest Quilt I Ever Read."   

Nancy made a fabulous quilt for our theme of "Green Eggs and Ham."

We had hundreds of people come through the shop everyday.

My cheeks would hurt from smiling every night and not just because I was being polite.

You meet some of the best people during shop hop!

Some of them are down right adorable and make you very happy to have your own babies back after a long week away.

Transformation

We went dress shopping Saturday and one of my daughters found a cute number.

I have taught my girls to dress modestly and this dress did not fit the modesty mold with no sleeves and a low back.  When she tried the dress on she knew she would be wearing it with a shirt underneath or a shrug on top.  

  Sadly, when we returned home the dress didn't look good with a shirt underneath or a shrug on top.  The dress could only be returned for store credit so I decided to try something wild.  The dress was long so I cut it to knee length and used the fabric to 

make sleeves as well as . . .

 a modest back.

She is thrilled and so am I.

Fabric Markers

One of my talented children took some Crayola Fabric Markers and made some masterpieces.

 The art work is from photos she saw online but the sizing and drawing are all her own.

She used a disappearing ink marker to get everything drawn on just how she wanted it and then colored away.  The markers seem to be pretty juicy and they are inexpensive fun too.

 She's a pretty talented little bugger!

Next she wants to get a pair of white tennis shoes to decorate.

She is easily entertained.

What 'cha doin'?

Just peeking in to see what you are up to. . .

Anything fun?