Favor~

That was how this conversation started~ The Owner was going out of town in 2 weeks and wanted to know if I could possibly have them done for her in one week giving her time to get the binding on before heading out of town!

Sigh~

Wanted to see how those funky feathers stitched out anyway~

And the backing was this heavy fleece, was a little nervous at first how it was going to take to the stitching, ended up being very nice!

This one was a mystery quilt~

It reminded me of snow and the sky, so I thought the Windy Day Design would be a perfect fit!

Was a good choice!

Now what is funny is I never met the gal, she called before I was heading to Boulder City for 3 days and she met my Son and Daughter at the quilt shop downtown, I got them done first thing Monday, literally, started at 7am and worked until completed, called her around 8pm and said they were ready, she would get back to me after checking her budget..................my stomach cringed and I just put them up and loaded the one that was up next wondering all the while what was up with this!?!

So I didn't hear from her again until Thursday, we were already in Boulder and I let one Son know what was up, he may be making a run again to take them if she found her budget worked.

In the end she was going to be able to pick them up on that Friday and wanted me to just leave them at the shop for her to pick up, nah, nada, nope, asked other Son to step in as he had some other errands already in town so he met with her at the shop and all ended well! He even took a video of her pulling them out of the bag to look at them, she was beyond thrilled and she gave him cash for payment!! Phew~ felt like I dodged a bullet there!!

It has been a long time since tinking around with the blog layout, had fun playing with the different fonts, something simple and not easy to mess up! I have forgotten how to update and change certain things so hopefully I will be able to take baby steps and change it up a bit, I found a neat background that I would like to try, then have to trial and error my way into changing the banner photo. Hmmm, wonder if I practiced on a fake one so as not to mess this one up................love those "lightbulb" (courtesy of Gru from Despicable Me) moments! ~smile~

Again~

We went to sleep seeing little flurries last night, then woke to this!!

And it is still coming down at noon time, poor little birds aren't sure what to think!

These of Mookie ~The Abominable Snow Chin~ were taken from the storm 2 weeks ago,

She wasn't quite thrilled with it this time around, may have been on the deep side for her liking!

Happily back where she belongs, she has angry eyes to me, I gave here a couple extra treats and all was good again!

I am so happy to have served at the last retreat this last weekend. They were all the local girls who came to enjoy 2 1/2 days of sewing bliss, and they spoiled me rotten, anytime someone came to the shop for something they had a little plate of goodies for me to nibble on! There was this ginormous sugar cookie that was out of this world! I only thought of taking a picture after I ate it!!

Not sure how much quilting I will get done today, I tried to start early but we had power surges kick in so just shut it all down, hopefully I can at least get one done, and another pinned in before they start again, that is about the only downside to living on a mountain............

Quick Jobs~

There are some cute frog prints in this little guy, so thought some bubbles would give it what it needed!

Love the bright colors!

There's them bubbles!

And always a sucker, can never say no, a customer who was visiting her daughter needed something done before she headed home the following week.

Since she just wanted simple stars, I figured I could fit it in!

She was thrilled and I was happy to make someone smile and make them feel special!

Home Again~

I am happy to have this guy back home! He was a shop sample for five months, it sold 12 kits and a lot of fabric off the bolts to make those little basket blocks!

which are 5 in, and those half square triangles measure out at 1 in! The littlest I have made to date!

And these ended up coming home with a certain Young Man who has admired Ostrich for a long long time! The color shows them being kind of blue but they are more on the grey side and look 'smokin on the ole' (young) boy!

Did I mention he got them HALF off!! He went and bought himself a couple new pair of jeans to enhance the look!

Back in the day when I had time I would make home~made tortillas for all the little peoples daily enjoyment, they were all wanting some and there wasn't/isn't a spare moment for such luxuries so it was time to break out the well patina'd rolling pins and griddle!

The catch though is it wasn't going to be me doing all the work and they thought I would be more involved, as in taking over and doing it myself because it would be quicker and so much easier!

Sadly for them, I didn't fall for it!!!

I told them to each grab a bowl and all the needed ingredients and THEY went to work! I hollored out the directions while loading a quilt, and so to keep it friendly the 2 boys each had their own batch to make, nothing like a little friendly competition! And I did show up to show them how they wanted their dough to feel, then a quick demonstration on kneading, and once the dough was rested how to roll 'em out. I did one for each and the rest was on their own!

They did pretty good! Manchild 1 had some interesting shapes, but once the butter melted on it didn't matter what they looked like! The taste was scrumptious!

Then here is Manchild 2 with his batch, I did start them off 20 minutes apart so there would be no room for wrestling, especially once the rolling pins came out!

Perfection! Right from the get go! His dough was just perfect!

And he kept cranking out perfect ones, one after another! Then he wanted to see just how big he could make one, and we shared it! Little bit of butter with a little bit of sugar sprinkled on and we had the best treat!

Manchild 3 wasn't up to the task this round but later in the week he got a hankering for some, and out came all the ingredients, but this time his experienced big brothers gave him a helping hand! Cheese tortillas and fajitas were on the menu!

On the work side, we are now through the 3rd weekend of Retreats, phew! This was a busy group, 16 came in from California, all friends, and man were the machines flying, I lost count of all the projects they completed, and in their down time they were shopping for future projects! All in all it was a great time but Saturday was a 12 hour day for me keeping the shop running smoothly and helping take care of these gals, needless to say I am still on the wiped out side, but this is the last weekend and I am actually looking forward to seeing that the end is in sight!

Amazing~

This was what we drove home through Saturday night then woke up to Sunday morning that blissfully kept us in for the day!

I love looking out our big windows to this scene~

Gorgeous! Simply Gorgeous!

And the little men made up their own version of ice cream snow! And since milk products don't settle to well on my innards they tried it with my Almond Milk and it was de-vine!

I was actually sorry to see the snow melt away this time because it meant no more special treats. So I consoled myself and tinked around the studio, I have a jar I keep all the ends from the leftover binding strips, they were joined to make a nice scrappy binding for a nice scrappy quilt!

Shamefully I haven't had a chance to get the hand stitching part done, that makes 2 now that are so close to being completed!

The Shop just finished up weekend 2 of the 4 retreats weekends, I'm working the extra hours that the shop is open for the ladies special night of shopping, man oh man, I am in awe of the fabric that has been flying out the door!! They must have been saving for just these weekends!

And while I am home my machine is purring along, the second one for the day is started and I hope to get 4 more table runners done to complete this weeks 'home' work, dh is on a new schedule at his place of employment so that means we can carpool together, and I do want to be able to do that as much as possible with the cost of diesel being what it is, and of course, both our vehicles just love that flavor! grumble~grumble

So that means I need to boogie my butt to keep the quilting up!

Sigh~

Good News is these two are officially in the completed category! Yay! Happy Day Happy Day! Ahhhhh~ I have to get the photos into the computer yet but here is just a shot of what the flange I was dealing with, turns out it really wasn't all that, but it was the first time to do one and those first timers can really put a hurtin' on ya!

Then this one! Boy's!

That about sums it up~ the three have been enjoying the skate/bike park in Boulder City and had been accident free 122 days! The new count date has been reset~

He landed on his hand, and after icing wrapping and more icing, and google searches on hand injuries we decided to don the Dr.'s hat.

We pressed, pulled and prayed and in the end he is back up and running! There were even directions on doing stretches once the swelling went down, but believe you me~ I was watching it like a hawk!

These colorful beauties showed up about 3 days later, I still cringe at the thought. Two weeks have past and it is all looking good. Until last night~ when he decided to do a little workout on the punching bag, Boy's~ sigh~

On the quilting front, I just completed 4 table runners, 3 full size quilts, 2 shams, and 1 wall hanging since Monday morning, I am pooped and calling it a week, now it is time to pack up and head to Boulder to put in my 3 days there, and the Annual Retreat the shop sponsors is starting up this weekend, the first of 4 so it should be pretty steady there, kind of funny by the time I leave here I am ready to rest up at the shop and play a little there, after the 3 days there I am ready to get home and rest up and get some quilting done! Sad sad sad~

~All about Sharon~

This big baby is Sharon's Wedding gift to her son and daughter in law, very very striking!

Her daughter in law drew the wedding invitation design and Sharon blew it up to put on the back of the quilt along with the registry of all who attended!

It was a little tricky with the stitching out part here, it required dh laying underneath to be sure everything went as smooth as possible! Thankfully it did!

I am now working on the second of 2 quilts from h-e double toothpicks, flange edges on these two monsters and they are driving me batty!

Only because I would love to be able to learn something new on one of my own projects before being forced to on a customers quilt!! I just want them to be over with NOW! ~smile~

Still some more~

This was just a neat picture to capture Kaa while he was drinking some water, we have a black and white ringed King snake that lives around here somewhere and he comes to get water from the chickens coupe during the warm months, he is also neat to watch fill up!

One of my favorite things to do when quilting one of my own quilts is use up all those bobbins that have just enough thread on them that you hate to throw out! Ultimately that whole bin has been emptied and has begin collecting once again! And it's funny that not one person has noticed all the different colors on the back of my quilts!

I also found some time to get my thread cabinet organized, it is actually a dvd cabinet that I picked up on clearance from Bass Pro for a song and it is perfect for storing and keeping the thread dust free!

Now this is funny, I have been watching this spool dwindling down for awhile now, I go through about 1 a year, I use the Presencia Thread, just love it! Now that I have 3 machines running I have one spool for each but this particular machine is what I use for attaching the bindings so it goes through the thread a little faster than the rest.

I was attaching a binding at this photo and wondering if I was going to make it! Thankfully I did and now a new spool is on there and ready for use. The spool holder is another favorite find, it works perfect although I didn't put it through the scissors, that was someone elses clever idea!

I am totally standing in amazement at how the Quilting Business has been flourishing for me! I love the challenge each brings at finding that perfect design and thread to bring it all together! A new customer was embarrassed at three table-runners she brought me to do, she felt they were too plain and would understand if I felt they were a waste of my "professional time"!! Blach!! I was speechless for a moment and couldn't express enough what a privilege and honour it is for ME to be trusted with any work by her hand! There is no such thing as 'just a simple quilt' in my mind! That fabric cost money and then precious time to create so be proud!! I just uploaded the pics to share next time! I think they came out fabulous and can't wait to put them in her hands and hear everyone ooh and ahh!!

Picking~

I have done more picking on quilts the last two weeks, this one had 20 minutes of quilting into it when I decided I didn't like the design or the thread color. Thankfully it was my quilt, but it still took over 4 hours to pick out!! The second one was a customer quilt, can't remember what was the cause of that one, I have already blocked it out of my head and only took a picture of after it was packed into its bag to be delivered!

I have been working on the pineapple blocks, did you guess it already? Hehehe, anyway the above one is done in all my civil war scraps and I love love love it! I have more pulled to do a larger size, maybe even in a king for my own room~ and below is a bigger block but in just the two colors, had a time picking out a border for it but eventually went with the gold for the inner border and the same blue in the quilt for the outer. It looks much prettier in person than the photo, I am going to attempt teaching the technique and these will be two of the samples. I much prefer the scrappy look myself, and did a quick large block in that version as well. Amazing how different they can look!

And back to some Christmas Quilts that were actually done after, seems this year a lot of people planned to do their family get togethers in January so that made it kind of nice not having to rush to get all those quilts done!

This gal's son in law is a carpenter, and she picked a design for the quilting that was tool related.

I love all the designs at my finger tips, and this one even came with my system.

We have been enjoying some very nice sunny and warm days, we even pulled out some of the ferns that we keep in the garage for winter to enjoy the warm sunshine!

Things at Fiddlesticks are still plugging along, I have to say I am glad to be back on only two days a week again, work has piled up at home, not only with quilts but with everyday chores, and not being home long enough to put stuff away after it has been used was horrid, just look in the background pictures and you will see all the little piles everywhere, so while the machine is going I am doing nothing else but picking up, sorting and putting things back where they belong. It is amazing how fast things get out of sorts, and I still have not gotten back to the pc laptop to get things transferred, and now the printer is acting up but thankfully I have a new one in storage that came with my MacPro so will just pull 'er off the shelf and get a new area worked up!

Just don't think it will be today..........................