1st: Happy Halloween and 2nd: It's Here!!!

1st:

Happy Halloween!

The weather came in rainy and cool in the a.m., but during the day it had dried off and warmed up just a little, so by trick-or-treating time it was a beautiful autumn evening.  (Only 3 little beggars stopped by.) 

 We set up a couple of small awnings, strung up some lights and put a couple of tables underneath.  Looked very fall-ish.  Here's some stuff I took down to the bonfire:

Weenie roasting stuff, hand wipes, chili toppings, cups with ballots for the best chili voting, smores fixin's.  Oh, and Prizes!  Runner-up ladles, and grand-champion Chef hat and chef-looking glasses with wiskers.  (A lot of those professional chefs have facial hair, don't they?)

 The bonfire/chili cook-off/reverse trick-or-treating was a hit! 

Hard decisions on the grand champion chili! 

There was a white chili, a 3 Bean Italian with spinach and a kick, and three, more traditional versions: one with sour cream, one with cheddar cheese and corn chips, and the last with a side of pasta, three beans, chipotle and jalapenos topped with fresh onions and cheddar cheese-this one had an after kick also!  Really, hard to just vote for one, but we did!  The 3 Bean Italian, spinach,kicker won!  Winners below, right:

Had to keep tasting and tasting and tasting though!  

Look at those slow cookers...15 or so of us and we pretty much wiped them out!  Yum!!! Thanks to all who participated in the cook-off.  It was nice to see everyone and visit and the friendly rivalry was a blast.  We will definately do this again!

And 2nd:

It's Here!!!                                     Rouenneries:

  the long awaited line of fabric by French General for Moda.  It arrived in my mail box today.  I think I might have done a little dance roadside at the mailbox when I saw that box had arrived!  I'll have to ask the neighbors later if they saw mailbox dancing!  And they know me well enough to not think I'm really nutso.  Not crazy for mailbox dancing and not even crazy for asking if they saw me mailbox dancing!  O.K., maybe a little, but hey, this is worth it!

I checked around all the local quilt shops AND the not so local quilt shops and no one had ordered the line, so I ordered from http://www.quilt-this.com/ .  It's a great on-line store.  They get the complete lines of fabrics and the customer service is extraordinary.  Shipped within 24 hours, plastic bagged inside the box and had a nice, personalized hand-written note and ink pen as a gift! 

Thanks, Jennifer!

Look, what do you think? 

Doesn't that make you want to dance just a little?

The red print fabric on the right will be the outside border and some of the piecing.  The cream fabric second from the right will be the background for the hand stitchery for all the birds and applique baskets.  The rest will be all the Irish chain piecing. 

And leftovers for my stash!

I am planning on making the "Irish Birds" quilt, pattern by Lynette Anderson. 

I'll post this pic again:

That is Lynette and me standing in front of her origninal "Irish Birds" quilt at the quilt market in Houston last month.  Isn't it just gorgeous?  I can't believe I have so many things lined up to do this week already, when all I want to do is cut into this delicious stack of fabrics!  Patience, patience, patience.  I keep telling myself this.  Maybe I can start with some of the hand embroidery tomorrow night!   Oh, yeah, patience.  I almost forgot!

Thanks for stopping by, hope your Halloween weekend was spooktacularly beautiful!

Quilts, you'all

Pictures from Houston Quilt Market, 2009 ..... A W E S O M E N E S S

Prepare to be awed,

amazed,  

(these two were in the Lecein booth, are they not just the greatest colors and look at that qulting and applique!!!)

enthralled,

'this was a pattern for a block of the month by one of the gals from Australia - The Quilted Crow.






overwhelmed,

From the entrant portion of the show.  Sorry I didn't get the name of the maker.  But it was gorgeous!  Look at all of that quilting.  Really, overwhelmed!!!

impressed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe the greatness? 
Also, did not get the maker of this.  Sorry, the pictures were too dark to read.   :(
Just too hard to believe all the great quilting.  Click on the pics to enlarge them and be totally blown away by these gals quilts.

Jiggity Jig, can you say that very slowly and drawn out?

My jiggity jig is much, much more slower than it was last Thursday.  And not because I picked up a Texas drawl! That would be a direct after-effect of the Houston quilt market.  "Fall Market", as it is called, is the wholesale part of the quilt industry.  It comes right before the retail quilt Fall Market. 
Our hotel was only six long city blocks from the convention center.  And the hotel offered a van shuttle service when we called and booked our reservation.  "Why, yes, we do have a free shuttle to and from the convention center".  In actuality, the shuttle service was only Thursday.  Evidently, the downtown area of Houston just closes up after 8 p.m. on Thursday, 5 p.m. on Friday, and after 3p.m. on Saturday.  And good luck finding anything open on Sunday at all.  Even the mall and food court!  Anyway, we lucked into a Friday night shuttle because there was a wedding at our hotel with party at the convention center.  Then when the rain came in (the temp did drop to a nice 80 degrees!) and the weekend came........you guessed it, no shuttle.  And six blocks is only six blocks.  I walk that all the time.  Just not usually in the rain, being a pack mule carring 75 pounds or more of fabric and books and printed propaganda, AFTER I have walked a concrete convention center floor the size of a football field at least 5 times.  I'm tellin' you'all my dogs were-a-barkin'!  (Yes, I heard a Texan use that line and I am quoting).
O.K., enough whining. 

First:  The picture that shows we are HERE:

Second:  Moda had a photo op area with props.

Here's a picture of the most magnificant quilting diva aka:  Miss C.       A little secret about Miss C.  She's afraid of her shadow.  That is a scary shadow, isn't it?   No joking, that shadow can make her jump out of her skin and drop things and grab the person beside her!

Here's Miss C as we get back from a long day and a longer walk back from the convention center.  Clockwise from the white bag:  12 pounds of wool kits and wool floss; the Jo Morton fabric bag has about 45 pounds of propaganda; the back pack is books equalling 75 pounds; the light paisley is 25 pounds of fabric fat quarter bundles; the yellow bag is more fabric fat quarter bundles.  Only 20 pounds in this one!  I kept telling her she could carry it if it was distributed evenly!  And by golly, she did!

Ms. C with her new best friend in the Amy Bradley booth;  Ms. C with her new best friend Jinny (yes she got an autographed copy of that book and it weighs about 400 pounds!);   Then you will see that Miss C found her new best friend Jo.  THEN, Ms. C and her new best friend Nancy!

I wasn't quite as fickle.  Well, maybe.  My new-found best friends: The first is Helen.  Check out her blog and great pictures from Houston Market. http://hugsnkisses.typepad.com/ I picked up this pattern, possibly for a block of the month group.  I would show you the pattern close-up, but it's in a box that I shipped, so won't be here for a couple of days.  And, she brought each of us that attended her lecture a little baggie of the most scrumptious cherry candies from Tazmanian cherries, I think.  Yes, I shared!  This is Rosalie in the pink.  This was at Schoolhouse sharing her new designs and a new fabric line. http://rosaliequinlandesigns.typepad.com/

Then, the last picture is my new best friend, Lynette Anderson.  Her link is http://lynetteandersondesigns.typepad.com/lynette_anderson_designs/  I know she's not blogging while in Houston, so her site is not updated with market info yet.  But it was great meeting her and her son Eddie.  They were working on a 28 hour day/flight with no sleep and then set up and then market, so they had to be tired, but you sure couldn't tell.  I think I would have been more than a little grouchy!

I just love her patterns.  I'm working on a couple of her Christmas designs now, but hope to do the quilt we are standing in front of.  It's called Irish Bird.  Stitching and piecing. 

Another one for my project list!

I also met Alma Allen and Barb Adams of Blackbird Designs.  No pic, but she gave me an autographed copy of her new pattern Hallowe'en - 1904.  I know her cousin, Mary in Alabama, and Mary told me I should go chat her up next time I saw her at market.  So I did, and she is just so nice and down to earth.  She is from Kansas and has just a little different mid-west accent, which I really enjoyed.  Here's her blog link:  http://blackbird-designs.blogspot.com/

I have some shots from the quilt show itself - great quilts, so, more pictures later.  I need to get to work.  A couple more quilts to quilt and laundry and finish unpacking all my goodies!

Home again, home again, Jiggity, jig.

fall in Houston (at Quilt Market, 2009)

Real quick:  Hot, humid, steamy...yep Houston in fall.  But.....


It is wonderful at market!  Wonderful, and tiring! 
Learning a lot, seeing a lot, laughing a lot, meeting people from around the whole world, great quilts and products and patterns and, and, and.  Basically, textile overload!


A few random pics if I can get them loaded using a strange computer:
........no luck on loading pics.  Sorry, but........
lots of pics coming:  my new friends from Australia-Lynette, Helen, Brenda, Rosalie and their new fabric lines and patterns!; Colleen and her new best friend-Jo Morton;  Alex and Ricki are here, Mary Sorensen...on and on.  I found the booth for the new line of Cosmo two-strand floss and got a sample to try, I'll let you know how that is.  Also hit the Primitive Garden booth, so some new wool!
Still dancing and singing, just much slower and much more tired.  Another day to see the remaining booths and some more great quilts. 
Hope your weekend is great,
Later, Deb