I LOVE having company!

(I thought it had, and don't know why this did not publish in April, but I'm going to try it again!!!!)

So many fun & busy times were had here in April!!!
Why?, well, because
I had house guests from out of the country!
My Norwegian friends, 
who I met about five years ago at a quilt retreat,
came to visit me!

I'd not seen them for about 550 days...
but who was counting? 😁
From the time I collected them from the airport,
it was like we'd not been apart those 18 months.
We visited and caught each other up with our lives.
We grocery shopped, cooked, shared recipes,
and, of course, we ate well.

Outside the Morgan House restaurant

They were here after Easter, so we shared the tradition of 
one of our family Easter dinners with them. 

making Sun Buns!

We laughed and enjoyed ourselves to the max...
even attending a couple of wine sampling events. 😂

We visited the #1 Zoo in the United States...
THE Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.

We walked and counted our steps together.
We also did some important shopping....,
visiting local quilt shops!

 

And not-so-local shops, too!

The last full week they were here,
we attended a quilt retreat in the Amish area of Indiana.
Where we also visited, ate, laughed, walked;
and shopped those local quilt shops:

Gohn Brother's

Caroline's Quilt Cottage

Just that last week of visiting the quilt shops and retreat and back to my home, we traveled 600 miles!

I love my quilt-y friends and can hardly wait until we meet up again!!
(I may be counting down the days, again!)

scrap play

Scraps.  Lots of small scraps. 
Postage stamp sized little pieces of fabric... 
one inch finished little squares!
I've had this style of quilt on my 'someday list'
for almost as long as I can remember. lol

So when this quilt:

in this book:

was mentioned at the Fall quilt retreat...
well, I was hooked.  
But I wasn't the only one enthralled.  
There were handfuls of us that needed to do this quilt!
There was a movement of sorts. LOL
We all ordered or purchased books.  
We stocked our fabric stashes with setting fabric.
A facebook group was started for stamp-sized-fabric-minded quilters 
(Thank you Rosemary Youngs!!).


After Christmas, I started gathering scraps.
My scraps,

Scraps sent to me by friends:

Thank you Wendy! Constant Quilter blog

The pattern calls for width-of-fabric strips.  

I decided I'd like my quilt to be a little more scrappy, 

so I cut the equivalent of only quarter WOF pieces.  

Equaling a whole lot of scrap play!!!

And here are some of my strip sets:

There are many more strip sets, but that's a good representation.

I'm finding so many old favorite fabrics in working on this quilt,
and a great way to spend some of my leisure time.
Which is where I'll be this afternoon!

Thanks for visiting!  I hope you are having a wonderful week, too!!

I miss big quilt shows; and living vicariously

Here in central Ohio,
we are no longer host to a big quilt show.
I'm bummed. More than bummed.  Almost depressed.
But it didn't really register with me that I was sad,
until recently seeing friends sharing photos online of
big quilt shows that they've attended.

This area of central Ohio has a great quilter presence!
and many quilt shops,
but...
I'd mentioned Many Times previously, 
to whomever would listen,
when the large show was hosted here locally,
that we were so blessed to have a great show
within reasonable driving distance.
And I may have also mentioned that we should all represent! and
attend in groves!!!

Alas, my words were not heard by enough people...
or we didn't represent well enough.
Now, I could drive the five plus hours north and visit a show this weekend.
Or in October I could drive the ten plus hours west.  But I have things to do here at home!

Many thanks to Rosemary, Judy, and Wendy, and so many others who have shared their
recent quilt show experiences in pictures (especially all the ones from the Sisters show!).
Love you gals and guys!!!

Guess I'll live vicariously through my friends' online pictures
to see what I'm missing, and for my quilty motivation and inspiration!

I'll finish with a couple of pictures of some quilty inspiration 
from previous shows and travels:

A Winner - from past NQA show locally

Good Wives from Ohio One Stop Shop Hop

The back of the bus fun - from Always In Stitches show road-trip