Quilts from my Sister's patterns

At the Etowah quilt show today, there were 4 quilts made from my sister Robin's patterns. This first one is from her Magical Slice and Dice pattern and was made during a class I taught at Tiny Stitches.

The next three are all from the Wacky Devine Nine Pattern. I have taught it at the Allatoona Quilt Guild and also at Tiny Stitches. It goes together very quickly and is a great quilt when you need one in a hurry.

It is really fun to see so many quilts from Robin's patterns in one place.

Vending at a Quilt Show

Tiny Stitches was vending at a quilt show today. Mary and Maetha got our area set up yesterday and today was the first day of the actual show. While it isn't a large show, there seems to be quite a few people attending. The show is in Cartersville, GA and is held by the Etowah Quilt Guild.

Here is one view of our booth.

And a slightly different view. I quilted the round tree skirt earlier this week. I doesn't have binding on it yet but looks pretty good. It is made from two panels sewn together. I also really like the table runner. It is made from charms of Christmas junk food fabric - candy and cookies.

Bag Swap Sent

I sent out my bag swap a couple of days late but hopefully she has received it by now. I was going to wait until I heard from her to post the photos but decided that since she doesn't know where her bag is coming from, me posting photos won't spoil the surprise.

Here is the bag I made. The pattern is one of Pat Sloan's called "Tote with Ticking". The bag is made from a great fabric called Sandcastle and after it is washed, it is wonderful. I like the shape of it and hope she likes it. It is a large bag but still has shape and very comfortable handles.

I also made her a steno book cover and sent some fall fat quarters and my favorite type of seam ripper. I hope she likes everything.

Gift in the mail from my sister

I got a fat envelope in the mail today from my sister Robin. I wasn't expecting anything but she always sends good stuff so I was excited to see her return address.

I opened up the envelope and this is what was inside. It was all neatly folded up, ready to go into my purse.

Here it is opened up. A great shopping bag to carry with me. I have had one that I clip to my purse but this one is much cuter. Both of us have a bad disease of attraction to bags of any kind and unfortunately, rather than helping each other cure the disease, we fuel each other's passion for bags - big bags, little bags and in between size bags. Any way, I love it. She also sent the pattern to make more!

It easily folds back up after using it and goes back into my purse for the next shopping trip. I actually used it today when I stopped by Tiny Stitches to put together some kits and couldn't pass up the fat quarters for only $1.50 each. I got a few and popped them into my bag and felt quite "green". I always use my reusuable bags at the grocery store but sometimes forget when I go to a non-food store.

Salt and Pepper Shakers

When Kim came from Missouri last week, she brought a box of things that Bill's mother had sent to him. In the box were several salt and pepper shakers. Apparently, she is trying to declutter her house - while cluttering ours. Bill was quite excited to see some of these that he remembered from growing up.


First is a pair of teddy bears. It is hard to tell how old any of these are, but my best guess is at least 50 years old.

Here are a pair of chickens. The paint is worn on them so they were probably used a lot.

Cows are next. One is laying down and the other is sitting.

This looks like a humpty dumpty pair.

And last is a pair of mushrooms. There was also a glass dish that I didn't get a photo of.

Bag Swap Received

I received my bag from the bag swap today. My partner was Kim and she made this wonderful bag.

Don't you love Santa? He is beautiful! The bag is made from a tea towel and is lined with a great green polka dot fabric. The handles are red on red polka dots.

Santa is sewed with hand blanket stitch and has buttons to decorate his hat. His eyes are also buttons.

In addition to the wonderful bag, she filled it with all this stuff. I got 4 charm packs of a Moda fabric, enough to make the quilt pattern she sent along. There is also a heart shaped yoyo maker, a little notebook with pen and larger paper clip. She also wrote a wonderful note on a beautiful note card.

I love this type of swap - getting to know new bloggers and exchanging things we make for each other.

Cupcakes

Next week is the anniversary of Tiny Stitches, the quilt shop I work at. As part of the celebration, we are giving away a pattern for a cupcake block. I brought the pattern home last night and made a couple of cupcakes this morning.

We decided that putting a cupcake on a towel might be a good idea. This is a chocolate cupcake in a blue liner. It has orange icing with a dollop of whipped cream on the top, with sprinkles!

Here is another one that I just made a quilt block out of. I used the sprinkle fabric for the background with a orange liner, a different chocolate cake, pink icing and orange topping. I think an apron made from cupcake fabric with a cupcake on the front or on the pocket would be great.

I love cupcakes!

World of Coca-Cola

When Kim and Tom were here from Missouri we only had one full day to do any sightseeing so we decided to World of Coke in downtown Atlanta. It moved to a new location near the Aquarium a couple of years ago and we have never managed to get there.

We had a good time and I think it is a worthwhile place to visit if you are in town.

They had a lot of coke signs and advertising from the past 100+ years that were fun to look at.

Here is Bill sitting at a replica Coke fountain. He usually frowns whenever I take his photo so this is a pretty good one of him.

These are very large decorated coke bottles. My camera battery went dead before I got photos of many more of them. There were many more and I was fascinated by them.

I love this old Coke delivery van!

Here is another collection of coke signs

Here are some of the international signs that they had - lots of international signs.

There were a couple of movies including one where you wear 3-D glasses and the seats move, making it a 4-D movie.

At the end you get to taste all sorts of drinks that Coke makes around the world. Some of it was quite good but some was really yucky. We also got a free bottle of coke!

After leaving there, we went to The Varsity for hot dogs and fries/onion rings. The Varsity sells more Coke at that site than any other single restaurant so that made it a good closing for the day.

One More Purse

I just realized that there is one more purse that I had a photo of. This one belongs to Pat. She is making it for a friend. The white at the top is the beginning of flowers that are used for decoration. I think after making one of them, Pat decided to make yo-yos and sew them on with buttons. Easier and just as good looking as flowers with numerous petals.

Cupcakes for Guild

I have been interested in cupcakes recently. Once a month we have a potluck after our general meeting at the Allatoona Quilt Guild. I decided to make cupcakes in ice cream cones.


They turned out pretty good but I am not sure I will do it again. I made red velvet cake and then made cream cheese icing. Lastly I added sprinkles. They looked like ice cream cones. I had trouble getting them all done at the same time. I used a muffin tin to help balance the ice cream cones but think I put them too close together. The cone got a little tough and soggy so most of us ate the cake out of the cone with a fork.

Purse Club

Sorry I am been missing for a few days. They have been a very busy few days.
Bill's sister Kim and her husband Tom came to visit from Missouri. They had been to Memphis to see Graceland. Tom is a BIG fan of Elvis. When they left here this morning they headed to the County Music Museum in Nashville before going home.

Bill has two sisters and two brothers, all of them live in Missouri so we are far enough away that we rarely get the opportunity to see them so it is a real treat for us to be able to have them here in the Atlanta area.

Kim is also a quilter so she went to the quilt shop with me both nights while I taught. Last night was purse class. I have been teaching this for the past several months but last night was the largest class ever. This class is a little different from most we teach since there is not a particular project that everyone makes. I allow them to bring the fabric and pattern for any purse and I help them make it.

Usually, I have had 4-5 people but last night there were 9 including Kim. Busy, busy, busy. The first project shown is the one that Kim made.

We modified the beach tote pattern to make it a little larger. Kim selected the blue screening from my dwindling supply of colored screen. She then found this cute dog fabric in my fabric closet and then decided to use the lime green webbing. It really turned out cute.

Anne made this one - not quite completed but she got a lot done on it. I love the little side pockets.

Karen was making a backpack for her granddaughter. She got it cut out and started quilting it.

Next is Marianne's tote bag. It is a simple bag sewn on to the round handles. She added pockets on the inside. She was able to finish her bag and left with all of her stuff in the completed bag. I would like to make one like this.

We actually had two Marianne's in the class yesterday. This is the bag that the other Marianne made. It isn't finished but she doesn't have much more to finish it.

I didn't get photos of the other projects but they were also very nice. I will try to get photos when they bring them into the shop.

Piecemakers

Today was our monthly meeting of Piecemakers - a bee group that I belong to. We didn't have a particular topic today so I took my long-term embroidery project with me and we had show and tell.

Susan brought this quilt she is working on. It is a One Block Wonder quilt. It is made from six repeats of the same fabric. It is hard to believe that it is only one fabric and takes quite a bit of time to get it arranged in the best way possible but I love this look. I bought the book quite a while ago and it is on my list of things to do someday.

Pam had her label for her exchange block quilt with her to try to get everyone to sign their fabric. We had exchanged fabric and we each made a block from each others fabric. We got back 16 blocks using our fabrics. Pam had the great idea to use some of the leftover fabrics from each person to make a label for the back of her quilt.

She had a fabric pen with her to have everyone sign their fabric. Mine is the green in the upper left center of the heart.

Sylvia's Bridal Sampler

We had our monthly meeting of the Elm Creek Club yesterday at Tiny Stitches. We meet once a month, talk about the Elm Creek books, work on blocks and do show and tell. We have a little snack and a good time. Yesterday I took sweet tea (after all, we do live in the South) and lemonade with cinnamon and almond twists.

We assign 6 blocks a month to work on. Most of us aren't caught up but it gives us a plan and a goal to work on.

Karen was unhappy with the colors of the blocks she had made so we put them up on the design wall so we could all look at them.

She is using batiks with a light yellow/tan background. None of us were sure what she thought the problem was because we all love each block. She did decide to expand her color palette to include some gold and purple. Also some deeper pinks.

Pat is usually caught up on the blocks but said she is a little behind. She fussy cut the flowers for this block. Her colors are lovely and soft.

These blocks are Roxanne's on the left and Pat's on the right. Isn't it interesting how color choices change the looks of the blocks?

Here is one last block of Pat's.

Maetha read the first chapter of Jennifer Chaverini's new book - The Quilter's Kitchen. It is available here. I have it pre-ordered from Amazon and can't wait until it come out next month. We all know that the characters Jennifer writes about are fictional but she makes them see so real that we talk about them like they are real people we know. After reading the chapter, the women spent quite a while discussing the characters.