I've been diligently working on my quilt for the, Quilts on the Grand, quilt show.
I started it back in Nov/Dec 2010 when my friend, Terri, asked me to join her in the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt online. I had just lost my job so it was a perfect project to keep me busy so I didn't get depressed. Who has time to get depressed when they have to make 600 1½" half square triangles!! Terri and I both agreed in the beginning that we would both put our quilts in the quilt show. Well mine is definitely not quilt show quality, but a promise is a promise. I shouldn't have procrastinated as much and I might have had more time to fix the mistakes, oh well!
I found this sunflower quilt embroidery pattern at Embroidery Library. I liked the motion the petals give, cause Bonnie named this Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll. I found it a little challenging to hoop some of the blocks in the middle of the quilt and then get the hoop on the embroidery arm with all the bulk rolled up. I had 30 of these blocks to do. Then I have 120 string pieces blocks to quilt!
Most of the sting triangle blocks are in sets of four, like this. It was hard to get a picture where you could see the quilting, but its there! Then I have to tie and hide all the threads! I don't even want to do the math on that! So I keep telling myself "I'm having fun", and the good news is I believe its true!! So I'll take a nice picture when its hanging at the show to share with you, or you could come and see it in person!!
Saturday we went to the Irish Festival in Muskegon. One would think after all the drag shows I've been to, I would be used to seeing a bunch of men in skirts! But let me tell you I have never seen so many men in skirts. Of course, I should not say skirts, they are kilts, and these burly men in their kilts are kinda hot! I was quite impressed with them. I think the choice of footwear really helped with the look. I did see one guy with flip flops and he just wasn't pulling off the look at all. I think the best were the ones with black army boots or something along those lines. I even thought the black high top Keds were pretty cool. There were a couple younger guys doing regular tennis shoes, and those were okay. They were young, they'll learn!
I tried really hard to channel that 1/8 or 1/16 wee bit of Scottish in me but just couldn't find it. I might have to research and find out my clan colors so I can get me own kilt, then I can feel more part of the group!
I wanted to share my butterfly chips with you!! They were quite good. They had lots of Irish food, of course, and other fair type food vendors. And Beer! The whole place had a yeast smell that did not go away, it progressed. It wasn't that yummy bread in the oven yeast smell either, it was beer! We got there at 2pm and by 5pm you noticed people walking with more of a stagger! Not being a beer drinker myself, and the designated driver, I stuck with good ol' root beer from one of the vendors!
They imported all kinds musical entertainers that were very good and had that wonderful accent when they spoke!! I don't know much about Irish music, so most of it kind of sounded the same. But they were all mighty talented.
My highlight for the day was when this gentleman in a stunning blue and green plaid kilt with matching tie came up to me and said "The geek in me has to come over to you and say nice shirt" as he holds up his fist showing me his Green Lantern ring! I, of course was wearing my Green Lantern T-shirt! What!....it was the only green shirt I had!
So afterwords I was told this would be an annual thing for us now! So I'm starting my recruiting early, cause I think it would be more fun if we went with a small group of people or at least another couple.
I finished this cute little chicken cross stitch a couple weeks ago but I haven't shared it with you yet! This was a great pattern I found at Bobbie G. Designs. I can't decide on how I want to frame it. I was looking at the oval frames they had a Joann's but maybe I'll run across something while out antiquing.
After I was finishing this cross stitch, I
realized that I had a quilt to finish for the quilt show coming up on the first weekend in October!! Which means the quilt has to be in at the end of September, sometimes I can't believe were my head is!! So that is what I have been trying to do lately. Its not going great, but good enough for who it's for! (which is me) I just have to stop trying to quilt these ginormous quilts myself on my home sewing machine on a table with no insert!! Okay I'll stop complaining now and get back to quilting. I'll keep you posted on my progress!
