Paducah Quilt Week -- 2 -- plus a giveaway game

Good grief! This stomach virus is a miserable, miserable way to spend three days. I thought the first round was bad, but nothing about that compares to this. I recommend that you do your best to avoid getting it. Especially the second time.

Anyway, I've recovered somewhat. Well, enough to walk out to the studio to prepare my Cotton Robin block for the mail. It should have gone out last week while I was in Paducah. (That didn't happen.) Then the virus, which Richard was fighting when I returned, found my system. Again. 

I don't know today's date, but I'm certain that I'm a week late getting the first block out--not a good way to begin. One indication would be the fact that the block for the next round was already sitting on the worktable. I was a good Robineer and did not open the second until the first was packaged, addressed, and sealed. 

The pictures that I'm posting tonight are from a quaint little moonshine brewery. It's a fun little place that Beth and I happened upon. A small group of quilters were rocking on the front stoop and told us that the bar was giving free taste-testings. We decided to drop in. 

I tried the peach flavor and Beth the chocolate. The peach was delicious, but then I heard about the pecan. Shoot! Oh well. When Beth decided that she wasn't crazy about her cup, I gave it a go. Yum! It was difficult to walk out without a bottle of the good stuff. Other pictures are from antique shops, a hotel, and a flea market. Beth is an antique hound! She stepped into every antiquey place she could find. It's fun to dip into places on a whim. 

The bottom left picture in the collage is of an apple masher. I'd never seen one before, so I had to take pictures to show Richard. A little part of me wanted to bring it home, but that was silly because there was no space for such a large piece.

Front view (the side from which you'd be working)

Edge view (looking at
the machine components)

Instead I had to settle for this little item which attaches to a table using a C-clamp. Rich and I tested it and it works! Do you know what it is? Here's a hint: it's a sewing item but doesn't sew. 

Let's play a game! The first one to answer or guess correctly (post your answer in the comments) will get a couple of fat quarters from the small stash that I purchased in Paducah. I hate doing this but I'll have to limit mailing to USA only. Postage is crazy expensive.  

I haven't shown you the things that I bought yet, so I suppose it's time for a reveal. Come back soon to see the yummy colors! 

A Camper for a Camper and other Christmas Stories

What family, temporarily living in campers, would give the one permanent camp child a camper? This. One. of course.

Poor child. Her own personal Barbie/baby doll camper as small as Grandmay and Poppa's. She's living in a camper the size of her new (in process of being built) house. And her dolls will have to share the smallest camper available to dolls. Wait, it's the size of the camper I'm sleeping in tonight. 

It's been a while since we've had a baby to open gifts. What fun! Doesn't the look on her face tell the story?

At some point we were finished opening all the gifts and moved on to supper. One of the advantages of having Will and crew living in the house is that they did the cooking. And it was delicious!

Earlier in the day Richard and I attended mass and spent some quiet time before the chaos began. When the kids arrived in the afternoon, we took photos in a sleigh that Will made just for this purpose. It started out a two-dimensional drawing, but he kept adding to the idea until it became a three-dimensional sleigh with a bench for sitting and two crazy log reindeer. 

Rich's parents were with us for gift-giving and supper, but it began "getting late" as soon as we served dessert. We love to play family games, so I made a few plans for after they left. Unfortunately they can't handle the noise and chaos of family games. Two of the games we played are below. The first was a hoot! Everyone wanted in on this game!

Treasure Chase
Necessary items: plastic wrap (Saran or Cling); small tokens, such as pony tail holders, candies, gum, lip balm, and so on. I also gathered a few odd things from around the house: safety pins, bobby pins, paper clips, zip ties, coins, ribbon. Anything small will work but avoid sharp, pointed objects.  

Start with a medium-size prize and wrap it in a wad of plastic wrap to form a ball. Then add more "sheets" of wrap around that to add to the ball. Cutting the wrap into sheets means the players will have to pick at the wrap to find the beginning of each. With each piece of wrap, add tokens enclosing them and pressing down to make the wrap stick to itself. It takes hours to use up a 300' roll of wrap. Several hours. Eventually I had a ball of tokens and wrap about the size of a volley ball. 


To play one person races to unwrap the items while the next player throws a die. We had already decided that the number to switch on would be three. When the player rolled a three, he took the ball and began trying to get items out while the next player tried to roll a three. It was such fun to see how the kids played. Some of us, it turns out, cheat. I loved trying to keep Lane from getting the ball from me. He's 6' tall, so reaching over me was not a concern. 

For the most part our games have no rules, and everyone just plays for fun. Some of our prizes were useless. For example, I included a sewing machine foot from an old machine. The idea is that no one knew what to expect, but it was fun to find out. I hate to admit but had any of the prizes been expensive, someone may have been hurt.


Candy Cane Catch
To play this game, you'll need candy canes, ribbon and prizes. Divide into teams of two players. One player (standing on a chair) drops the candy cane to the second player (sitting on the chair with back to player one). The player holds the ribbon out-stretched and tries to catch the candy cane on the ribbon. They may communicate but may not touch each other. The first team to catch the candy cane wins the prize.

You can find directions to both of these games on the internet. I found the first one here.  And though I don't remember where I found the Candy Cane Catch (my title), there are many holiday family games at Happy Home Fairy.

The Crazy Bunch

My family is such a fun-loving crew. Traditionally we wait to have our get-together/gift exchange on Christmas night. This allows the kids to wake up to Santa surprises, go to mass, and visit their in-laws, or whatever they choose to do.

This year we decided to exchange gifts, have supper and then play games so the little ones could join in the fun. They had been running around screaming for most of the evening and the adults decided this would help to settle them down a little. Of course, not one made much of an effort to pick up or straighten the house, so excuse the messes in the pictures. 

Ha! It's crazy to think that we'd play a game and be quiet. It started relatively calmly, but that did not last long. We started out with some form of charade that didn't work very well but eventually got off the ground. I looked up a couple of family games and in no time we were rolling with laughter as everyone took turns acting out their animal for "White Elephant." Here's a minute of some of our fun and laughter.

When we got tired of animals, we turned to "Giants, Wizards, Elves." That's basically "Paper, Rock, Scissors" but using sound effects and your whole body. Even the shy ones got into that game. 

What happened here, I can't say exactly.  But we laughed way too much for such silliness. I'll only say retaliation is never good.

What are some fun family games your family plays? I can always add to our list...

Natchitoches Trip to Europe

Last weekend Richard and I went to my sister's house in Natchitoches for the annual Festival of Lights. I wrote a little about the weekend last Sunday. 

The rain was unbelievable...so much that the parade was cancelled for the first time since 1959. It was a steady, cold rain that went on for two days and nights, so going out for some sightseeing or festival shopping was out of the question. 

We are a hardy lot, however, and had no problem entertaining ourselves. The guys watched football and UFC, visited, and laughed at their own crazy stories. We girls had a wonderful time laughing and chatting, reminiscing about our childhood and, surprise, built 3D puzzles of famous buildings. 

Actually, they built several while I graded papers, but I could not handle missing the fun, so eventually I packed up the papers and played. Angie and Lewis just got home from a trip to Europe, and Sid and Frank lived in Germany for several years, so they have seen all of the buildings. That may have given them a slight advantage.

I'm almost resigned to the idea that I'll never get to Europe. I laughing said that I should take a picture of the buildings, but Angie said I needed to take a selfie instead. We all laughed but I took pictures anyway. Bummer! It didn't fulfill my dreams of going one day, so I'm holding out hope rather than rely on this pitiful picture.  

Working Weekend

Even the kids get involved.

A couple of weekends we worked at the annual church fair. One popular activity at our fair is bingo because we have such good prizes. The local business are very supportive and some of the church members pitch in with additional prizes. Finally, the couple in charge of running the bingo table donate many prizes that Angela purchases throughout the year. 

Prizes run the gamut from week killer to oil to home decor to kitchen appliances and anything else that comes along. . This year I donated a white wall hanging with three fleur de lis designs in navy.

One table of sisters and family playing for prizes.

A few of my sisters showed up to visit, eat and play bingo. There was jambalaya, hamburgers, hot dogs, cracklins, and pulled pork sandwiches along with every type of cake, cup cake and home baked goods that you can imagine. Angie, my older sister generously donated fancy cup cakes and her daughter Stacey brought white chocolate bread pudding. 

After our visit and suppers, they sat at a table to play and I got back to work collecting money, cleaning tables, and calling games. When it was time to play for the wall hanging that I'd donated, my sisters had great fun teasing me about getting one of my quilts for the low price of one dollar. 

Angie and her grandsons showing off their winnings.

 I answered back (on the mic) that "you can pay, you can play, but you can't win." Well, I was wrong when Angie called bingo. She and another lady were in a tie and force to pull a number to determine who would get the quilt. Angie pulled the high number and won the small quilt. She quickly noted that she won it twice.  

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: CHECKERBOARD

Remember playing games as a child? One of my favorites was checkers. It seems that we always had a game and with seven sisters, there was always an opponent. My grandfather was the adult who taught me to play and to love the game. I remember setting the game up on the arm of the sofa--he always sat in the same place--for a rousing game.  

He taught me to play by first winning and then showing me either my bad moves or his smart ones. It was difficult to grasp the concept of planning my moves and anticipating his, but eventually I came to understand. He died when I was twelve but by that time he had taught me quite well. I don't think I ever won a game with Papa, but that didn't seem to matter.

Checker board quilts, you ask? Well, you know it!

Here's hoping that your childhood memories of playing games includes a loving grandfather who was willing to teach you to be a better player. (And maybe a win or two.)

Great Wolf Lodge, the wolves and the wolf den

Last weekend Richard and I joined two of the boys and their families at Great Wolf Lodge just outside of Dallas. That means we drove through Dallas with grands from the absent son in tow. Notice the pile of old utility quilts. Grandmay always has a quilt or two in the car.

The drive wasn't so bad, except that I was driving without a navigator (he was asleep in the navigator seat, thank goodness), and I was attempting to keep up with the maniac driver leading the pack. 

That brown SUV right in front....that one is very hard to follow.

 

The traffic was worse as we were driving in but I didn't get photos at that time since I was behind the wheel. Adam (the SUV driver) does not use his blinkers to signal when he wants to change lanes or make a turn. He also does not like city driving, so he drives extra fast in an attempt to get out of the city. He also doesn't listen to the chick on the GPS who knows where we're all going. It's frustrating at best, but we arrived without a hitch (or a hit) and checked into our rooms with plenty of time for swimming, sliding, and chilling by the pool. 

Photo via Great Wolf Lodge

Photo via Great Wolf Lodge

  I loved the Tornado slide (red/yellow slide above). It was rough and scary at first, but once I overcame the fear, my biggest problem was climbing the steps to the slide. I should have counted them.

The little kids played some game called Magic Quest. They walked around for hours waving wands at things that gave them clues to a scavenger hunt of sorts. 

Photo via Great Wolf Lodge

 Every evening they attended a show under the clock tower, we ate dinner at one of the beautiful restaurants, and just wandered around the hotel people-watching and appreciating the place. I said several times: they know how to do a theme!

 All in all, the weekend was pretty awesome, in the words of the grands, and the adults seem to agree. We pulled it together for a few minutes to get family photos.  Hope you enjoy these.

The wolf pack 

Three of Will and Stacey's cubs
Jolie, the middle one, had a 13th birthday celebration with lots of free ice cream!

Adam, Jenny and cub Marley

Rory, Meggan and their cubs Caki (holding her magic wand) and Sophie

The old dogs: Mary and Richard

Happy Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday)....enjoy the parades without me. The wolf den wore me to the bone, and I am down to just binding on the current chevron project.  Maybe the wind will die down and I'll get a photo of a finished project.