A Family Friday

Today is Marley's birthday; she turns three but a trip to New Orleans for a zoo and aquarium visit turned into a bad case of vomiting, and they returned home after a half day.  That meant that her dad, Adam, could put together the electric jeep that Richard had agreed to build.


 Lane, the only grandson, wanted to come over for his regular "Friday night sleepover," so we convinced Will's family to bring over some chicken for supper.  

Adam quickly enlisted some help with the jeep work and in five minutes the living room became a Jeep production plant with paper, plastic, cardboard, plastic jeep parts, stickers and Marcotte children and grandchildren all over the place.  

They did have some fun playing, figuring out where the stickers go--usually after the sticker had already been applied--and removing parts to put them in right place.  Of course, the directions were sitting on the side, untouched, "cause that's how we roll."  

More than once I noted that I'm rather glad I don't have to work with these engineers.  Richard, in the meantime, who had originally agreed to do the work happening on the floor, found a comfy spot in a corner of the sofa.

Dusti and Alayna helped give directions for the jeep stickers.  Dusti even noted that she probably knew more about how to put the jeep together since it's a Barbie jeep and she's a girl, which makes perfect sense, right?

Stacey and Jolie played on their phones until Jolie realized that the empty box would make a great playhouse.  It didn't take her long to climb in with a pencil, her phone, and a few toys.  As soon as I took out the camera, Jolie began posing for pictures.  She is far from shy and loves to see herself in the camera.

Dusti and Alayna, on the other hand, are both quite shy.  In fact, Dusti's hair and makeup were in "no condition to take pictures" so there are none here of her.  Alayna is at that perfect age: before makeup and hair define a girl's life but past the little girl play.  She's quite happy doing her own thing and mixes with everyone else....or not.

Lane, posing here as "The Thinker," something he discovered he likes to do when we were in Washington, D.C., started the whole jeep endeavor and stayed the course until all the pieces and parts had been applied somewhere.  

That's our thing: every bit has to be used, but not necessarily in the place the directions specify.  In end the jeep looks fine, works like a charm, and everyone has a story to tell.  

That story likely will begin, "Remember that time we put Marley's jeep together at mom's house?" and end in fits of laughter.  That's one of the many things I love about this kooky family: we love to tell stories, laugh at ourselves, and be together.  

Oh, the jeep!  Well, here it is....one piece of pink and purple machinery that will probably need fixing in week or two.  

Not because the engineers did anything wrong, but because they souped it up a bit and Marley is one rough little three year old.  

Besides, she has some pretty big cousins who were quite jealous of Cotton--he got to sit in it for a photo op, although Adam did pick on him for doing so.  Honestly, Cotton doesn't look too thrilled about having to take the picture.  I sometimes think he doesn't like taking pics.

Isn't Will having a bit more fun than he should for someone trying to meet a deadline?  That's him with the huge laugh.  The guy with his head down?  That's Adam, the birthday girl's dad. He had spent the day driving and cleaning up vomit.  Since his little wife is at home with a sick child and expects a fully functional jeep to ready for the big reveal when Marley awakens in the morning, he is trying to be a bit more serious.  Believe me, it's a struggle for him.

a little Houston haul

While we were in Houston, perusing the beautiful quilts there, I did a tiny little bit of shopping.  Really, a tiny bit, not much at all.  Compared to the machine I bought three years ago, this was nothing!  But this time I could afford the shopping.

I picked up a few cones of thread.  Last year I bought several cones of neutrals from Superior Threads and loved Libby Lehman's "The Bottom Line" in the bobbins of my long arm.  

The problem became, though, that I didn't have any affordable cones for the top stitches.  After I picked up a few cones of this Omni brand, I spoke to the thread guy, and he confirmed my theory that this is the better-than-cheap but not "the Cadillac" of threads.  

I already have a bit of "the Cadillac" and prefer to buy that as needed.  I also have some of the cheap thread that manages to break every 12 inches or so.  What I needed is the in-between stuff.  

While walking through the vendor section, I happened to spot this package of buttons.  
I have no idea how I pulled that off, but I am very glad I did: I want to make a blouse and embellish it using the sewing motif buttons in the pack.  The tiny scissors, thimbles, a sewing machine, cards of thread, tape measure, and a needle will make for fun embellishments.  

I also picked up this laser cut fabric applique to make a quilt for the next Altar Society fundraiser.  It has fusible web already attached, so I just have to iron it onto a background and then add borders to enlarge the quilt.  The applique is 22 inches from top to bottom, so it will easily make a nice wall hanging.

And finally, this cute little pattern that I picked up was very affordable.  I bought it as a sample or experiment.  I want to make one small quilt with this pattern and, if it is something I really like, I'll invest in the barn quilt patterns by the same author, Prairie's Edge Patchworks.  

The pattern is a line drawing that I'll "embroider" on the Bernina using one of the specialty stitches.  It seems rather easy, but I didn't want to invest in the three more expensive patterns required for the twelve barns in the series.  

See the pens in the upper left corner?  Those are fabric pens that wash out.  I'm to use them to trace the pattern onto the background fabric.  Of course, I'll keep you posted on how both the pens and the pattern work for me.  

What do you think of my Houston haul?  Didn't I do a pretty good job of keeping the expenses down while getting some interesting items?  If you were lucky enough to get to Houston, what goodies did you pick up?  If you weren't quite so lucky as to visit Houston but did get some shopping in, what did you snag?

Pin It Wednesdays

Back on Pinterest I discovered that there are more ideas than a girl can stand!  So tonight it was all about the gardening.....you know, that hobby I love from a distance.  I really do love gardens and flowers, but I've found gardening to be, well, work.  

I'm sorry to say that the most actual gardening I've done in the last couple of years has been little to none, with the exception of pulling a few weeds when they've taken over so badly that we can't see the flowers.  Thank goodness my darling husband truly enjoys the work. 

Because I enjoy looking at gardens, I'm finding that Pinterest makes for a very nice "stroll" through other people's beautiful spaces.  Join me, won't you?  These are some of my favorite sights.   

I have some of these lighter pink roses.  They are growing wild and taking over every part of the bed they're in.  We've attempted to control them, but that's not happening.  I'm hoping to convince Richard to build something for them to climb and then move them.  I love the look and the fact that I can forget about them, but goodness it's difficult to keep them from eating up the other plants. 

While we doing pink, check this out.  I think they are cherry trees, but don't ask me where they are.  I have a whole board just on tress!  Yes, crazy, no?  Ah well, there you have it: I have an eclectic   mix of boards.  

Because it feels very much like I'm cheating by "borrowing" from my Pinterest board, I'll leave you with a photo from that board that is originally my own pic.  It's one I took last year when the catabla trees were in bloom.  (I know, I know, it's on the wrong board.)

Happy gardening, uhm, I meant quilting.  We'll get back to Houston in a day or so.  I just needed a break from organizing the photos.  

Mary

Back to Houston

that's a virtual return to Houston, of course.  I have enough photos to last a while and my feet are still too tired to go through that again.  I sat for a little while to work on some more photos for you and made a big discovery: I can compress, edit and load photos in bulk!  

That means that all the photos are now compressed, something that I have to do to be able to upload them to blogger.  I haven't gotten brave enough to attempt editing in bulk, with the exception of adding brightness.  My camera settings are off somewhat, so I have to brighten everything until I figure out how to correct the settings.

I made another discovery while organizing the photos: I took photos of the winning quilts, but the camera automatically sets up file folders and puts the pics in the appropriate folder.  I had taken enough photos that it just built another folder and started using it. 

I looked in one folder but it turns out there are pics in two folders.  I've now put all of the photos from the show in one folder on the computer, which makes them much easier to find, edit and upload.


 While I enjoy the newly found features of my camera, you enjoy the quilts.  These are from the AAQI booth, where they were making lots of noise and getting lots of attention.  

The name in white on this quilt runner on the outside of the AAQI booth is my mom's name.  I wrote her name on the piece of fabric last year while at the booth and this year it appeared, like magic, with rows and rows of other names of Alzheimer's patients.


And from here we go to photos of landscape quilts, followed by a few avian photos.  I wish I could remember something about the quilts, but there are too many--quilts and photos! 

On to birds......

Happy Quilting,
Mary

Houston Quilt Festival Return

World of Beauty winner

I am so tired, but it's a good tired.  You know, the kind of tired that means you had a good day.  

Long perhaps, difficult maybe, but still good.  Our day began at 4:30, which would make the day difficult just based on that one fact since I am as far from a morning person as one is allowed to be.  On the road at 5 a.m. and we were well on our way after picking up my sister, Angie.

By ten o'clock we were in Houston, but forced to make a big circle around a parade route.  Since there were no quilts involved, we just figured out the shortest route back to the convention center.

I made two mistakes: first, I forgot my phone in my school bag in the car and second, I accidentally dropped my keys.  That meant no connection to either Richard or Angie, so as soon as we got separated, I was on my own.  Of course, it was after we got separated that I realized that I didn't have a phone nor did I have a way into the car to get said phone.  

One of the $5,000 winners

We still managed to find each other when it was time to go home.  Having a standard meet-at-the-entry-where-we-came-in plan works quite well at the end of the day.  

I spent most of my time looking at the quilts, analyzing the techniques, taking pictures, talking to other quilters, and then I did a bit of shopping.  These photos are just a small, small percent.  

I spent a little time trying to organize the photos, but I haven't made a dent.  I now realize that it's going to require much more time than an afternoon or two.  I'll have to try to figure out how to organize and edit them more efficiently.  In the meantime, enjoy these few.

Founder's Award winner

Sorry this next $5,000 winner is so blurred.  There were so many people around that I got bumped a few times.  I got a couple of good close-ups though.

And let's wrap it up with a couple of photos of some quilted garments.  They are pretty impressive.

I know I got some shots of the overall winner, but I can't seem to find it.  I'll try to post it in a day or so.
Happy Quilting,
Mary