on the road

During Friday's roadtrip to Gatlinburg I made one side trip to this place

At the end of the Foothills Parkway in Tennesse was a sign pointing left for Gatlinburg and right for Holloways Quilts.  I went right, of course!  It was only .2 of a mile. 

It was a log cabin!  With a porch covered in quilts!

The ladies were wonderful and their store was amazing!  It was packed from top to bottom!  Traditional, batiks, novelty, 40's repro, civil war, panels, and more.

 

And then there was the stairs...

There were quilts everywhere for sale!

More on the sewcation later...

Keep dreaming...Colleen



I love this quilt hanging right at the register.



Sewcation part 1

I had a sewcation for the last week.  Well I also attended a conference and visited Gatlinburg, TN but it was my first sewcation as well.

I was in Boone, NC at the La Quinta Inn to attend the NC Reading Association (NCRA)Leadership Conference.  It was my first time attending and I enjoyed learning more about NCRA and its role in the world of literacy.

I alos enjoyed getting to hear and talk to author Carol Crane again.  She is one of my favorite children's book authors.

She is an inspiring person who has done so much in her years as an author and historian.  Especially travel.  I envy her travel experiences.

Her new book The Handkerchief Quilt is about a teacher who makes a quilt out of thevhandkercheifs she has received as presents over the years from her students.  It is based on a true story about her mother.

For the first time I took my sewing machine and supplies to set up in the hotel room.  I brought the projects I blogged about. 



I have a portable rigid design wall made with an
old piece of felt stapled to a triptic board.

I decided to finish assembling the cancer quilt top first.  I was working on designing the Bee blocks and assembly was mindless.  I did not get as much done in Boone as the conference days were long and I was tired.  I enjoyed meeting my roommate Joyce.  She is also a quilter!  We were bad girls and tended to stay up late talking.  He he!  It was fun.  I stayed one extra day in Boone before moving on to Gatlinburg, TN. 

Finished sewing the blocks together and started to sew the border.  I forgot some fusibles I need for the Bee blocks so had to go visit the two local quilt shops, darn!  Friday I drove south west to Gatlinburg for part 2, stay tuned.

Keep Dreaming...Colleen



Lovly Blueridge Mts in NC.



One Week One Thing

I took up Amy's One Thing One Week challenge.  I was supposed to finish my three Bee blocks.  I also had a few other projects I took with me on my sewcation in the mountains.  I will tell more about that in another post.  I am sad to say I did not finish my blocks due to technical difficuties.  My featherweight developed a problem on Sunday when I was trying to finish them.  I dont even have any pictures of them.  I did however finish another challenge I posed for myself for my sewcation this past week. 

I made my quilt top for the Kaufman Dusty Solid charm pack quilt my guild -TMQG -is sponsering for the next meeting.

We were to use a cham pack and one yard of bonus fabric.  I missed out on the free ones so had to find one on the net.  My plan was simple and yet complex.  I literally sewed the charm squares together as they came out of the pack to make to HST sets from each pair.  

Then the hard fun part came.  I played with the layout.  I had one in mind but wanted to see other options.

 

I really likes this one and may still make it but with a little more planned color matching.  I call it "two rights and a left".

 

This was what I finally decided on.  It was actually what I had in mind in the first place.  I had several fabric choices for background.  Again I played but interestingly enough the original one I chose was the one I used.

 

I guess I need to trust my original instincts.  One change to the design in my head was the sashing between the double rows. 

I think I am going to hand quilt it with pearl cottons though not sure what color.  I may use black. 

So I completed a challenge it just wasnt the orginal one I thought I was.

Keep dreaming...Colleen

Overview of Gaitlinburg where I spent part of my sewcation.

Back from a bad virus

My computer caught a malware virus!  I was reading my blogs while at the NC Reading Association(NCRA) Leadership conference in Boon, NC when my computer was attacked!  Beware!  I thought I had good security but this slipped through.  It is called Vista Firewall Security 2011 or a variation of that name.  It acts like it part of your operating system but it is not!  It puts a windows looking icon in your sytem tray and continually pops up windows telling you are infected and giving you a link to pay and download an app to fix.  It takes over your machine and changes all the .exe files so they cant run.  It blocked my security software.  I was out of town so had none of my own resources.  So I went to staples where a nice man helped me get it into safe mode.  He wanted $219 to fix the problem!  Im savy so I went back and researched on my iphone(yeah) and discovered a malware program that could remove the problem called superantispyware.  It seemed to remove the virus and then I restored my system to an earlier date.  And made sure all my security was up to date.  So now I can blog again.  Stay tuned.

Keep dreaming...Colleen



Yes you can sew in a hotel room!



Amy's One Week challenge

Im going away fro a week.  I may or may not blog depending on if I have internet.  Part of that time I will be at a conference in the mountains and part of that time I will be in just the lovely mountains.  However this is also a sewcation.  I am taking along my sewing machine and fabric and hope to complete a few projects. 

1.  my Kauffman solids dusty pallete quilt top. 

2.  my two block Swap adventure blocks and my May Let's Bee Together block.  I am using the motivation of Amy's Creative Side One thing One Week Challenge to finish these.

3.  Maybe my Cancer blocks for Relay quilt.

 

Keep dreaming...Colleen


A few y ears ago Dad and I with the beautiful oak stereo cabinet/window seat
we made from an old drafting table.



Happy Father's Day!

To the best dab ever!  His hands create wonders for those he loves!

My daddy through the years.

Keep dreaming...Colleen

My daddy as a baby with his father.

Friday Night Sew-in

Ok so instead of sewing I worked on my sister and my Father's Day present.  Dad if you reading this stop!  (it's ok he never does) 

I saw this activity posted on one of the blogs 365 Things We Love about You.  It got my brain going.  I mean how many tools does Dad need?  And shouldn't Father's Day be about love and telling him why he's such a great dad.  So I texted my sister and she agreed to do it with me.  We would each do 180+ 2x2 cards telling Dad things we love about him.  I told Kelly to think about everything we have done over the years.  I sent her a template.  Needless to say neither of us got that many done.  But I think we each did about 80.  I'm printing them on pink cardstock for Kelly and   green card stock for me.  I had the idea of making some sort of box for them to stand and display.  And then I dreamed of this

I used a wooden picture frame and the bottom of a wooden pencil box like you would find at Joann's.  I did a light wash of aqua acrylic paint on everything.  I used E6000 glue and attached ocean smoothed stones from one of our beach trips.  I put more stones in the box to help hold the cards.  I chose one of my favorite pictures ever of Dad(in a shirt that says Dad) at the wheel of my favorite boat with Sis and I looking over his shoulders as we are fishing in Canada.  Dad can read a new card each day.  I know we don't have 365 but he wont know.  Hes getting old and his memory isn't so good (not, LOL)

I also dreamed of a solution to what Bee block I want my group to make for my  month August.  I'm going to use my DS Quilts fabric.  But that is another story.

Keep dreaming...Colleen

Traditional Field day craziness as the fire truck sprays the students.

Schools out for summer!

Schools out for summer! 

Yeah! 

 I finished up in the library yesterday and I don't HAVE to go back until August.  I was going to go back to work on a book order but with he way they keep cutting our benefits package and pay I'm not sure it is worth my time to do so.

Anyway I'm going to try an stay on a loose schedule this summer.  I have been using the 15 minute rule.  Do you know about it?  Its been talked about in blogs.  Some are using it to sew and some like me are using it to get their lives/house in order.  Basically you can do anything for 15 minutes and you will find you get a lot more done than you think.  Set a timer and then work on something you need motivation to do.  The alarm goes off after 15 minutes.  It really helps me and I am amazed at how much I get done.

Tonight is the Friday Night Sewin.

I think I'm going to join in.  I need to sew three quilt blocks.  My May and June blocks for Block Swap Adventure and my June Let's Bee Together.  I'm not signed up (yet) for any other swaps currently.  If you want to join in visit Crafty Vegas Mom and sign up for the fun.

Keep dreaming...Colleen

Did you notice I put the lucky duck into the favicon of my blog.