More Market

The market floor opens up on Friday and we were ready to check it all out.  Kim's husband made us breakfast and dropped us off at the door - what great service!!

Before I start I want to say that I lifted all of these great photos from the designers websites, so please do not pin these on Pinterest unless you give the credit to the well deserved designers.

There is so much to take in at market - it's just amazing.  I think that I just walk around with my mouth hanging open.  We were able to visit some old friends and meet some new new ones as well.  When we were in Wisconsin this spring, we met Lori Kabat - who is the owner of Lily Anna Stitches.  She has a lot of neat small wool patterns and they are all really nice.  My favorite thing of hers is this wool covered lamp shade.

  She keeps telling me that I need to make one, and I keep telling her she needs to make me one!  It's one of those things that I really want, but I really don't want to make!  Lori's son Phil was helping her at market - it was a pleasure to meet him and to see Lori again as well.

You've probably seen posts about Tara's booth, from Sew Unique Creations.  Her booth was so warm and homey - she designed 22 new patterns for market and every last one of them is wonderful!  I asked her if she would please make something ugly so that there would be one pattern that I DIDN'T want!  This is just one of her new patterns that I love.

I now own 3 of her new patterns!  And...to top it all off, yesterday I received a wonderful box in the mail from Tara - chock full of scraps!  Love her scrap bags!!

Next to Tara's booth was Pam Buda of Heartspun Quilts.  Pam also has tons of great new patterns AND a new fabric line coming soon as well.  She is the creative force behind the Prairie Women's Sewing Circle program.


We also stopped to chat with Pam from Cotton Tales Patterns.  She and her mom have a very nice shop in Hackensack, MN called Piecemakers, which I've blogged about before.  It was good to see her again and all of her great new patterns - here are just a few...




We also stopped in to look at all of the beauties in the booth of Primitive Quilts and Projects magazine.  If you don't already subscribe to this...WHY NOT?  It is an awesome magazine - I always say the only complaint I have about it is that it only comes out quarterly!  It is always full of inspiration by some of the best designers.

It was fun to meet the girls that are behind this great publication.

We stopped and visited the Primitive Gatherings booth - you already know that I love everything that they do!  Of course, they did not disappoint.  She has many new designs and they are all yummy!


Be sure to see Lisa's blog for more great pictures of their booth.

Another booth that is always inviting belongs to Lynn from Kansas Troubles.  Don't you love that red glider?  If you don't follow her blog, you should sign up - she will keep you up to date on all of the things she has going on - which is a lot!  She and Pam (Heartspun Quilts) have a cruise planned for later this summer and Lynn is also working on a book that will be released soon.


Besides all these great booths and wonderful designers, I was also lucky enough to meet some of my blogging and Facebook friends!  It's so nice to actually meet these virtual friends in person!  I tracked down (stalked) Kimber from Heirlooms by Ashton House blog!  She and her husband were grabbing a bite to eat - so we sat down and chatted with them for a bit.  I've followed her blog since I started blogging and we actually only live a few hours apart, so it was really nice to finally meet her in person.

I also recognized Sharon from Daisy Cottage Quilting.  I always enjoy her blog and we are friends on Facebook, so I knew what she looked like, but again - wonderful to meet her!

And do you all know about Lisa Sipes?  Her blog is That Crazy Quilty Girl.  Somehow we became friends on Facebook - I don't remember how, but I'm guessing that I saw pictures of her amazing machine quilting and instantly wanted to be her friend!  She does beautiful work for sure.  And if you've ever seen a picture of her, you know you will immediately recognize her in person!  Can't miss that bright magenta hair - and of course she donned a tiara and Princess sash at market.

I had also made plans to meet up with one of my customers, Jennifer, from The Quilted Cow.  Her shop is in Cape Fair, MO which is near Branson.  We have talked on the phone many times and finally became Facebook friends so we could see pictures of each other so we knew who we were looking for at market!  It was great to meet her as well.

From all this, I think you can see that we had a great first day at quilt market!!

THEN (yes, there's more!) Kim's hubby picked us up at the door (love that service!) and took us out for the best Kansas City BBQ at Oklahoma Joe's.  WOW!!  It was sooooo good.  This place is in a gas station (if you can imagine that) and it was just packed full of people.  It's not a place that you go and leisurely eat and hang out - there are way too many people waiting to do that.  You go, you get your food, you eat and you get out!  It was wonderful.  I took this picture to make my DH jealous - he loves BBQ ribs...

My wonderful hosts told me that this is the best BBQ around and boy, they were not kidding!

I have more to tell, but I think this post has gone on long enough - so I will share the rest later.  You won't believe what we did later that night!

Have a great day!!

Market and Jewelry

I didn't take any pictures on the floor at market last week, but I just read Linda's great blog - Quilts in the Barn - and she has posted most of my favorites, so I wanted to share her link with you.  Be sure to go take a look, you won't regret it - it's a great recap and shows some amazing designers.

I also wanted to let you know that I worked on my website yesterday for hours and posted a ton of new jewelry, so if you've been waiting to order, now is the time - there are more new pieces than old!  I added several patriotic pieces, new earring designs and new flying geese designs as well.  Here are just a few of the new pieces.

Don't want to sign off without showing a kitty or two, or three!

This is about as close as you will see the 3 of them.  CC usually doesn't want us to think that she actually likes Ozzie and Callie!

Have a great day!

To Market, To Market!

I am fortunate enough to have a good friend who lives very close to Kansas City (the same friend who went on The Great Fart with me) so how could I possibly pass up going to market this spring?  Well, I couldn't pass it up.  I left on Tuesday morning and made a couple of stops along the way.  The first was in Albia, IA at a little quilt shop called Barefoot Quilting.  I've been wanting to go to this shop for over a year, but just never made it that far!  Next I was on my way to another quilt shop that I've heard great things about - it is in Cameron, MO and is called Crossroads Quilting.  I had a heck of a time finding it, as my trusty GPS told me to turn left after exiting the freeway.  After driving in circles for awhile, I finally pulled over, called the shop and learned that the correct thing to do was to turn RIGHT when exiting the freeway!  No wonder I couldn't find it!  But, it was definitely worth all of those U-turns.  It's a really great shop - you are greeted at the door and offered coffee and home made cookies.  And, there is soooo much to look at - great samples, a wool corner, lots of notions, plenty of fabric and now they have a great selection of my jewelry.  It was a great experience - I was there forever and enjoyed every second of it.  Kim's house is only about an hour beyond Cameron - so after leaving the shop, it wasn't long before I reached my destination.

Wednesday we went on a mini shop hop - there are lots of shops in the area, but if you only have a short amount of time, be sure to go to Quilter's Station, in Lee's Summit, MO.  It is a fabulous shop - huge and completely full of amazing things.  There are tons of samples and over 12,000 bolts of fabric.  The owner, Rita, dyes her own wool and it is yummy.  She's been a customer of mine for a couple of years, so it was great to finally get to see her shop in person and become one of her customers.  She'd been saving bags of scraps for me, and WOW, there's a bunch of them.  You all know how I love receiving scrap bags! 

On Thursday we went to numerous different Schoolhouse sessions at market.  Even though I don't have a physical retail store, I enjoy these sessions.  I have a total love affair (albeit one-sided) with Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts.  She makes such beautiful quilts, but if you ever have the chance to hear her speak...DO IT!  She is energetic and funny and I just love her to death!  We stayed for both of her sessions.  I will share a few pictures, but they aren't very good at all.  First off, she doesn't stay still long enough to get a good pic of her, and we weren't in the first row, so there are some heads in the pics!

Her quilts are all amazing when you see them in her books, but they are even better in person! 

We also enjoyed Moda's Schoolhouse, where their fabric designers each stood up and spoke briefly and showed quilts using their fabric lines.  Another fun session was with Barbara Brackman - she is so full of knowledge that it's just amazing.  Jo Morton is also always fun to see - she doesn't have a new book out just yet, but she is working on it and some of the samples that they showed were very cool.  And...have you heard about the new book, just hot off the press, called "Elegant Quilts, Country Charm" by The Quilted Crows?  This was on my list of things to check out at market and oh my!  The girls are absolutely wonderful, every single thing in their book is gorgeous!  Wow!  They do wonderful things with wool.  Their Schoolhouse was also great - they are very funny and who doesn't love that Australian accent?  They also purchased jewelry from me for their shop in Tasmania - I'm super-excited about!  I told them that I would happily hand deliver to them!

After a great day of Schoolhouse sessions, we stood in line for Sample Spree.  There were lots of people, but it really wasn't as crazy as I expected it to be.  Of course, there was a big  mob around Moda's tables, but we still managed to get our paws on a couple fat eighth bundles of Lisa Bongean's upcoming fabric line called Old Glory Gatherings.  Lisa had given me part of her strike-off fabrics this spring, so I already knew that I wanted more of this great line.  We walked around and checked everything out, but there really wasn't anything else that I couldn't live without!

I think I will end this post here, and share the rest of my market experience with you another day.  We met so many people over the next few days - I can't wait to tell you about it!

Have a great holiday weekend!

Kansas City Star Quilt Show

I had a wonderful time at market last week - did lots of fun things and met a ton of great people.  But...today I am just going to show you some of the amazing quilts that we saw at the KC Star Quilt Show.  These were taken on my phone and I'm not taking the time to edit them - but hopefully you will still enjoy the show!

Aren't they all wonderful?  I hope you can read the information on the tags when you enlarge the pictures.

More about market later!

Have a great day!

A new cat in the house?

Oh, I know, you are all thinking that I am turning into the crazy cat lady (and it could happen), but not this time.  This is a new cat, but not of the fluffy variety...of the jewelry variety! 

No additional lint rollers needed for this cat.  I've had mixed reviews on the cat - DH didn't know what it was, but Mom liked it.  So...what do you think?

Here is another new design...

A different layout of flying geese.  And here are some more pieces that we finished last night...

So that is the good news - the bad news is that our yard is still all torn up.  A week of rain definitely set back the installation of the new septic system.  Fortunately it was beautiful all last week and a lot of progress was made.

What a mess!  But, as bad as it looks, we haven't had to use the outhouse!  All facilities are fully functional (thank goodness!) and have been throughout this whole mess.  When I get tired of looking at this I just go to a different part of the yard...

Ahhhhh....much better!  I'll just stay focused on this area of the yard!

And on the quilty front...not much going on, but I did finish a couple of Non Farmer's Wife blocks...

I'm caught up except for the last bonus block, which may, or may not get finished (ever!).  The third block above has issues - it turned out much smaller than it is supposed to be. The HST are supposed to be 1 1/2" finished and I inadvertently made mine 1" finished.  So frustrating!  I don't have time to be making them once, let alone screwing them up and having to make them twice!  But for now, I have too many other things to worry about, so these will be dealt with at a later date.

That's all for now - I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day!