Month: August 2010

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Awesome Clips

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Yesterday I received a non-ordered package, so right away curiosity sets in.  We picked up the mail on the way out to go to evening Mass, and I was driving, so it had to wait until we got home.  I knew it would be something fun, because the return address was my good friend, Robin’s, looky here!

As soon as I saw them I knew I had the perfect container for them.  I picked this up this summer at a garage sale and it’s been waiting for it’s intended job!

Viola!

Now I have no excuse not to have things clipped together! Thanks Robin!

Until next time,

Susan

Quick Little Projects

Some wool stitching fun!

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Last week at guild, our guest speaker was Christy Starr, owner of Helen’s Hen House in Florissant, MO.  I’ve loved that shop since first finding it.  I can remember going there pretty much every time I “got leave” from my two babies on a Saturday. I wished back then that I could live there. It’s home, historic Meyers House, is a beautiful old home with very tall ceilings, perfect for a quilt shop! Christy has owned the shop for three years now and I’m happy to say has kept the original charm and feel that made me love it when Joan & Helen had the shop originally!

Christy brought samples and spoke of wool applique.  Although I love and do a lot of fusible applique, I’ve done very little wool applique.  Christy brought along beautiful samples and of course plenty to buy! I fell for these!

 And, thinking ahead to the rest of the week, I bought enough wool that Clare and my niece could make one also.  Two weeks prior to school starting, 1 to 3 of my sister’s kids spent the day with us.  I thought it would be a fun little project for a couple of teenie boppers.  Clare & Elyse got their’s cut out and assembled, starting the stitching, but I cheated used the button hole stitch on my machine and finished mine!

Isn’t it adorable?  The wool is very easy to work with and it will be cute set out at Easter time every year.  Question now is should it be stored in my cedar chest to keep the pesky moths from liking it too?

Until next time,

Susan

Quilt Shopping Out & About

Quilt Shopping In Tennessee

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As promised, I’m giving you a brief peek at the three shops I was lucky enough to visit while in Tennessee with my family.  I would have liked to visit more, but as previously stated, I was there with my family and they can only take so much!  And I can only take so much of them taking so much, vicious cycle!

First I went to The Cherry Pit in Sevierville. 

What a nice shop. The owner, Jane Washington and her staff are so friendly. Jane told me her husband, George Washington, gets told all the time that he looks like the George Washington, hence the name, The Cherry Pit.  

I next visited Machine Quiltin’ by Iva also in Sevierville. (No photo available, & I wasn’t thinking about that at the time.)  Iva has the largest selection of pre-cuts that I’ve ever seen in one shop! 

Thirdly, I visited Mountain Stitches By Susan (love that name!) in Gatlinburg.

Susan’s shop is part of the Great Smoky Mountains Arts & Crafts Community.  So, not only does she sell fabrics, patterns & the like, but 52% of her sales have to be made by her own hands. She has a quilting machine in another shop across the boardwalk where she machine quilts the quilts she sells in her shop.

What a neat place to visit.  While I was in Susan’s shop, my family found a great little ice cream shop across the way from Susan and we had some fantastic hot fudge malts made with locally made ice cream, yum!! 

Also as previously stated, we used the GPS my brother, David, bought me for Christmas.  Thank goodness for that!  Not only did it simplify things A LOT, for instance it also took us around Gatlinburg to get to Susan’s shop.  That’s a cool little town, but the traffic is really heavy with walking traffic constantly crossing the street.  We ate there one night, went putt putt golfing one night and shopped there several times during the week we were in Tennessee.  Cool place to visit and people watch! 

If you get the chance to go to the area do it.  There are even more quilt shops really close by. Maybe next time!

Susan

 

Family Time

Time in Tennessee

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My family & I traveled to Tennessee.  It was an active week, 

 Biking at Cades Cove,

 Settlement, Cades Cove,

 If she only had antlers…

 Notice the downhill smile!

 …of course lots of eating!

We all like to go, go, go…but with 9 hrs. on the road to get there who would think we’d all want to drive some more when we finally arrived?

 Speed, a  favorite…

    Just a bit of bumping and T-boning was involved, but we won’t say by whom.

 Driving Miss Chloe!

 Definitely Clare’s favorite!

 Dollywood is a very nicely kept theme park.  We learned about wood carving, candle making, Glass Blowing, The Smoky Mountains, and lots more.  It’s our second trip to Tennessee with our first trip being just three years ago.  Lots to see and do!

 Splash Country, part of Dollywood, was a nice place to cool down in the 100 degree weather.

 Laurel Falls was a several mile hike into The Smoky Mountains.  Fortunately it was uphill to get there and downhill on the way back.

 White Water Rafting was another welcome wet day.  We’re getting so experienced at it, this being our 4th rafting trip, that this one seemed a bit too easy & slow.

 Relaxing at the end of each day was nice.  David grilled on the “world’s smallest” grill, but it sure tasted good.

 This is the entrance into our gated cabin community (those are man-made trees).  All of us are curious as to why ‘The Nightmare before Christmas’ would be a good theme to an entrance for mountain cabins, but later decided the incredible climb to the cabins that seemed almost 90 degrees was pretty darn scary!!!  I tried to get that with my camera, but just couldn’t capture the true incline.  If you’ve ever had the recurring nightmare of driving up an incredibly steep hill and tumbling over backwards…that’s it! 

It was a fun trip making lots of memories. 

Later I’ll post my quilt shop experiences.  Thank goodness for GPS.  My brother David gifted me one last year for Christmas.  I finally traveled to an unknown area to use it and it was great.  It was especially nice in a tourist area with so much traffic that it’s hard to navigate and watch where you’re going at the same time.

Susan