Happy Thanksgiving!

I wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy celebrating with those you are with this year, and count every blessing in your life!

And, now….. time for a chuckle…….. is this really how pumpkin pies are made??

Piece,
Michele

Grandparents and “Retardment”

My dear friend, Valerie, is going to be a 1st time  grandmother in March as her son and daughter-in-law are expecting. She sent me the “story” below which I found hilarious and thought I would share. The funny thing to me is that Tom’s parents live in a huge retirement golf community in Florida which is similar to what the story is about so I know what this is referring to.

RETARDED GRANDPARENTS

(this was actually reported by a teacher)

After Christmas, a teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their holiday away from school. One child wrote the following:

We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa.
They used to live in a big brick house but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Arizona. Now they live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass. They ride around on their bicycles and wear name tags because they don’t know who they are anymore. They go to a building called a wreck center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all okay now, they do exercises there, but they don’t do them very well. There is a swimming pool too, but they all jump up and down in it with hats on. At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out, and go cruising in their golf carts. Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And, they eat the same thing every night — early birds. Some of the people can’t get out past the man in the doll house. The ones who do get out, bring food back to the wrecked center for pot luck. My Grandma says that Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded someday too. When I earn my retardment, I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out, so they can visit their grandchildren.

Piece,
Michele

The Last Quilts from Spokane 2009

Yesterday was a GREAT fall day – grey skies, wind, and leaves flying all over! I love fall no matter if it’s grey or blue skies! I actually like baking bread,  making apple pie from hand picked apples, and a beef stew simmering in the crock pot with a fire blazing in the fireplace.  Everything about it speaks home, warmth and coziness to me with the sights, and smells of autumn.

I hope you have enjoyed the photos from the Washington State Quilters 2009 show and here are the last of my favorites from this show. Enjoy, and be inspired by their creativity!

This was fun for me to see one of my designs hanging in a show by a quilter who had purchased the quilt kit from me the year before.  Now back to work for me to work on a project for RJR Fabrics with a 2010 holiday fabric collection.

Piece,
Michele

More Quilts from the Spokane Show

I hope everyone had a great Halloween! We had about 75 kids this year which is more than in the past. We also had cars driving on our street (there are just 10 houses) and then the kids would jump out of the car so we assumed that they weren’t from our neighborhood. Anyhoo, it is always fun to see the little ones dressed up and excited for this event! My husband still talks about the HUGE candy bars that he used to get as a child. And, I read in a cartoon about a little kid talking about a “fun” size (bite-sized) candy bar, and said, “What’s so fun about this?”

Now back to more of my favorite quilts from the WSQ quilt show in Spokane, WA where we exhibited at several weeks ago now. Enjoy the quilts!

Live well! Laugh often! Love much! Quilt daily!

Piece,
Michele

Happy Halloween!

It’s cold, gray and drizzley today, and hopefully it will be dry tonight when all the trick or treaters are out! We will probably get 30 – 40 kids at the door tonight, but certainly not like we used to when my kids were younger. Today is just not the same as it is when you have little children who have been planning for weeks as to what they want to be for Halloween. I remember years of sewing a costume for each of my 4 kids,  and relishing that time when I could still meet the wants of my kids. One year all 3 boys went as green dinosaurs but Myk’s contrasting tail was yellow, Kevin’s was blue, and David’s was red. Kelly, my daughter, was a pirate girl. Today those kids are 29, 25, 25 and 24; on their own, and I hope their memories of Halloween as a child are filled with fun!

This past week I made my traditional Pumpkin Bread which is my mother-in-law’s family recipe.  I hope you enjoy it!

Pumpkin Bread by Berta Crawford
4 eggs beaten until thick
2 cups of canned pumpkin
1 cup of vegetable oil
3 cups of sugar
2/3 cup of water
3 1/2 cups of sifted flour
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
2 teaspoons of backing soda
1 teaspoon of nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves

Combine eggs, sugar, pumpkin, water and oil – mix well. Sift all the dry ingredients together and add to the liquid ingredients – mix well until just blended as for muffins (batter should appear lumpy). Pour into 2 greased 5 x 9 loaf pans. Bake at 325 degrees fpr 1 14 – 1 1 1/2 hours.

* If desired, add 3/4 cup of finely ground walnuts to the batter.

Have a Spooktacular Day! If you get a chance, please stop by my website as I have a One Day Special Sale today on all my quilts patterns, and selected quilt kits!

Piece,
Michele

Washington State Quilters 2009 Show

Wow! Vending at a quilt show never ceases to amaze me as to how many extremely talented quilters there are! And vending at the Washington State Quilters – Spokane chapter show was no exception recently. It was the 31st show, and 600 quilts were hung plus all the quilts that were in the booths of 55 vendors. Quite a celebration of quilting for 3 days! Quilters come from WA, OR, ID, MT, WY and even Canada. Here are some of my favorite quilts from that show (with more to come in the next couple of days). Enjoy!

Live well! Laugh often! Love much! Quilt daily!

Piece,
Michele

La Conner Quilt Fest #2

Back to La Conner…. a quaint waterfront village on a channel that leads to the
Puget Sound
where there are boutiques to explore and B&B’s to enjoy! We stayed at the Hotel Planter which is on the National Register of Historic Places, and enjoyed breakfast across the street at The Calico Cupboard which had this display as you walked in the door.

There were quilts displayed in the Museum but also in the Garden Club where I was an
exhibitor along with my friends from the Shibori Dragon. There was a butterfly garden next to this building with a brick walkway to view the downtown waterfront.

Here are more quilts from the show:

Live well! Laugh often! Love much! Quilt daily!

Piece,
Michele

La Conner Quilt Fest 2009

Did you know that there are only 12 quilt museums in the US? One of them is in the picturesque village of La Conner, WA about an hour north of Seattle. The La Conner Quilt & Textile Museum is in the historic Gaches mansion, and has an annual Quilt Fest that features juried quilts, a Quilt Walk, Silent Auction, Workshops, and of course vendors like me!   

The quilts of Sandy Bonsib plus Josie Teeter Schlotterback,  and the students of Nancy Lee Chong are the featured quilts in the museum. Nancy came to teach at the Spokane quilt guild in July, and here is a photo of us in La Conner.  What a delight to see her again!

Here are a variety of quilts that were featured at this show:

Check back tomorrow for the rest of my favorite quilts from this show.

Live well! Laugh often! Love much! Quilt daily!

Piece,
Michele

NW Quilting Expo

Happy fall y’all! Tom and I just returned from being vendors at  the NW Quilting Expo in Portland, Oregon, and had a fabulous time! This is a juried show with over $13,000 in cash and prizes.  Here I am meeting one of my favorite designers, Lynette Jensen of Thimbleberries.  It was delightful to meet her, and show her my new pattern, The Great Outdoors, featuring a line of fabric she designed exclusively for this show.  It was our first time at a show in Portland and it was great to meet so many NW quilters. Here I am in our 10 x 20 booth which was packed with lots of quilt kits and 7 new quilt patterns.

Tom and I were busy all 3 days, but had a chance to eat out at some very nice restaurants including a Joe’s Crab Shack in Vancouver, WA across the river from the Portland. We see tv ads for this place all the time but this was the closest on to us but it’s a 6 hour drive from Spokane. Sunny with blue skies and we were sitting outside by the river drinking a multi-colored drink with an umbrella – ahhhh…… we’ll be back next year when we do this show again.

Here are some of my favorite quilts at this show. Enjoy!

Live well! Laugh often! Love much! Quilt daily!

Piece,
Michele

 

 

 

 

 

Help Wanted

I have had the supreme pleasure of having Sandy and her mom, Kathy, piece my quilts for me for 18 years. They had been absolutely FABULOUS to work with, and have made my quilt tops 
absolutely perfect! PLUS they are both the nicest and kindest people you’d every want to meet! Sandy (on the left) is an amazing woman who not only pieces perfectly, but gardens, cans, home schools, raises alpacas, is a volunteer firewoman, and has helped her husband build 4 homes. She is Wonder Woman to me! I know she has received all these great attributes from her mother, Kathy (on the right).  Sandy needed more of a full-time job with her 2 kids headed for college, and became an EMT so her mom has done most of the piecing for the last several years. Unfortunately Kathy developed a heart condition as of this past spring, and cannot help me any longer.

I have put off looking for someone to fill their shoes as change is hard for me, and I miss working with them! I finally started looking last week after putting an ad in the local quilt guild newsletter. I booked appointments last week and have interviewed 5 women so far.  This is a NEW experience for me, and I think I have found several women that will fit the bill. I know some designers do all their own piecing and quilting, but I am not a Wonder Woman myself. As a small business owner I know that my strengths are in designing and marketing so I need the best people possible for my staff to make it work. (Now I sound like Tim Gunn from Project Runway, one of my favorite shows: “Make it work!”) I’ll keep you posted.

Live well! Laugh often! Love much! Quilt daily!

Piece,
Michele