bloomin migraines!

I can say I truly HATE Migraines!!! In any way shape or form that they come in. I will go for a while and not have any, then boom I start getting "mild" ones. Out of the blue one of my mis-guided ones happens where my right arm shakes for 4-5 hours. Then a week or so later, yesterday, I got a monsterous one. Now I have a doozzy of a migraine hangover. They hurt just as bad but in a different way. Some one please just take me out back and shot me. JK If you don't get them, you won't understand, but if you do, you know of my pain. And it was so nice of me to share with my two older kids. My older son has been getting them for quite a while now, and he gets the monsterous ones. A year ago, my oldest daugher basically lost her eye sight. She goes to the eye doc and he tells her that it was a migraine -- yup, she loses her vision for a couple of hours -- nice huh? So between the three of us, we make quite the picture, tossing cookies, blind as a bat and shaking up a storm. Enough of my whinning for the moment. Someone please make them stop!

Ruby's Inn Retreat

Last Tuesday-- we need to decide what to take and pack whatever we are taking down to Ruby's Inn for a quilt retreat. We will be down there for 3 1/2 days. What to take, what to take??? It is a HUGE guessing game every time, and every time, it's different. Before it just used to be Machelle stressing over this. Now I have been added into this decision process. Shes sharing, so nice of her. I guess if I am going to claim to be the "bossy one" I had better help in the process. HHHMMMMM..... I had better keep my mouth shut! Like that will ever happen......
We're down there in the middle of nowhere with about 250ish other quilters. There are classes, lectures, trunk shows, the vendors mall and of course we get fed - well. So much for me losing weight, I gained it ALL back and then some. This is just a little bit of our adventures. I could go on and on and on and..................

This huge mess is Machelle and I getting ready to go on a quilting retreat where they have a vendor mall; and we are one of the vendors.

This is looking into the back of the burb. Ya. Its FULL! Just barely enough room for us. Reminds me of a jack in the box. Becareful opening up the doors -- everything might jump out at you.

Here we are (well actually I am taking a break and sneaking pics) setting up our both. If you could see Machelles face, she has this "how are we going to set this up" perplexed look on her face. At times its best to just sit back and take a break while things are being figured out, otherwise she turns into ME! Not a pretty picture.

DONE! What do you think? Just Beautiful! Brings tears to my eyes.

This is Susan. She is one of our "quilting sisters" (just a really good friend that we both have made thru quilting).

Happy Birthday Bonnie! Shes in the black shirt. Fran the crazy one in the crazy shirt and wearing glasses, well she got all of us and I mean whomever was in this very large room to sing to Bonnie. My camera is being wierd, so the pic is somewhat blurry. No it's not your eyes. You don't need a checkup. Anyways, Bonnie took it really well and didn't turn to deep of a red color and hide in her room for the rest of the retreat.

Nother BAD pic -- SORRY! Need to figure out what is going on.....

Here Konda Luckau is one of the teachers and she is doing a trunk show little lecture. She is one of our local gals. If you can see thru the blur for those that live here, thats Roberta on the left and Francine in the middle, they are being the quilt holders -- and a mighty fine job that they did.


Back to the bad pics -- I have a really cut pic of Machelle and Linda sitting together, not far apart --- but the camera issue........ggrrrrr makes me frustrated. Any ways, we are all sitting around enjoying the lecture/trunk shows from the different teacher/quilters. Then there is Dana and Carma standing up in the very back at Lazy Daisy Cottage from St. George. Characters those girls are -- the "CONFIDENCE" that ooozzes from Dana is AMAZING!

These 3 cute gals are Lynette (middle), Wendy (rite) and Saraih (spelling is questionable to me??? on the left) they co-own Main Street Quilts in Hurricane. Just opened up Nov/Dec of 08. Fun fun fun. Can't wait to visit with them some more at the state quilt fest. They each had lots of nifty thrifty ideas for us. Can't wait to try some of the out in Machelles store.

Such a sad sad day. All packed and ready to come home. Yes we sold A LOT and we are just as packed as when we went down. Explain that to me????

This is the front of Ruby's Inn at the mouth of Bryce Canyon. Such a fun place to go.

If you look thru the dirty streaks on the front window you can see that we drive thru these holes in the rock in Red Rock Canyon. There are two of them. Just kinda fun.

Machelle got tired of me taking pictures out the dirty windows and pulled over so that I could take a few. We had to stop someplace on the way home so that we could wash off the salt and guck that accumulated on the way down.

I am truly amazed every time that I see what the good Lord has created.

That was just a few of the highlights from this retreat.

Better get back to business. I have that blue and white top to finish sewing together. Have you ever wondered why I am Sew Crazee??????

Current Store display

This pile of confusion are several of my projects for the store, but the one that is taking over in first place is the blue/white one. You can kind of see what I am doing if you look really close to the magazine that is underneath the fabric. Its in red and white.

I am a huge fan of chain piecing. Sometimes the piles get to large behind the machine they get pushed off the table to the floor. It's almost easier to go the other side and clip the threads between each piece, then to try to pull them up back up and over.

I read somewhere, from a quilter, that she has a complete different project that is all cut and ready to sew and she uses that as her leaders and enders. What a novel idea!!!! And Why didn't I think of it?????? So now I try to do that. Do you know how much thread you waste by using scraps??? Well I don't know either, but its a lot. So now I have a complete different project that isn't a hurry or a deep thinking one that can just mosey along at a slow pace to get done.

Here I am making a bazillion flying geese, or so it seems. The throw away tips are big enough that I always draw two lines for sewing. I sew on both of them before I trim away the throw away parts. No I don't throw them away. Are you kidding me? I have to much of the Rodeback side in me to just toss away good fabric!!!! Yes I keep them, they are HST's. Do you know how many of these that I have?? Well I don't know either, but one of these days, I will get them all out and make a VERY scrappy quilt of just HST's!

So what is WRONG with this picture? As the day went on, apparently so did I. Can you say flu? When I noticed this little woops, I decided that I really was getting sick and that I had better take something and go to bed.....for a week! Holy cow! And this is how my sewing room sat for a good week. It was soo sad that I had not even gone down to visit it for the least tiny bit. My children didn't even go down to watch my tv. Will wonders never cease?

First Dentist visit

Better late than never. We finally had our first dentist visit. The hygentisit was really good. She was showing my little man how everything worked and even let him do the sucking and squirting in the cup. He was having a little too much fun with the squirting part though and didn't want to quit. Wasn't too sure about laying down.

They have some awesome looking shades to put on the kids so that the light doesn't bother their eyes to much. Also they can see the tv better. Yeah its on the ceiling. Kinda cool! First time with the flouride. Pretty sure he wasn't liking it so well. But he made it thru without any stress! Big relief for me. Now Ky's turn...........

Ky's laying back just chilling why she's having flouride. Such a tasty ordeal!!!! Dr. Austin is right in there holding the mirror for her so that she can see what is going on. "Hey is that thing sucking?"

All in all, everything went well. Suprisingly NO cavities for either of them!!!!! Yup, a trip to the icecream store was in order! :) Happy Smiles for every one!!!

The Sister quilt

This is a quilt top that I put together for my dear MIL. The 9 blocks are from the lovely ladies that she served with on her mission. Someone had a grand idea that all 9 of them make a quilt block -- of somekind. Then they could put it together however they wanted so that they all could have their own memory quilt. Well thats fine if you quilt!!!! These particular blocks sat in the cupboard for a long while. Mom doesn't "quilt". She "ties" quilts. I finally talked her into giving me the blocks so that they could be made into something lovely -- or at least I hope so. She LOVES dusty pink and blue. Does it show??? ;) I still need to put on the binding, a dark dusty pink, and wala' it will be done. Wish I could be a fly on the wall when she shows it off at her reunion with these lovely ladies.

This is a close up of moms block.

This block was hand pieced. Unfortunately not very well. I had to re-sew quite a bit of it. So when it was quilted, I had her quilt over it really well ---- just in case........

A close up of some of the quilting. My friend that did the quilting called me up and asked me "do I do ANYTHING normal?????" These particular blocks are 18ish" big. Lets just say I like to challenge her quilting abilities. ;) It helps her grow.