A Forgotten Post

There are a two things I forgot to blog about after Christmas.  First off, these were some of the goodies my husband got me for Christmas!  A cute labrador print from an etsy shop I favorite-ed, a GC to Pink Castle Fabric!, a necklace from Nest Pretty Things on etsy, fabric he picked out himself!, a vintage Samsonite cosmetic case with the tray, mirror, and keys, and random sewing related notions!  Did he do great or what?!?!?!?  He also got me some baking pans that I've been wanting, but they missed out on the photo op.

The inside of my cool case!

It has someone else's initials on it, but I can live with that until I figure out how to replace them with mine! :)

The other thing I forgot to tell you guys was something funny my 5 year old said.  Remember this post about my nephew and his, er, unique name?  Well, over the Christmas holiday my MIL was talking to my oldest, Roarke, and explaining he had a middle name, McKamey.  Just to answer the obvious question here about where we came up with his name, Roarke is an old Celtic name that I love and McKamey is my maternal grandfather's first name.  We give our kids a family name for their middle name.  Anywho, Roarke didn't believe he had a middle name!  He then starts asking, "Does Mama have a middle name? Does Daddy? Does Grandpa?" etc.  My MIL answers yes to all of this and tells him everyone else's middle name.  Then, she says "You know what baby Ezra's middle name is? STEGOSAURUS!" Roarke stares at her for a minute, looking totally shocked and confused, and then proceeds to say, "Ezra can have my middle name instead."  LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  He really wanted to help his cousin out!

In quilting news, I've finished my quilt top for the Kona charm challenge!  I now have to decide on how I want to quilt it.  I may go with my new favorite of organic wavy lines!

Workshop Project

I conducted a workshop for my guild on Thursday.  It was a surprise/contest workshop so those who signed up didn't know what fabric I would be bringing, but they were allowed to make whatever they wanted.  At the next guild meeting, we will vote on the best project and that person will win a prize!  Since 99% of the guild members are traditional (think batiks, civil war, etc.), I thought I'd push them in a new direction and give them something really bright and more modern to work with.  I was somewhat limited by the selection at our local quilting stores, but in the end I went with a Sugar Pop charm pack and 1/2 yard of a Bella solid.  Most of the ladies really took to the spirit of the idea and loved working with fabric they would have never bought.  I did have one lady wrinkle her nose at me and say she didn't like it--she almost didn't take it out of my hand!  I was a little surprised at her manners, but what can you do?  I'm going to try and remember to take pictures at the next meeting so you all can see what they created.  One lady finished a beach/summer tote while we were there and it came out GREAT!  I think even she was surprised how much she liked it in the end!

Anywho, I decided to do a relatively small project and make a Dresden pillow.  I still have quite a few charm squares left over.  I also experimented with hand-quilting.  I have to say, I really enjoyed the process and I'm now considering doing a whole quilt!  I wouldn't quilt it as dense as I did the pillow, obviously.  If anyone has a great source for pearl cotton size 8, let me know.

I'm also (finally) feeling a bit better.  I'm way behind on a few projects so I'm happy to finally feel up to a sewing marathon! :)  Hope you all have a great holiday weekend!