Winding Threads

I attended a craft show recently and was feeling silly because the only thing I purchased was a purse. I make purses! I purchased this purse because I liked the style and wanted to make more but in different fabrics.
Here is the purse I purchased:

Here is the purse I made this weekend:

What do you think? Did I come close to the original?

Today’s tackle will be to spend time with my daughter. Stacy is here from Florida and I plan to sit and visit with her. We have been cooking together and have done a little bit of shopping. Tomorrow we will be going to lunch with her two Grandma’s and her aunt, (my sister, Grace). It will be Grandma Myrna’s birthday so we will be partying by going to lunch and hitting a fabric store or two. Happy Tackling everyone.

You can what others are tackling over at 5 Minutes for Mom.

I have been looking in all the fabric stores for a pattern to make a purse. This is the pattern I ordered online.

I hope it has an oval bottom and gives directions for making stiff sides. It is hard to tell from the picture. The pattern is The Bow Bag by Monica Poole.

Did you happen to watch the Olympics last night? 100m finals offered two fantastic runners. Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart actually tied with a time of 10.98s and so both will receive a silver medal. With the electronic timers we have today, it is easier to calculate down to the ninth degree. The rules state that when a tie occurs, the next medal will not be given. Jamaica can be proud. Speaking of Jamaica, did you see the long legs on Usain “ThunderBOLT” Bolt? He made the men’s 100m finals look like a walk in the park. He was looking around and moving his arms like he was out for a stroll. He set a world record of 9.69s!!

This weeks subject for Heads or Tails is Supply. Skittles has thought up another great topic!

I simply must tell you of the latest gadget I have added to my quilt supplies. It is the quarter inch seam marker. I have two sizes. One is 8 inches and the other is 12 inches. It makes marking quarter inches so simple. I used it to mark Stacy’s rag quilt blocks. Not only does it allow for the quarter inch markings but it has holes down the center of the tool. I was able to mark cutting lines! I love this tool.

I did it! I had Greg take his sister’s rag quilt to the post office and it has been mailed. Here is a picture of Stacy cutting the squares. She worked on the project while we were on vacation in Tennessee. The picture is taken in the living room of the cabin where we stayed.

I admit that one of the first things I do when I plan a trip is look online for quilt shops in our destination city. When my sister Grace, my mom and I visited my son at grad school last year we discovered a few new quilt shops. Cincinnati not only offers Cincinnati weight loss surgery centers, they have wonderful quilt shops. We were not able to hit them all as they were far apart in miles. Not having time to hit them all gives us a reason to back! I have no idea how we made it to one of the quilt shops because in my mind we were going the wrong direction. It doesn’t take much to confuse me. We made it just in time to spend some money before the proprietor closed the doors for the night. Whew! Who says quilting is not an adventure?

When I took mom and my aunt to Nappanee, I thought it would be nice to find a quilt shop to visit. There is a nice one in Shipshewana called Lolly’s. It is in a huge building and has tons of fabric. You can spend hours in there. At least, I can! LOL

I looked on the Internet and by golly there was a quilt shop in Nappanee. It was called Mitchell’s and I had directions in hand. The first part of the route was plain as day and easy to follow but the county roads had me nervous. It seemed like we would end up in Ohio before we found the place. We finally drove past an older home that had a tiny sign in the yard. Eureka! We pulled in and wondered what we were getting into. An Amish lady was driving her “riding mower” as she tidied up her yard. Another Amish lady came out of the house and welcomed us. She opened up a small building for us to enter. Holy Smokes! This place was stuffed with quilts. They were all handmade and well done. The stitches on each quilt were tiny, (we quilters notice that). There were log cabins and nine patch quilts amongst stuffed bears and raggedy Ann dolls. It was a very nice quilt shop with expensive prices to match. The quilts were marked $600-$900. My mom and aunt make quilts of the same caliber and kept going on about the prices. I keep telling them how much their quilts are worth but it doesn’t soak in.

There was a small corner of fabric and so mom and my aunt purchased some as a keepsake. We enjoyed the rhetoric with our hostess. She pulled out a beautiful crazy patch quilt that had been made specifically for her family. She said there are eleven similar ones as there are eleven children in the family and they each have one. The quilts are made with fabric from the man of the household’s suits. She told us the history behind each piece of fabric and then described why each bit of embroidery on that particular patch was chosen. A sprig of wheat. A bit of clover with purple blooms. Something unique was finely embroidered on each patch. It was beautiful. No pictures were allowed to be taken inside the building. Darn, I would love to have shown you that quilt. We lifted quilt upon quilt and admired each one. There were table runners hanging that were priced out of my budget. One quilt was elegantly displayed on a hitching yoke from a wagon. It was a cool place and I am glad we finally found it.

I have my favorite quilt shops. There are a few quilt shops that I connect with. They have many quilts hanging on their walls and they seem to be “my style”. One of those shops is The Cherry Pit in Sevierville, Tennessee. This is my sister, Lynne and me in front of The Cherry Pit during our visit to Tennessee.

Today has been one of those crazy days already. I have done laundry, marked floor tile samples with new prices, ate breakfast and cleaned the dog’s bed. None of those things were what I had planned except eating breakfast. I find myself gagging in the morning because I wake up so hungry. It is imperative that I have my morning coffee. That happens before I can function. LOL I have been reading on different blogs about a healthy coffee. This coffee has over 150 different antioxidants per cup and 200 total active nutrients. I have never thought about coffee being good for me. Everything I have ever read discouraged even drinking coffee. I am so glad to have found out about Gano coffee. I love drinking a hot cup of coffee each morning. It might as well be healthier for me!