We have leaves

It is bright and sunny out this morning, very refreshing 48 degrees as I sat on the back step eating my granola and OJ breakfast.  This is the week of bursting leaves and pretty soon I won't be able to see the neighboring houses.  Bob had the first wood tick so we are officially over winter!  I finally got out yesterday and trimmed off the dead blossoms and stems from the hydrangea bushes and dug around in the dirt for awhile.  In the background of the picture you can see the dirt patch that has been our garden for quite a few years.  Bob has decided to move it this year, so he is in the process of that.  Also got these socks done--

and since they were knit simultaneously I can be confident that they are they are matching.  In size, that is, not in stripes!  I think there might be some sock knitters who would have preferred to engineer a matching stripe pattern, but I'm not one of them!  It's not so hard to do because the stripe pattern repeats itself, so you just have to pull yarn from one skein to get to the matching point of the other skein.  But honestly, who cares?!  I think if I am wearing lime green/red/blue striped socks, the issue of matching stripe rows is low priority!  BTW, these are knit from Paton's Kroy Socks and are a wool blend, so won't get much summertime wear!  It's a yarn that is fairly inexpensive and accessible to me, so now that I know this pattern and technique work I will be able to cast on with confidence using the Noro Silk Garden Sock yarn that is a little more special.  Part of its specialness is the fact that I purchased it on vacation at Sierra Cottons and Wools in June Lake, CA.  Some people might collect tshirts for souvenirs, I collect yarn and fabric!

Gotta' leave in a minute to get some patterns printed to restock at Bear Patch, and get to work and hopefully have an interesting day there since the governor will be in White Bear Lake today and tomorrow for the fishing opener.  If you are not familiar with this event, you have to know that the opening day of the fishing season is a big deal, and yes, it's always on Mother's Day weekend!  Each year the governor (and entourage) pick a lake and then the hoopla begins.  There is a full schedule of events taking place with food, music, speeches, raffles, and of course, a little fishing!  Bear Patch is a block or 2 away from the festivities and about 3 blocks away from the lake, so depending on the turnout, I better be early to get a parking space.

WooHoo!

Many good things today!  First, and most importantly, Bob and I are the proud parents of The Nurse of the Year on Brita's unit at Stanford University Medical Center!!  We have known how special she is for 29+ years, so we are glad that her co-workers agree!  Forgive me, Brita, for this blatant braggadocio, but it is overdue.  We know how hard she works, and how much she cares, and how brilliant she is!  Thank you for being an excellent nurse for your patients, and a leader among your peers!

Secondly, I received my new SewEzi table, ordered at Paducah, and now at home in my sewing room.  It is lovely and ergonomically correct, to boot!

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to be the "guest designer" at Bear Patch during our Twin Cities Shop Hop, and enjoyed the chance to wear another hat (even though I still got to make the coffee!) to talk with people who have not previously known of my patterns.  I am happy to say that Emmaline Design now has 12 wonderful patterns in print!  Each one is a process, going from idea to paper, and I have learned so much.  More will be coming, I am gearing up with some ideas for August and the statewide shop hop with patterns featuring the fabric designed especially for that event.  Stay tuned...

And lastly, I have 2 new little bags that I can't stay away from!  They both have a sort of "snappy" closure, which appeals to my senses, and makes it hard to resist snapping them.  I find myself wanting to involve others in the snappiness--is that weird?  The larger bag is from a pattern Snap Happy from Stitchin' Sisters, and it closes with a snap from a carpenter's measuring tape, which gives me a secret pleasure in explaining that fact to the uninitiated!  The little bag is made from a tutorial from the British website from which I ordered the frame, U-Handbag.  I always wanted to see if I could make a bag using these nice metal frames, and now I know it works!  This little one is just too cute to resist!  Now I just have to find a more reasonable source for the frames and not pay for shipping across the big pond.

So that is an update from here, tomorrow is quilting--Yay!

Clarification

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that my previous post about my applique and knitting on wheels did not include the information that I was drugged in order to accomplish this!  Yes, I have long detested the fact that I am a weakling when it comes to motion sickness, and had to admit that it was not going to be cured by mind over matter.  This is why God created people able to make pharmaceuticals!  Bonine to the rescue!  There is no way I would have been able to tolerate riding in the back of the bus, let alone try to sew, knit or read, without chemical help.  Even though we were on a terrifically comfortable bus that floated down the highway, there was no lack of bumps and sway, especially in the back end.  I have always, for as long as I remember, had problems with motion sickness, so have learned to seek out the front seat if I am not driving.  With my mature years, I am happy to say that I can now at least do some knitting or stitching if the road is relatively straight.  Reading, even maps, while moving is still an invitation for trouble for me.  

The exception to my rule of only-riding-in-the-front-seat-or-get-the-barf-bag-ready memories goes way back to grade school days.  Living on a farm meant riding the bus every day, there was no other notion of getting to school otherwise.  I have vivid memories of the kids on the bus that circled our area finding our seats way to the back and urging Pat, our driver for many years, to make a good speedy run for the railroad crossing so we could see how high we would fly off the seats when we hit the rails!  It was kind of a game, and sometimes Pat would go along with us, even though he was legally required to stop at the tracks.  I suppose he could have been fired for doing that, and totally endangered our lives, but he was our favorite driver!

hard at work

While planning for our trip to Paducah, I knew we would have hours and hours of bus riding.  I have to be honest, I was partly looking forward to it as a time removed from all regular responsibilities, just kick back and enjoy the ride.  And that was mostly what it was like, except I didn't realize how foreign that could feel!  It's hard to describe, but I felt sort of discombobulated without having to pay attention to driving, directions, gas, food stops, etc.  I wonder if that is sort of what it feels like to be behind bars--no control over anything!  Well, we had it much better than a cell, that's for sure!  The bus was comfy, not full so we had space to move about and spread out, new people to meet and talk to.  I also was really looking forward to the chance to just work on a project without feeling even a little bit pressured to do something around the house, sew or write a pattern, figure out a quilting design, empty the dishwasher, answer the phone, get ready for work, etc.  So here's what I worked on:

learning to knit 2 socks at once on 2 circulars--

hand applique for a block that will become the centerpiece of a group project--

Not being very experienced at hand applique, I am very happy with how it is coming along, considering I was bouncing around in the back of the bus while trying to keep that slippery silk thread in a needle and take little stitches and not spill all my little pieces all over the floor!  I had prepped the pieces all before I left home, using heat-resistant template plastic, liquid starch, and travel iron.  It still needs a basket, more leaves and little circles.  It's a pattern I got from the Quilt Show when I was a member last year, each month was a different applique block and this is just one of them.

Now off to work on a little experiment--if it turns out you will hear about it!

Catching up

Well, I kind of dropped off the screen there for a few day, I think I was so full of ideas and sights and sounds that I couldn't sort it out for putting here.  The Paducah show was awesome, I loved looking at the quilts on display at the show and the museum.  I'm sorry I can't post the pictures here, but that would be frowned upon, so I can only recommend that you go to the AQS website to look for the pictures there.  I did take plenty of pictures for myself, as zoomed in as possible to catch the quilting detail, so I can begin to apply some of those techniques for myself.  

Our bus group made it back home safe and sound.  We passed through St. Louis on the way--

We met a few characters, like this gal from Smack Ass Gap, she swore it's a real place because you just can't make up something like that!

We meandered around the old downtown of Paducah one morning, and gazed upon the floodwalls that are muralized with historic scenes.  

We did have fun getting to know the other women on the bus, and exchanging ideas and tips, and even celebrating a birthday!

That's Joan Stahly on the right, the birthday girl, and trip historian, and mother of Jeff, a fellow Harris Lake Park grad!  On the left is Marcia Peters, mother of Dale, also of HLP background, so it was fun connecting with them.  They are both veterans of the Paducah trip and show, so we could learn a lot from them.   Meeting them on the bus just adds to that 6 degrees of separation theory.

So now I am back at it, all unpacked, caught up on a couple of my shows, finished the quilt on the frame and started another, printing up some new patterns and back to work at the store this afternoon to teach a class.  And happy to have my Bob close by!

Good times in Paducah

We are really loving the nice weather here, even though we spent a lot of the day indoors looking at quilt displays and vendor  booths to see if there was anything that needed to find its way home with me.  We did enjoy our lunch outdoors, it was almost like going to the State Fair with those yummy health food options,(everything fried), in fact, so good that I had to call Bob to gloat about the delicious corndogs!  Shame on me!  

There are some great spring flowers in bloom here, I think they look especially nice when you are coming from the frozen tundra!

The dogwood trees are in bloom here, too, and our busdriver took us on a little tour of a lovely avenue of old homes with many flowering trees along the way.  I think I mentioned before that there was some evident damage around Paducah from an ice storm, but looking around a little more closely today I could see there was a huge toll on the trees here, so many of them have the tops off and many, many branches missing.  Kind of reminds me how it can look after a tornado.

After our day of tromping up and down aisles of fabulous quilts and hundreds of vendor booths, our dogs were barking!  We did find some interesting items, and my purchases include everything from a simple thimble to a deluxe sewing table.  There is a wide range of possibilities here!  We have been able to find some hard-to-find items, some new ideas, and other things just-for-fun.  What will tomorrow bring???