Doing Dallas

Early Friday morning Aunt Maggie, Aunt Lois and I hopped in the car and headed for Dallas!
When we got there the first thing we did was go straight to the Dallas Quilt Show or also known as Quilt Celebration 2013, hosted by the Dallas Quilters Guild. Our first order of business was to deliver Matt and Val's wedding quilt to Kathy Bradbury of Bear Paw Machine Quilters so that she could take the quilt home with her to long arm machine quilt it!

 Aunt maggie was so kind as to take pictures of the whole process! Let me tell you, It was kind of a relief to hand the quilt over to Kathy! Kind of like handing in a final essay or something! She has some great ideas and I cant wait to see what she does with it!

We did a general walk around the rest of the show but didn't stress about seeing everything, because we knew we'd be back Saturday. So we headed to the hotel which was across the street from Matt and Val's apartment to get Aunt Maggie, Aunt Lois and Pat checked in! (I got to have a sleep over at my sisters.)

 Check out the floor on that bathroom! I LOVE it! It will go in the floor on my dream house.

Valerie received a last minute assignment Friday afternoon/evening, so Matt, her husband, drove all of us ladies (my this time Cousin Pat had joined us) to a fantastic pizza place called Fireside Pies.

Pat, Maggie, Lois

 Matt, Me

Aunt Maggie has Celiac which means she cannot have anything with Gleuten in in and Valerie (my sister) did her research for the trip! She found out that Fireside Pies has a Gluten free pizza crust (above) so Aunt Maggie could have pizza too! The rest of us had the regular crust but upon sampling them, there was hardly a difference! We all had more than enough pizza and ate some of the leftovers with dinner the following night!

Valerie joined us toward the end of our meal and tried each of our pizzas for her dinner! (That's the way to avoid entree envy if I ever saw one!) Then went to their apartment for some visiting time!

It was so nice to be re-united with my sister again! I have MISSED her! 

On Saturday morning the quilt show didn't start until 10:00 so Matt took us to Children's Medical Center, where he works, and showed us the Train Room!

It was so neat to have an official tour guide! The train room was thought up by one of the CEO's of the hospital and features many trains zipping around on the many tracks. In this section you can see the Dallas skyline. They change the scenes multiple times a year so that the children who unfortunately have frequent visits to the hospital can have some distractions. They even have a scavenger hunt! (Matt didn't tell us about that until after, for fear that we might want to spend all day looking for things!)

 After our train tour, Matt dropped us off at the front door of the quilt show. Now we didn't actually know the quilt show would be there until after our trip had been planned, but what a great coincidence!
I've been eyeing  long arm quilting machines and Aunt Maggie and I had a great time trying them out! I also found some fabric I'd been hunting for, my favorite thread, and a  walking foot to replace the one I broke last week or so.

 Another highlight of the show was that the Dallas K-9 search and rescue was there. Aunt Maggie participates in the California Search and rescue so that was pretty exciting for us to see!

Valerie had been able to get out of work earlier than she had originally thought that afternoon so she picked us up from the show and us girls went out for burgers! Once again all of her research was apparent because she found Village Burger Bar and they had just added Gluten Free hamburger buns as a menu option!

 Aunt Maggie said it was one of the best Gluten Free bun's she's ever tasted!

My Burger and fries were delicious too! These fries were some of the tastiest shoe string fries! So tasty in fact that they were half-way gone before I remembered to take a picture!

We went back to Matt and Val's apartment for more relaxing visiting and its at this point that you start to notice more and more of their apartment buildings charm! It's an old building and you see great signs of it everywhere! Start with the woodwork over the entry:

and beautiful scroll work on their mail boxes.

Then notice the OTIS elevator!! I couldn't think of what movie it was in....then I finally remembered just today! It was Kate & Leopold!

 Anyway, the elevator to get to their floor is this great Otis Elevator!

  Metal door gate and everything!

 There was a big storm Saturday night and Matt was actively tracking it on his iPad and out the window. 

We also played a round of this fun game they found called Tsuro. 

Then Val and I talked and talked until we both fell asleep on the couch!

Sunday morning we were dealing with side effects from the time change (and staying up too late) so we got a slow start.

Valerie and I grabbed some Starbucks coffee. (Yes they have Starbucks in Garden City, but it's in Target and that's just not quite the same.)

 I'm really glad, that I remembered to get a group picture! (Thank you Matt!) There are three generations in this picture!

From Left to Right: Aunt Maggie (My Dad's Sister), Valerie, Great Aunt Lois, Cousin Pat (Lois's Daughter, Maggie's Cousin), Me (Jessica)

The grand finale of our Dallas weekend was a trip to Lulu's Gluten Free Bakery. 

Whether you have Celiac or not, this place had confections fit for a queen!

And a queen she was! Aunt Maggie found lots of goodies to take with her!

  So did the rest of us!

 Aunt Lois had a cupcake,

Pat tried two different breads and took the rest home for Monday's breakfast (smart move!)

 and Valerie and I each got a different kind of quiche to share. Her favorite was the spinach and mine the tomato ham.

 I also got to meet these guys after seeing them through the window! They're poodles! I never would have guessed and they were SO SOFT! Their owner says they get groomed about once a month with the same length cut allover.

Aunt Lois, Aunt Maggie and I drove back to Olton Sunday afternoon. 

When we got here, Uncle Van had these two beautiful surprises waiting for us! Whata guy!

Finish It Up Friday- I Got the Blues

In my color palate for sure but I am definately down in the dumps because I have TWO fantastic Friday Finishes! The first being my blue sweater that has been in the works since FOR-EV-ER.

I got the delicious to work with and feel Malbrigo yarn from my cousin's online shop called Needles and Ewe back in September!I kind of hit a road block at the button bands and buttons but theyre DONE and I will hopefully have lots of pictures of me wearing it today at the Dallas quilt show!!

 

 

Also finished is the mariners compass quilt!

 Valerie requested that it find a quilter in/near Dallas and I believe I have found one who will do the job quite nicely! The best part!? She's going to be at the Dallas quilt show too so I can give it to her then! Here it is all packed and ready to go!

I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts and Finish it Up Friday!

Cotton Picking Feed Yard

Well actually cotton picking AND a feed yard. Without proper punctuation you'd never have guessed I was picking cotton and probably assumed I didn't like. The feed yard! (Or steak factory, as I have learned to affectionately call it from Uncle Van aka the Cow Doc)


My brain goes straight to Howard and his mother from Big Bang Theory every time Doc tells us one of the tells cows are ready is that the brisket right on their chest between their front legs fills out.


There were so many different cows and colors, I could have/should have done a One in Every Color-Cows post!


Doc is teaching us the key factors in keeping the cows diet balanced. Especially that fiber content is important! And that feeding cows when there's a drought is expensive.


In this picture you can see quite a few cows hanging out in the yard. When Doc started playing the radio in the car all the cows started coming close to listen! I didn't believe it the night before at dinner but now that I've seen it with my own eyes I believe it! Doc says that classical music is best.


Doc also says that's as real a cowboy as you'll get! Aunt Maggie (who is to be credited for all of these photos) hopped out of the car to take a picture of this cowboy and his horse. Only the horse knew that it was dinner time. So from the car we were watching as the cowboy would tell the horse to say hi and push his head toward Aunt Maggie, then the horse would say "Hello, please excuse me, it's dinner time and then try to stick his head in the bucket. This process repeated a couple times until there was really no arguing with the horse.
We headed back toward town by way of the country club and the pool so I could seen were my dad and Aunt Maggie broke all kinds of rules when they were visiting as kids. On the way we saw lots of cotton fluffs! The cotton bowls (sp?) here are more drought tolerant and weather resistant. They stay closed up tighter longer and the fiber is shorter to keep more on the plant longer for harvesting! Aunt Lois asked if they should stop so I could go get some and I said no. The. As we drove on and I kept seeing those temping little fluffs that didn't get harvested last year (these are last years old plants) I could no longer resist. I asked I maybe we could please stop so I could go pick some cotton. If you've never seen me run, that is my typical running style that got me dubbed as twinkle toes when I played soccer as a kid.


I was hunting for the longest cleanest cotton puffs.


Here's one I picked the seeds out of.


And started hand spinning in the car....


and then plied.


See, I'm not so different from cows! Fiber is important to me too!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

WIP Wednesday-Mariners Compass

 One of our projects while in Olton, before we go to Dallas, is to finish Valerie and Matt's (my sister and brother in law) wedding quilt! This has been one grand group effort! Last fall there was a whole group of us at Quilt Camp working on it! (Including the happy couple!)

 After quilt camp we still had some things left to do, and I hadn't done them yet sooo I brought the quilt to Texas and Aunt Maggie and I are finishing them up! Here Aunt Maggie is doing one of the mitered corner seams on my cute little featherweight!

We've got two of the final border strips on so far. Only two left to go!

By the time a quilt is THIS BIG even a little border is a big task!

The blocks are paper pieced in the Mariner's Compass pattern! My mom started this quilt many years ago and had 5 of the 12 blocks completed before she passed away. 

Now for the final two border strips, to pick out a back and find a machine quilter!!!

I'm not even going to attempt to free motion this bad boy!

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced WiP Wednesday.

Tuesday Tidbits-

This happened in our garage...


Turning into this!!! My handy hubby!


I cleaned our vacuum brush out finally. This is turning into an annual chore.


No, we don't have a pet...just a knitter/crocheter/quilter.


Garden City doesn't have recycling pick up so I collect it all in our garage and then when stuff starts spilling on to the floor, I finally get my act together and haul it to the drop off.



These buttons are going on my sweater. They were only 79 cents! (When my grandma bought them.)
Right now I'm in:


I'm in a small town between Amarillo and Lubbock. Yesterday we went hiking:


My Aunt Maggie is here too and we're visiting my Great Aunt Lois and Uncle Van (my dad and Aunt Maggie's paternal Aunt and Uncle.) Part of yesterday was spent looking at pictures.


Someday I'd love to get my hair done all vintage and take a picture like that!
Also, These Shoes!!!!


I want them!


My newest knitting project matches Aunt Lois's kitchen canisters. Those colors are right up my alley!
-Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Finish it Up Friday- Boot Cuffs

Boot cuffs have been trending on Pinterest. The weird thing to me is, people are cutting off the sleeves of sweaters to have them be the cuffs!!! EEeek! I don't know about you, but I don't have any extra sweaters laying around. When Mary very generously shared this yarn her mother had hand spun my mind went straight to boot cuffs! The yarn had a bit of grey and a bit of brown making it all the more versatile!

I can wear these boot cuffs with my black riding boots, and black leggings

and my cowboy boots and jeans!

I put a shorter ribbing on the top and a thicker ribbing on the bottom. When I wear them with my tall boots I put the short ribbing up so more cable will show and because I don't want the cuffs to stick out as much. With my cowboy boots I flip them because I want more cuff to show!

Materials:

Size 1 40 inch circular knitting needle

Fingering weight yarn. (Regretfully I do not know the yardage because it was hand-spun yarn, and not by me)

Cable Needle

Pattern:

Cast on 72 stitches. Join for working in the round with the magic loop method.

K2P2 rib for an inch and a half.

Switch to a K6 P2 cable for about 2.5 inches

K2P2 ribbing for an inch. 

The cable twists did regretfully make two tight spots in the cuffs and I have relatively large calves. I might have considered working 80 stitches but I was not going back. Once I had wet blocked them on these Costco size peanut butter containers they fit perfectly!

I'm linking up  to Crazy Mom Quilts and Finish it Up Friday!