Freaky Friday, Tony & Tina and The Caucus

It is almost time for the March Freaky Friday! It seems impossible that it has been a month! We are having a great time with this class and I think the students and customers are too. Below is a photo of Tonya's paintstick piece. She is so good about taking her project home and making it into something wonderful! She is one talented lady.

Since I last wrote we also went to see Tony and Tina's Wedding. It is a very funny musical about a couple from NY and NJ and their families and friends. It was really funny and you are a part of the wedding, not sitting in seats in the audience but part of the group. We laughed a lot and you just never knew what they were going to do. There was a "cheesy" wedding singer who had a great voice. He actually sang through the complete reception. Below is a photo of my husband, Tony, with the daughter of the caterer. She was very "goth" and never smiled once! She just came up and put her foot on the table next to Tony and waited to see his reaction. It was SO funny! The second photo is of Krissy, my daughter in law and the wedding singer. I think you get the idea. The third photo is Tony with one of the bridesmaids. She was having boyfriend trouble and came around often. All of the ladies seemed to like Tony. I think he was an easy target. Go see it if you get a chance but it is not for kids.

Well the primary/caucus is over. It has been an amazing year, one that I think will be remembered for some time. Tony and I decided to go check out the caucus at the Lewisville Town Hall. There must have been about 200 or more standing in line to vote in the caucus. I snapped a few photos with my phone. The quality isn't that great.

Valentines Week and Christian fabric

Valentines week is special for my husband and me. Tony and I were married on the 13th. Lots of people ask us why didn't we wait one day and get married on Valentines Day. Well, when you get married on a 3 day pass from the Air Force you don't have time to wait a day. Tomorrow will be our 37th anniversary. February 13th is also the date of our first date when we were in the 9th grade. We went to his church's Sweetheart banquet and he brought me a corsage of pink sweetheart roses. My boquet at our wedding was pink sweetheart roses. Seems like we have had 3 lifetimes during this 37 years. We have done a lot of fun things and lived many interesting places during our life together. One of our favorite places to go together is Disney World and my favorite ride is the Rockin' Roller Coaster. It is SO fun, 0-60 in less than 4 seconds. Oh yeah, Aerosmith is blasting in your ears and it is dark with lots of neon.

Today after I picked Joshua up at school we decorated Valentines Day Cookies. I baked the cookies yesterday so they would be ready. He was very excited. I had bought a variety pack of cookie decorations and one of the colors was hot pink. I said lets do a hot pink one. He says he doesn't like hot. After I explained it to him he called the red and purple hot too. I decided to lay a clean towel on the counter so it would collect all of the "extra" sprinkles. You can tell by the expression on his face that it took a lot of concentration.
Of course we had to sample a few. I think we both like them best with no icing.
This is an icing recipe that I have had for years. It works great on any cookies and gets hard so you can stack the cookies. You can add flavoring and also dye it for the occasion.

COOKIE ICING
1 cup conf. sugar
1-2 tsp. Milk
1-2 tsp light corn syrup
Place sugar and milk in bowl and mix well. Add corn syrup and mix. Add coloring and or flavoring. Spread on cookies; add sprinkles if desired and leave to dry for about an hour. The length of drying time depends on how thick you spread the icing. Stack them up and you are ready to take them anywhere with no mess.

We just received the new fabric with the religious symbols, prayers and Bible verses. It is very nice and the colors are pretty.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Isn't this fabric great??? The Wizard of Oz is so much fun. I know it has terrorized children for years but I think we all have a place in our hearts for this movie. There are many more prints at the shop, this is just a sampling. This past year Tony and I went to see Wicked and loved it. If you ever get a chance go see it because it will give you a totally new outlook on the Wizard of Oz. Now, what to do with this fun stuff??? Any ideas?



This new Kaffe Fasset fabric also arrived this week. It is always so fresh and interesting.


I am excited about our "Judy Day" coming up every month in the next few months. Maybe some of us can make progress on our "Judy" quilts!

Freaky Friday, Watermelons and Tortilla Soup

We held our second Freaky Friday this past week. It was a lot of fun and we had 24 for the first class. We were learning about Paintsticks this month. First we told them a bit about the Paintsticks and then let them loose with the fabric, brushes and Paintsticks. The photo below is the first class. They stayed and played untill about lunch time. It was really interesting to see all of their creations. Speaking of beautiful creations, Pam brought in her gorgeous Journal Quilts for us to see. They were amazing and the detail was really something. This first photo isn't really great but you get the idea. Right under it is a detailed photo of three of them.
I haven't really decided what to do as my theme and may not have one. Several ladies are using holidays or seasonal themes. This gives you all sorts of ideas right off the bat. I think I may do a color and a a shape. Maybe not.
The first Friday of the month are for our demo days and we are going to use the Freaky Fridays the remainder of the months to work on Journal Quilts or really anything you want. I hope you will join us one or all of the Fridays.
If you check out Pam's purple Journal Quilt you will see Angelina is used on it. We are going to demo Angelina in the next Freaky Friday which will be Friday, March 7.

You probably won't believe this but Lois, one of our Quilt Country Supergirls, has finished her Dragon Star! Isn't that amazing???? I wonder if she slept since Judy Niemeyer left. Isn't it gorgeous?

It may seem odd to you but we are busy getting things ready for our booth at the Dallas show in March. I just finished making this really cute watermelon table runner. We will have kits that are mostly precut. I still have to get it quilted and add the watermelon seeds. I love log cabins, don't you?

Before I go I want to share this soup recipe with you. Connie made if for us when Judy was there and I just had to have the recipe. She is a great cook and really spoils us!

Connie’s Tortilla Soup

1 cup onion 1 can hominy
1 cup celery 1 can black beans
½ cup chopped carrots
½ cup bell pepper
8 cups chicken broth
3 cups chicken cubed
28 oz can diced tomatoes
¼ cup lime juice
¼ cup fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon basil
½ teaspoon cumin
Salt/Garlic salt
Pepper
Garnish with tortilla chips, sour cream and Monterey Jack cheese.

Busy, Busy, Busy

It has been a crazy January. Mom left on the third, very sad. I always cry when she leaves. We talk about twice a day most days and I really enjoy that. We are very close. I am thinking of going to see her in the Spring sometime but not sure when.

After mom left I got some crazy crud and was home sick for almost a week! YUCK, didn't even feel like sewing, beading on knitting. Hopefully all of you will avoid that and all of the other things going around this year.

Just as I was getting over the crud we had a "going away party" for our friend Lorna. She is Eileen's mom and had decided to move back to Nebraska. We will miss her but know she will enjoy living there where she also has lots of friends and family. All of the Supergirls got together and made her this lovely lavender rag quilt. Lavender is her favorite color and the size is just perfect for her lap. The quilt was a group effort and when we were discussing the label someone said that Nikki had an embroidery machine so Nikki embroidered Lorna's name on the quilt, in purple of course, and it turned out great!

Next Judy Neimeyer arrived. She is a great quilter, teacher and such a wonderfully pleasant person to be around. She is truly amazing in her classes. There were 20 students in our classes doing 4+ different quilt patterns and she would glide easily from one to another even though they were making different quilts. Amazing! She really is sweet and I enjoyed her visit very much. She was here from Wed. - Friday the next week. The first photo is Judy demonstrating a Wedding Ring technique.

This is a funny photo of everyone crowded around the cutting table for the demo on cutting techniques, and Judy has some GREAT tips!

Our dear friend Kara, who lives in CO, came for a visit too. She took one of Judy's classes with me and it was so nice to have a long visit with her. She stayed at our house, in the Mickey room, so we were able to visit even more. Then on Friday we went to a retreat together. I was so amazed when she took out the center sections she had made in Judy's class and started creating this gorgeous quilt. She just invented it right before our eyes!

Of course the photo doesn't do it justice and the colors are off a bit but you certainly "get the picture". Isn't she amazing? We really miss her but know she is happy in CO with lots of friends and family.

Well, I am pooped from all of the happenings and signing off. This week we are going to get busy learning more about the Paintsticks for our Freaky Friday. It is going to be fun! I will post photos of the creations.

A Time to Bead

Sorry I haven't posted lately, been a bit under the weather.

Last Friday we had a really fun day at the shop. It was the first of our Freaky Friday events. The first Friday of every month we are having a little demo/class/make & take. This one was a beading make & take and lots of students came to learn a bit about beading. I forgot my camera and also forgot to ask Micki to snap a photo in the 10:30 class but here is a photo of part of the second, 1:00 class.

They learned some basic info about beading and how to create about 6 different stitches. We had the cutest little kits made up for each of them. They practiced all of the stitches and left with the little kits to finish or use to embellish something else. A student from the first class sent me this photo of her "practice piece". She made this really cool design with part of her bead kit. The hot pink square sequins were a part of the kit.

Below is a photo of Carol Mc's beaded vessel she started from Larkin Van Horn's Beaded Vessel class. Her vessel is almost finished. Isn't it beautiful?

We also discussed the Journal Quilts we are going to make this year. I know you will believe this, Connie has already finished her first one! Her beautiful beaded blue journal quilt is really stunning. The other two photos are of Tonya's Journal quilts. She made twelve of them and when she was finished she sewed them together to form one large piece. They ae really stunning. This is going to be a fun progect and I hope lots of people join us.

The next Freaky Friday on Feb. 1 is going to be fun! We are going to learn all about Paintsticks with a hands on class again. I know a lot of you have been interested in these so come on down and try them yourself! The Paintsticks are very cool.

New Year Tradition

Yesterday we finished taking inventory at Quilt Country. What fun!! I am kidding of course but it isn't all that bad. I get to spend the day with lots of people I care about and get something done must be done in the process. Of course there is always pizza for lunch!

This is a photo of the group who worked on inventory yesterday. The husbands and one mom aren't in the photo though. It is so good to have that job over and done with!

I don't understand how it is that we always find items that are not priced when we take inventory. Carol Mc decided, and rightly so, that the pricing gun needed a new ink roller. The photo below gives her thoughts on the instructions.