Road Trip!

Oh, I've been such a baaaaad blogger!!!! Missing 3 days in a row, what was I thinking? Well.....I was thinking ROAD TRIP! I was really thinking road trip all week last week, but I had to keep it top secret since the point of the road trip was to surprise my Sister and her husband by crashing my nephew's 1st birthday! Yes, it's true, not even 700 miles can keep us from coming over uninvited.

My girls love their Aunt Jami, and I couldn't keep it a secret from them. They were diligently making lists of what they were going to pack as early as Monday. So, come Thursday evening my family of 5, plus my parents and my brother, left Deary at 7:15pm and headed for Salt Lake City! I was super prepared. I'd been to Walmart that afternoon and picked up a double screen portable DVD player, plus 5 new movies, snacks, and MP3 batteries for Bailey. There was no way I was going to be stuck in a car for 11 hours with bored kids!

It actually took us 2 cars to get there, so we took radios to talk to each other. It was like a comical version of the Griswald Family Vacation with a little bit of Smokey and the Bandit thrown in. (Without the wood paneled station wagon and dead Grandma, of course) Although, there might have been a dead Grandma if that West Jordan Starbucks employee had brought his gun to work.....more about that later!

We drove all night, and after hitting morning rush hour traffic on the edges of Salt Lake, we finally arrived around 8:30am. Hopefully they were happy to see us, I guess if they move and forget to send us their forwarding address we'll know why! It was a short but fun trip. I even managed to lose a pound despite eating burgers, pizza, birthday cake, and an unGodly amount of Starbucks!

We drove home Sunday, it took all day and was much worse than the drive down. The kids were AWAKE this time, making it more difficult to keep them occupied. By the time we arrived home, Monte had informed me that he would not be returning unless it was by plane. I must say, I agree, although I think he was just chomping at the bit to get home in time to watch the season premiere of Ax Men.

So, back to the schedule here! I will be working on catching up today. Watch for more posts soon!

More Projects!

I have been busy this week. It seems I'm finding fabrics all over the place that I "need." I ordered a new line to arrive in May, and I broke down and ordered a line from Moda that I've had my eye on since Fall Quilt Market. It will arrive next week, and is called "At Water's Edge." Here is a pic of the quilt I saw done with it at Market, and the newest addition to my wish list.


I also decided to order kits for the next quilt pictured here:

Watch for them to be added to the website as soon as they arrive. This kit uses fabrics from a line by the Moda designers 3 sisters called "Simplicity." I am always partial to lines by this designer, and this line is no different! If I can't get it on the bolt, I'll feed my craving with this kit!

Spring is definately in the air when it comes to fabric. There are so many great florals out now, I can't wait to use them all! Watch for new additions of charm packs and jelly rolls to hit the store soon, along with the quilts pictured above.

My Couches Are Clean!

This afternoon I had my couches cleaned, and they are air drying as I type this. I've never had furniture cleaned before. All of our other furniture was always handed down from my parents, or a cheap knock-off, makeshift piece from somewhere like Shopko. This couch set is the first "real" furniture set we ever purchased brand new, from the furniture store. That being said, it's the first time I've cared enough to actually pay for a professional cleaning.

The gentleman that did the cleaning said, "they really weren't that bad." Since I caught Will as recently as last week using the arm of the couch to wipe his chocolate pudding covered face, I'm fairly certain I don't want to know what a really bad couch would look like. Thank goodness ours are a dark, large floral print that coordinates well with chocolate pudding and all kinds of other things my kids put on them when I'm not looking!

Since the cleaner was here, I've missed my afternoon workout. Looking at my clean furniture will keep me happy for today. That's all the longer it's likely to last anyways!

You Wanna Do What??!!

These days my exercise loving alter ego seems to have taken over. Never was this more clear than yesterday afternoon. The new Holly Taylor fabric, Natural Garden, arrived around 1:00.

I LOVE new fabric. Usually I can't wait to bust into the boxes and start ooohing and ahhhhing. However, since I went straight home at noon and started quilting in a futile attempt to catch up before vacation week, I hadn't yet worked out. (Which, believe it or not, I do every day now) When my mom called to tell me the fabric was here and did I want to come down and help put it away and ship preorders, I heard myself say, "Yes, but I have to work out first."

What???? Wait a minute, did I really just say that??? Apparently I did, even though a voice in my head was going, "What is WRONG with you?! There's new fabric in the shop!!!"

I did work out, and then I did go to the shop and pet the new fabrics. Then, when I got home, I did another 45 minutes of cardio since I'd been distracted earlier and didn't quite feel like I'd gotten a real work out. Yes, sick, I know. If I don't get my workout in I get cranky. At least according to Monte, who said Sunday in response to my request that he entertain the kids for an hour, "Come on kids, your Mom's working out and if she doesn't get it done I'll hear about it all day."

Yesterday, my younger 2 decided they'd join me. Will was especially getting into it when he got a little too close and took a kick from me to the head. Whoops! He wasn't hurt, but he did stand back for the rest of the time! Still it didn't stop he and Kylee from trying to follow along, which was quite entertaining to say the least. Even so, I think I'll try to get my work outs in before school gets out from now on!

It's Time To Get Organized!

At least according to my mom! I've been functioning by the skin of my teeth these past couple of months. Since the shop has grown faster than I could have ever hoped, my filing and organizational skills were lagging behind. So, my mom "suggested" that I get some filing cabinets and get to work organizing. My mom's the most organized neatness fanatic ever, so helping me at the shop where I am anything but organized gets on her nerves, to put it nicely!

I've spent this morning, (you know, Monday morning, that morning I'm supposed to have "off" and never do), rearranging my office, filing, cleaning, and trying to make sense of the mess that I have been using as my system lately. I must say, it is looking 110% better, I suppose I just needed a push in the right direction.

My Moda-University members will be happy to know that from now on I might be able to find your missing newsletters and fliers. I might even know what you're talking about when you ask me if I've found that pattern or cut that kit you asked for LAST month. And the path through my office to the bathroom? You might be able to find it now!

So, I'm headed back home for a marathon of quilting. There is a clock ticking in my head on the countdown to Jamaica, and it gets louder every day! The quilting alone that needs done before that is scary, and I'm sure there will be countless emergencies and drama between now and then. Such is my life!

Quilting Product of the Week-Bias Tape Makers

Although Bias Tape Makers may have been around for a while, I just recently discovered them. It came about because I wanted to make Charm Garland. The charm garland pattern calls for the use of a bias tape maker, and for good reason! The tape maker is great!!! I made the entire length (about 10-12 feet) of garland, completely finished, in less than an hour. It is the cutest thing ever, and makes great decorations for Christmas trees and windows year round.

The tape maker works by folding your fabric for you as you iron. After feeding the strip of fabric into the tape maker, you gently pull the tape maker along as you iron the fabric coming out the other end. The result is a perfectly folded strip of fabric in seconds.

The bias tape maker comes in different sizes for making different finished size bindings. At just $7.50, these are a very affordable tool!

Find a Hobby, Would Ya?

This week being so crazy and all, I've only been able to find good time to blog in the evenings. This presents a problem, since around 5:00 every evening, my Internet connection gets dreadfully slow. Not just a little slow, but so slow that usually the page times out, as if I'm back in my earliest days of dial up!

Otherwise, my connections is super fast. I have Internet through the local cable company, and all I know is it's the fastest and most reliable otherwise I've ever had. The only explanation for the evening issue I can come up with is that the entire town of Deary decides to log on around 5:00. Not likely, you're thinking? Well, if you live here you might know why it's perfectly reasonable to assume that there's nothing else to do here in the evenings except web surf.

I have come up with a solution to this problem. Find a hobby, people of Deary! What's more, I have also come up with the perfect hobby, something you can easily do in Deary, no less! Take up quilting. Your local quilt store will be happy to see you and can help you on your way to becoming a quilting guru. You can all sit down in front of your sewing machines instead of your computers, and I can return to having the lightning fast connection that I've become accustomed to. I'd say it's a win-win situation, wouldn't you?