Isn't is interesting how we can go in the same rooms every day and we eventually just stop seeing what's there. Maybe it's a pile of clothes in the corner of the closet or a stack of fabric on a shelf. Our remodel has really forced me to look and see the accumulations around me. We had to unpack the kitchen and family room and fit it all on the foyer, living room, sewing room and guest bedroom. It's total disarray.

We are watching TV in the sewing room and that's working just fine except that now I have been actually looking at this wall. Usually when I'm in here the TV is on but I don't really watch it much. But for the past week I've been looking at the mess and it's been driving me nuts. Last night I had had enough.

I have also reached my clutter tolerance for the cutting table, currently the dinner table.

The project wall is also a total mess. So I got busy to see how much I could clean up in 3 hours. It turns out that I was able to fill 2 trash bags, create a 2 foot stack of magazines for the recycle bin and a few dozen books to give away. 

I got the project wall back in order. The top of the cabinet would be clear if I could get to the bench where I store quilts that happens to be my kitchen pantry at the moment. Mostly I emptied a couple of bins and got things off the floor and in the shelves. I could easily empty more bins but since this was the last place I tackled I'll take what I've done and be happy for now.

The empty cutting table makes me feel like I can breathe again. All of the patterns and projects have been put in their appropriate places and a lot of junk was thrown out.

But the best of it is here. I actually got rid of a shelf! The remaining top shelf even has about 12" of empty space. Now I had room to put up the flowers that have been hanging out in the living room waiting for a home. I stuck them up with Command tape. 

I'm very much a function over form person when it comes to my work spaces but it is nice to have a little color in here now.

I got all of the the flowers from my booth put up in the sewing room and this makes me very happy....until they get covered in dust. But mostly I'm happy to have a little bit of order back to my room.

Oh boy do I love a 3-day weekend that I don't waste. It's been a long time since I've had 3 days to do whatever I wanted and I took full advantage.

I finished quilting the Indonesian Batik quilt.

I love how the quilting shows in the purple but completely disappears on the batik fabrics.

I haven't taken it off the frame yet because I have this much backing fabric left and it's the absolute perfect amount to fit in 4 placemats. The leftover of the leftovers are calling.

While I thought about placemats I got the veterans quilt tops sewn together. I'm really happy with the way it turned out and I already know that I'll quilt it with a wavy crosshatch. I will make more of these. It's a great way to use scraps of Jelly Rolls and goes together so quickly.

I have 24 leftover blocks. Theoretically, these could be made into 4 placemats but the size just isn't quite right. So I'll ponder some way to combine them with all the other scraps for the placemats.

On Saturday I didn't have any football to watch (Hokies eeked out a win Friday night) so I spent the day in the basement making soap. This 18 lbs of soap will cure to about 15 lbs and will be ready in early January.

And then I remembered that I needed to get my Christmas postcards done! I have 2 sets left to make and got one set started yesterday. I plan to have these done this week. They are simple and will be really cute.

So Michael came through Thursday evening. There wasn't much damage in my area. We did lose power for a couple of hours Thursday night but mostly there were some flooded roads and downed trees in Hanover County. The place where we do our quilt club meetings is owned by the county and we cannot use the space if schools are closed. Because of blocked roads schools were closed Friday so we couldn't sew.

Big bummer.

​Fortunately, I'm a quilter and I have other things I can do!

I decided to use the time to quilt Antelope Canyon. I did this one with a pantograph. It's going to be a quilt for the guest bed so no need for "special" quilting.  Quilting pantographs bores me so between each row I worked on cleaning up the dye studio and I have it ready for delivery of my new washing machine tomorrow.

I was a little nervous while quilting because I didn't have a lot of the color that I wanted to use. But my quilting luck was with me and I had "plenty" left over. This might even be enough to sew on the binding. 

​But I'm not doing the binding yet....

When I quilt I think about things and one of the things I was thinking about was how quickly Christmas is coming up. I stated making some thread trees earlier this year and I'm going to make about 10 more on the edges of Antelope Canyon before I take it off the frame. This is one of my goals for the week. The other is to start organizing all the fabric and supplies that I brought home form the show and get my living room back to being a living room.

Yesterday I was back in the dye studio all day to start restocking things. It's nice to be back in "normal"mode now that the show is over. This morning I finally finished editing all of the photos from the quilt show so that's what I have for you today. Just click on the gallery to go through the photos as a slide show.

I'm sorry I went AWOL on the blog last week. I had great intentions of posting every day but my social life got in the way. Chris and I lived in Virginia Beach over 20 years ago and we have family in the area. Every day after the show I visited with either family or old friends. It was fun to catch up with my nephew and his wife and two former co-workers that I hadn't seen in years.

The show itself was an interesting experience. AQS runs a good show. Everything was where it needed to be and it's run very efficiently. Set up and take down was easy and all of the vendors are friendly. I met many of my customers and got some new ones. It was all good.

The only downside was that attendance wasn't even close to what they expected. It was slow and I think there were numerous factors. First, there were competing events in the area and the weather outside was fabulous. Fall is coming in a couple of weeks so I think people went to some of the outside events while the weather was still good. Add to that the devastation in North Carolina that probably reduced the number of people coming from the South and the fact that people living on the Peninsula of Virginia LOATHE coming through the tunnel to get to Virginia Beach and there were probably many factors contributing to the low attendance. They will have the show again next year so hopefully the attendance will be even better.

For me, it was a great opportunity to hear from my customers and see what people were drawn to. AQS even did a video interview that will eventually show up on their Quilttv Youtube channel. It will be featured sometime next year along with a product review in the magazine. That's going to be some great advertising. The only complaint that I have is that my friend gave me her cold!

The quilts were amazing, as they always are in and AQS show. Here are some more photos for you. I'll have a third set later this week. If you clock on the gallery it will open a slide show view so you can see mroe details.

The first day of the show is in the books and we had a great time! There weren't huge crowds but we had lots of people stop by and still had some time to wander around a bit ourselves. I even got to catch up with an old friend (I used to live in Virginia Beach) for a little while. We hadn't seen each other in years!

I even got to see about a third of the quilts. AQS puts on a nice event and the quilt competition is FIERCE! Here are just a few of the ones that I liked. I don't have the energy to narrate them so I just set then in a gallery so you can scroll through them. I'll have more tomorrow.

By the time this posts at 10:30 our time, we should be already unpacking all of this at the convention center. I love our Subarus, they hold a lot of stuff!

This is it. This is the last ironing that I have to do to get ready for the show next week! It may look like a lot to you but it really isn't. If I get off the computer soon I should be able to get this all done today, tomorrow at the latest.

Then the rest of my preps involve various printing and computer tasks.
​

Are you coming to the show next week? If so, get a joke ready and come visit us in Booth 1730.

Mom (Glenda) and my friend, Anne, are going to be there to help me all week and they are working for free. So I need to keep them in good spirits and that's where you come in!

I want my social media followers to come by and visit and if you come with a good joke to make Glenda and Anne laugh you will get a small gift. Lame jokes that generate eye rolls also qualify! So please come by to say hello and give us a good laugh! Come early, the number of prizes is limited!

When my friend Laura comes to visit from England I'm not sure if she's coming to see me or my sewing room.....and I'm OK with either! This year she was here for a month. She came over at the beginning of August into NYC so she could meet up with Anne, Lora and me for Lora's birthday celebration then she was with us in Richmond for about a week before we headed to Maine. 

While we were in Richmond she decided to make some pillow covers for her lounge and discovered my shibori stash. You know she's a good friend if I let her in the shibori stash!

While in Maine she wanted to make a sofa quilt for a friend and my plaid stash was perfect. My Mom had made this quilt and Laura saw it while we were visiting her apartment. It seemed a good way to use a pack of plaid charm squares 

You could draft this block to any size but we selected 8" because that was the easiest for the finished size she wanted. The muslin strips are cut 1.5". The middle could eve simply be one piece of fabric.

The last time Laura visited she made a baby quilt for her niece using Mary's Quick Strippie quilt pattern. Her niece loves that quilt and sent her this message "Hey, aren't you with the quilting lady? Could you make me another baby quilt? The baby loves it and I'd like to have one at Mom's house." Fortunately there are fabric stores in Maine and she found these fabrics (plus Minkie for the back) to make another one. This pattern is the best baby quilt! She put this together in an afternoon. She'll trim it up after she gets it quilted.

This is a little better photo of the fabrics. the dark blue is more of a dark teal. THe backing is teal and white polka dots and the binding will be pink. 

She kept the machine humming while we were in Maine! She sews just like I like to: headphones on, listening to a good book and tuning out everyone else. She's also funny and wicked and kind and a great friend.

My UK friends, Ian and Laura, are here to go on vacation with us next week. We are taking the sewing machine and some projects so Laura is busy planning her projects for the trip.

She was inspired by these pillows that Karen Jantzi made and decided to make some new pillow covers for her re-decorated lounge.

Of course she has great taste and was immediately attracted to the shibori bin. I think this will be a nice collection of pillows (or cushions, as she calls them). These are leftover pieces from all the moons that I cut out recently. I wasn't able to let go of the newest shibori pieces that I dyed last week. Looking through those gave me anxiety so I had to hold them out. My generosity only goes so far! Laura is a psychologist so she understood.

Meanwhile I've been ice dyeing more fabric for the October show! This batch has some large, 108" square, mandalas that I'm very excited about.

​Time to get back to washing out fabric.