Behind on things.....

I seem to be a bit behind on things (like sewing and blogging). I figured I should let you know the reason why. Just look to the right and you will see........


I treated myself to a Kindle electronic reader and I love it! I had a $100 check arrive in the mail recently and I'd forgotten I was to receive this money, so it seemed like "found" money! I decided to use the money on myself for something I've been back and forth about getting (and it wasn't fabric this time). Hubby was talking this up to me and trying to convince me to get it for weeks now, so....I did!

As time goes on and the novelty wears off, I guess I'll start to catch up on other things. Until then, you know where you can find me.......enjoying time with my new buddy. (Wonder if I should give my Kindle a name and...if so....what name would be just right?)

What today means to me....

Of course, we know it's important to be thankful all year long...but today we really focus on that and give thanks for the many blessings we all have. This year, more than many other years in the past, I have a heavy heart for several people who are going through some very stressful times........some of them are battling serious health problems or worrying about a loved one with a serious health problem.......some are dealing with the harsh reality of an unhealthy economy that leaves them seeking better employment opportunities in order to feed and clothe their families......some are dealing with abuse or impending loss of their homes. It's often difficult for folks in those situations to be thankful on Thanksgiving and to look for (and see) the blessings they have. This is often an especially sad time of year for them as they struggle to be festive, outwardly, when, inwardly, they are weary and sad. So...as I give thanks for my many blessings, I am also praying that this upcoming year will be a better one for many people who are sick and suffering other burdens right now...those I know personally who are struggling and those I don't know but who are also struggling. We really need to help support each other, because blessings often come from the hands and hearts of our loving neighbors, friends, and family members. Today I wish a Happy Thanksgiving and a year of blessings to all of you.

"Black Friday" specials at AccuQuilt.....

Now...you didn't think AccuQuilt was going to be sleeping on Black Friday, did you? Look at their "flyer" and also read the information below to see what they have planned. The sale starts Wednesday, November 24 and ends November 29. I'd also like to wish a very Happy Thanksgiving to all of you in the U.S. who celebrate that holiday this week. I count all of you among my many blessings!

AccuQuilt’s Black Friday Sale – Lowest Prices Ever!

AccuQuilt is giving its blogger friends a sneak peek of their upcoming Black Friday sale! As you all know, Black Friday has become a great shopping tradition among Americans everywhere. However, a majority of consumers now prefer to shop online to escape the dangers of stampede and the hassles of long lines at stores. If you can’t find the items you want, it’s easy to hop from one store website to the next without being disappointed. Savvy online shoppers know how to get the most out of Black Friday sales by utilizing blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and other websites to get the inside track on tremendous sales.

AccuQuilt is offering the lowest prices ever on some of their most popular items plus special Daily Deals you don’t want to miss! AccuQuilt’s Black Friday sale begins on Wednesday, November 24^th and ends on Cyber Monday, November 29^th! Don’t miss out – visit accuquilt.com starting Wednesday to place your order!

Prayers are needed.......

If you are a praying person, please pray for a young mother from NJ (a friend of one of my good friends and neighbors) who very much needs the heavens stormed on her behalf. She is battling leukemia and has not had the best results lately. She will be flying today to California and is hoping to successfully go through a 3-month treatment program that may help...and will allow her to return home to her family. (She has two little boys.) I can't imagine her state of mind at being away from her little guys for so long...especially over the holidays. So please join me in thinking positive thoughts for her that she gets her miracle and will be back home in better health in a few months. And......when you get a chance, click HERE to watch and listen to a very inspiring presentation. It was shared with me by my good blogging friend, Sandi, who got it from a friend of hers. I was very moved by it and some of you might be, too....and it came at the right time for me....given the news about this young mom.

Happy mail.....

Don't you love happy mail? I got some the other day....a quilt magazine and two packages. One package was expected.....a super-nice blogging pal in FL offered to loan me her Little Twister ruler. (Thanks, Jackie....you are a real sweetheart!) Click on her name to read her fun blog!
The second package was a total surprise from another great blogging friend, Sandi. Some of you know her already....but if not, click on her name to get to her blog, which is also a wonderful one! This is what Sandi gave me......a super-cute penguin door panel. There are several smaller penguins in the directions, so I have a lot of possibilities of things to make with this. (Sandi knows I am fond of penguins!) And......she also sent these goodies pictured below.....a great penguin mug for me (the red one) along with some yummy-flavored hot cocoa mixes. I had a caramel one last night and it was super-delicious!!! She also sent a penguin mug that can be changed out to make your own design and that is for my granddaughter (she will use it when she is here....she'll enjoy that). There are also some fabric pieces....a sparkly green one.......and one with critters (including a penguin) in the snow and a Hello Kitty one which I hope my granddaughter will want to use if she sews with me again here next summer. The little sheep is an adorable notecard on which Sandi wrote a very nice note to me. I appreciate that she took time over the past several months to put together a surprise penguin package for me!Thanks to both of you for being such good friends in Blogland. I do hope to meet each of you someday!

Sew Cal Gal's Christmas Quilt Show.....

See the button on my side bar mentioning Sew Cal Gal's Christmas Quilt Show? Click on it to see a list of blogs with great quilts (and also to get you to SewCalGals's blog for details if you wish to join...there is still time!) Here are some Christmas things I've made that I am entering in her show: (click or double click to see them in greater detail, if you wish and IF that works today). This post has been giving me problems and seemed to look very SMALL when I first tested it. If it remains that way, I apologize and have NO idea what is going on with Blogger for me today.

I love this little Patch-Abilities pattern for a skinny Christmas tree...nice to tuck away into a small spot over the holidays.
I was playing around trying to do some little wall-hanging with an attic window effect and came up with this. I like that this can be left up all winter, too, as it's not totally Christmas!This is one of very few needle-turn applique projects I have done. It was done as a challenge project in a quilt guild to which I belonged at the time. I believe we were given the light fabric and had to design something incorporating that. This is a wall-hanging I made a few years back when I was new to quilting. It was made using the "snippets" technique. I put an actual bow on it. There isn't much quilting on the piece as I was not then (nor am I now) very good at machine quilting!!!

A chance to win a sewing cabinet.....

For any of you on Facebook, Arrow (who makes some really nice sewing machine cabinets....some are pictured here) is trying to reach 1000 friends on their Facebook page. Once they reach that number, they will give away a sewing cabinet to one of those 1000 people. If you are interested, click HERE and it should take you to their page where you can click "LIKE" and have a chance to be that lucky winner.

Sew Cal Gal has a Christmas Quilt Show going on at her blog. I am hoping to post something tomorrow about that as I am starting to see a lot of great quilts from that "show" on blogs I'm following!

Retreat sewing project.....

Most of our time in the Amish area of PA was spent (as you have already seen) shopping the fabulous fabric shops in that area. BUT....we decided to have a sewing challenge. We were each to buy two fat quarters and then use my GO! cutter (which I'd brought with me) and those fat quarters to make something small....a candle mat....small table topper...pillow cover, etc. and cut the pieces with my GO! cutter and the dies I had there with me. I got up early the morning of our sewing day and doodled a few designs that could be made with the dies I had there. Oddly enough, three of the five of us chose the same design. (Of course, everyone could have designed their own, but two of them liked one of the designs I'd "doodled" and two did designs of their own.) Everyone loved the speed and accuracy of the GO! cutter! Here are photos of each gal's work. (Sorry that there are safety pins in many of them and batting sticking out....but they weren't yet quilted when I took the pictures.) You really need to double click on each photo to be able to appreciate the fabric choices!

Linda's (which is now a 16" pillow cover...gift for her daughter, I believe, as her daughter loves snowmen). Silly Linda was hiding here!
Prue's....which will be used in her new house (she is moving in another 10 days). Hers is also a pillow cover.Sherry's.....which looked super after quilting but I didn't get another photo of it. It is another pillow cover!Kathy's...not sewn together all the way here yet....but she tells me it is now finished and hers is a pillow cover, also.And mine....at first to be a candle mat but now will be a pillow cover, too. Notice the star point that looks like it's cut off (on the left). It actually is not cut off, but the red flower part of the yellow fabric SO closely matches the red background fabric that it just blends together at first glance. However, when you see it in person, it actually looks like the little flower is appliqued in place at the end of the point.....kind of neat-looking and you can see that if you double click on the photo. I didn't get as much of mine done that day as I was helping with the GO! cutter.....but I love the fabrics I chose and will finish it this weekend and buy a pillow form to "stuff" in this cover very soon and will enjoy this colorful addition to the pillows on my living room sofa.We had fun sewing together on this rainy day and then went out for a nice dinner together as it was our last night there. We have already booked a rental house for the same week next year. Yippee!!!! (A different house...owned by the same people.....but closer to two of the fabric stores......hmmmmmmmmm.....might be dangerous!!!)

A special day.....

No matter your political leanings, I hope you are all remembering....and appreciating....what the members of our armed forces have done in the past....are doing even as you read this....and will continue to do in the future. If you know any present or former members of the armed forces, be sure to thank them today for their service!

Some photos near Lancaster, PA.....

These are a few of the photos I took last week when we were on our quilting/fabric shopping trip in the Amish area of PA.

I love to watch the Amish youngsters walk to and from their one-room school house (and I get teased by my quilting pals about that), BUT...this year I did manage to get a couple of photos of them from a distance. (Click on them once or twice to see the photos in greater detail.)Yes...they are each carrying a 6-pack cooler.......guess it's the best thing for the wonderful, big lunches I'm sure are made for them each morning.An Amish man taking his produce to be sold or maybe to be used at one of the many restaurants in the area that serve delicious dishes! Can you see how large the cabbages are in the back of the cart?A woman getting ready to open her shop one morning.Looks funny to see this in a "No Parking" area....but that just means no cars right there....horses and buggies are permitted. This was by the back entrance to Zook's Fabric Store.Also outside there, this lady was unloading her little ones from the buggy. Notice the little guy off to the left. He was doing his own thing and not listening too closely to his Mama or his sister! I think Mama might have been wiser to get him out of the buggy last...instead of first.But.....it all had a happy ending as Mama got all three of them shepherded into one of the shops before any cars came near to the little guy.Oh...and I had to stop by an Amish produce stand and get a large cabbage for my hubby like I did last year. Here is my granddaughter holding it. It was larger than a basketball and cost only $1.25 for the whole head. The stand was run on an honor system where I just put the money into an old coffee can that was on the countertop of the stand. There is something so appealing about the simplicity of that!We did spend a good part of one day working on a sewing project, so I will show those photos in my next post. I hope you enjoyed these glimpses of Amish life.

Today....the fabric.....

I could have gone absolutely wild and bought yards and yards more fabric last week.......but I tried to maintain a little bit of self-control. I came to the realization that with the shops being about 2 1/2 hours away, I COULD do it in a daytrip.......so that consoled me when I realized I was leaving behind lots of fabric I really loved. I told myself I can easily drive back up and get it if I REALLY want it! LOL We did tally things up and found the average price for fabrics was just under $5......most non-sale items were $7 a yard and many places had sale racks with prices as low as $3 a yard. The prices are much better than what we pay in our area...that's for sure!

So....without further delay...here is what came home in the bottomless Amish shopping bag (that was shown here yesterday)...double click on them if you wish to see them enlarged....


The Christmas fat quarters on the left were bought with a gift card so kindly given to me by a gal who I accidentally met on Facebook (a real small world story) who stayed in the SAME rental house as us and left the day before we arrived...she left a gift card for me to Bitty Kinna's shop. Thanks, MaryAnn!!!Much of the fabric I bought was just because I liked it....although some was bought with a purpose. This next photo shows fabrics I will use to make a cute snack throw for the grandkids to use when they visit us. I figured they will find that amusing.This next fabric is Girl Scout cookie fabric...perfect for a pillowcase for my granddaughter who is becoming a Brownie. (I saw this fabric at MaryJo's in NC a few weeks back and forgot to buy it there...so I was happy to see it in the shop in PA.)I've heard good things about wool batting, so I bought some to give it a try. The other fabrics pictured below are 108" wide backings.......for $8.50 a yard....a STEAL, in my opinion, so I stocked up on them!The last two photos are fabrics I bought at a last-minute stop at Zook's and The Old Country Store on the day we were leaving. I'll finish showing photos taken during the retreat week in my next post in a day or two....there are some nice shots taken around the Amish area. Hope you enjoyed seeing my fabric. I love all of it and think my bottomless Amish shopping bag did a great job!

Today the stores......tomorrow the fabric!

I know you've been waiting to see what came home in this bag.....some of you recognize this bag. It's an Amish shopping bag and last year, we came to refer to it as my "bottomless" Amish shopping bag.


The shopping bag got a workout this trip, also. The day we arrived in the area, we made a quick stop at one fabric shop. The following day, we went to two very large fabric shops.....both about a 45-minute ride from where we stayed. One was called Hayloft Fabrics and they advertised that they had 7,000 bolts of fabric. There are 2 photos below of that shop. It is an interesting place as it is upstairs from a gift shop and Martin's grocery store and is really a loft.

After that, we went to Burkholder's and they have 20,000 bolts of fabric. It was totally overwhelming in there. (Some photos below show Burkholder's.) We had lunch after that and then didn't do any fabric shopping until the next morning......when we went to three other fabric shops......Bitty Kinna's.......The Old Country Store (photo from yesterday showed us outside that shop) and Zook's. The next day we stayed in and sewed......except for a quick trip to The Fabric Shack. And the morning we left for home, two of us made a return trip to both Zook's and The Old Country Store. My next post will show the fabric that was stuffed into the bottomless Amish shopping bag. For now, here are a few photos of two of the shops mentioned above.

Kathy browsing in Hayloft Fabrics......nice selection....friendly staff....and gave a "group" discount!Another photo taken in Hayloft Fabrics.......grocery store can be seen on the floor below. On the far side of the photo, you can see more of the fabric loft.See this peaceful place? Well.........behind where I was standing to take this picture.........is this brown building (with a house and some cows behind it)......and inside the brown building.........is Burkholder's Fabric Shop. Yes....20,000 bolts of fabric. Three full rooms filled with ceiling to floor racks (like the photo below) of fabric....a real feast for the eyes of any quilter! Can you see why it was overwheming? Can you see why the bottomless Amish shopping bag got another work-out this year? They even had a floor to ceiling rack of VERY nice fat quarters that were only $1 each.....and were very recent, good-quality fabrics. This shop also gave a guild discount. What a place!!! Quilters who live near to that area are lucky indeed!

GREAT JOB, Sarah ......

Sarah Vedeler does beautiful work. Just look at this quilt....Sarah won 1st place in the Computer-Aided Machine Embroidery category last week at the International Quilt Association show in Houston. This was the first time she entered a quilt in an IQA show!

Sarah used the GO! cutter and dies to cut all her shapes for the quilt.....the round flower, the funky blower, the 2", 3", and 4" star, the 2", 3", and 4" heart, the feathers, the 2", 3", and 4" circle and the diamonds. She then designed computer-aided machine embroidery designs to complete her work of art.

Congratulations to her and what a joy to see the GO! cutter used for this!

Our quilt retreat.....

Here is the happy group during one of our shop-hops in the Amish area of Pennsylvania...From left to right....Kathy, Prue, Linda, Me, and Sherry......smiling away after making yet another fabric purchase. The prices are so great there, you just can't resist adding to your "fabric collection".....we all know stash enhancement is a very important activity!

Stay tuned in the next few days for a couple of posts showing more about the trip.....

Hello from Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania...

On retreat this week at a neat house we rent....it's called Amish Stay. Off to a couple of great Amish fabric stores this morning!!! Here's the house we rent....love it.....and also love hearing the horses clip-clopping by as they pull the buggies!