Hello World!!

I have trouble believing that it's been 6 months since I last posted. I have no excuse except the lack of time. Quick recap as to what has happened in the last 6 months... Yes, I can recap it in just a few paragraphs and I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not...

Here we go...

 Last time we chat I had just adopted this little one:

I had gone off to Boston to visit this other one:

When I got back my sister, who has lived with me for the last 7 years, bought a new home and undertook a major renovation of the place. Very Brave. I will say it was worth it since the place went from "really? This place?" to "Awesome space, sis!!".  But there were many, many, hurdles on the way.
Lots of packing and buying new furniture (for me, not her, since all the furniture in the house was hers to begin with! LOL!).

All this happening during the end of year craziness that takes place at work.

I had parents visiting during the end of November through December. My Daughter, Son in law and grand puppy also visited during the Thanksgiving break. I will say, Oreo was exceptionally happy with the yard and the happy company of Penny.

Needless to say, I got barely a smiggin of sewing done.

In November I was able to go to the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild's retreat and I made a bit of a dent in the blocks for Regimental Stars (see here for details on that quilt).

I also started Piece of Cake 3 by Thimble Blossoms. 

I have made progress on that quilt since that picture was taken. I just need the borders which I hope to add sometime this spring.

As a result of my sister moving out of the house I was able to appropriate one of the bedrooms as a sewing room, so now I have a place I can spread out and leave things ready to sew in the few minutes I have free here and there.

I made this cutting table from bookcases from ikea. My daughter found a post on Pintrest and made one for herself. I loved it but had no place to put one, so as soon as I had a room of my own I made one! I STILL love it.

Over the Holidays I made this cute little iPad sleeve for my sister's iPad mini.

I am officially cured of any thoughts of making a hexagon quilt. Lovely as they seem, putting together those hexies can be trying when you have a tad of carpal tunnel.

Now you are all caught up with life in 2013 around my neck of the woods. Next time, I'll  let you know what I've been up to in the last few weeks.

Nice to be back.
Hope you didn't forget me!
Leave me a comment so I know you are still out there... lol!

To Boston, With Love

While I was visiting my daughter in New England last month I had a chance to drop by the Museum of Fine Arts on the last day of the To Boston With Love exhibit.

The tragedy that took place on April 15th touched many lives across the world and this project was born from the need to express the feelings of love and support that those events brought forth.

I lived in Massachusetts for many years before moving to Texas. I went to college there and found it to be a wonderful place to raise my, then, 2 year old daughter. When the bombing took place it was a bit of a slap in the face because the Boston Marathon is a huge thing for the city. There is a lot of pride in the event and people hold it close to their hearts. I was not surprised by the response that came back. The images that filtered through are ones of a strong city that basically said, don't mess with us!

I was so happy to catch this exhibit.

Here are a couple more images.

I love this museum. It brings me so many memories of all the times we visited through the years while living in MA. We would go every summer and it got to a point where we knew exactly where our favorite pieces were. They have been renovating the building and expanding the premises, so it's become all new again.

They had this wonderful Samurai exhibit during that weekend.

It's funny because the exhibit was from a private collection that came from Texas!

My daughter always had an inclination toward the Japanese culture (she has a minor in Japanese Language and Communications), so I have seen my share of Japanese artifacts, but this was one of the most extensive collections I had ever seen.

AMAZING!

Love this shot of my sister photo bombing my image. It was planned. She saw the opportunity and, well...

I was then able to go see two of my favorite pieces in the museum.

John Singer Sargent's The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit.

This piece is my favorite but it has nothing to do with the painting but the memory it evokes. My first trip EVER to the MFA, my daughter was very very young and out of all the paintings she saw that day, she tried to touch this painting. I was able to grab her hand before the alarm went off but it made me pause in front of the image and really look at it. The girls all seemed to be looking back at me. They seemed to be waiting. Sargent has many beautiful pieces and I have grown very close to his work, but I always remembered this image and would always go back to it on every trip.

This another favorite.

Thomas Cole's Expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

I never visualized the biblical scene until I saw this image. It just captured everything that it could have been. Click on the image to make it larger so you can see Adam and Eve fleeing. Truly outstanding work.

I had a few more excursions while in New England last month. I got to go to the Vermont Quilt Festival to see the Dear Jane Exhibit and I also went to Lowell to visit the Textile Museum and the New England Quilt Museum. I'll post about those trips later. Stay tuned.

Weekend of sewing... check

I finally was able to take a weekend to focus on some sewing.

I took a pile of theses

Put some serious sewing to eventually get them ready to become these

Which eventually became this mess

while Penny kept me company under the sewing table

I have already paired the half square triangles into units of two which will eventually become the flying geese part of my stars. If you don't recall when I'm aiming for, I'm making Red Crinoline's Regimental Star.

This week I hope to post a few pic from my trip up north in July.
So stay tuned.

Claiming a Domain Name and more Paula Barnes

Not sure if you noticed but I recently claimed the domain name of www.textilehousequilts.com. I actually claimed the domain at the beginning of the year but this week I finally had the blog redirect to the new domain. I don't believe it should affect anyone that gets my feeds but you might want to update the feed just in case. I eventually want to do a little updating on the site maybe a redesign is in order...

In the meantime I uploaded the rest of the pics from Paula Barnes' trunk show and thought I'd share.

 Currently, this is my favorite remake. The pattern is called Second Hand Clothes and I love it! 

All the patterns to these quilts are available through Red Crinoline's website and many of them have kits. As one that has bought a couple of her patterns AND kits, I will says all are very well written and easy to follow.

Hope you enjoy!

My days with Paula

Last week I spent two days with the lovely Paula Barnes.

Early in the year I noticed that Paula would be in my neck of the woods offering 2 classes at a semi-local quilt shop called Happiness is Quilting. The shop is an hour away but I've driven farther to attend a class (See posts on my Kim Diehl class last October). I hesitated a bit because the class I wanted to take was Thursday and Friday which meant taking time off during a busy time of year at work, but after talking to Paula at the Dallas quilt show in March I knew I had to break down and do it. So, early May had me driving out to the quilt store to sign up for the class.

The quilt I wanted to make is called Regimental Stars and you can find it in the October 2011 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting (by the name of Star Formation). Paula also offers the pattern on the Red Crinoline site

It is not a difficult quilt to make but it sure is dramatic. I really wanted to go more for the kick in the butt the class would give me to actually make this quilt. I fell in love as soon as I pull the magazine out of my mailbox. I knew I just HAD to make it. This class was definitely inspirational.

Not only did I get to hang out with some pretty awesome gals at the class (we were a class of 3!!!)  but Paula also gave us a private trunk show. We just hung out and chatted about retreats and friends and life.

There was so much chatting going on, I made one block in two days. In my defense I did get alot of the half square triangles done!!

I also came home inspired. Ready to tackle more HST.

Sorry about the lack of updates lately. Life has been a bit interesting in my house as of late. In June I decided I was ready to add a new member to my household and went on a month long journey to adopt a pup through a rescue organization. I filled out many applications, had many interviews and even a house visit. All to make sure I was worthy of adopting. I passed with flying colors and at the end of June, after many meet and greets, lots of tail wagging and many puppy kisses, I met the one.

Penny (a Cocker Spaniel mix) joined our family two weeks ago.

Please think about adopting a rescue if you are thinking of a new pet. Penny came through the DFW Cocker Spaniel Rescue organization, but I met many, many wonderful pets through out this process. Most of these pets are in foster homes, with people that have gotten to know them. They can tell you their little quirks and if they have seen any problems. They work to place the pets in the best homes and are not offended if after you meet the pup you realize they are not the right fit for your home.They are not pushing damaged dogs onto you. They are there to help place a dog that, due to no fault of it's own, is homeless.

Penny is 2 years old and has the most darling temperament. She doesn't like everyone that comes into the house but she gives everyone a chance to win her over with treats. When she arrived she didn't play. She just looked around and sat quietly. She followed me everywhere but when I tried to engage her in any play she would just look at me. In less than two weeks she is a ball of energy and the happiest pup on the block. She jumps around and plays with all her new toys. She loves going on short walks (we live in Tx and long walks are a bit exhausting) and loves going on car rides to the local pet store. We will start basic obedience training next week but she already does Sit with no problem. We are working on Stay but that one is a bit more difficult.

I'll try to post soon with a few pictures of my trip up north for the 4th of July.

Random thought of the day....

I'm always jealous of the people that don't have to fuss with their food.

May recap continues...

Onto a non quilty post.

I just needed to mention that May brought Mother's day and although I was far from the fruit of my loins (always wanted to say that). I did get a cute little something from her...

I will say that it was yummy... and guilt free (well, we will ignore those chocolate covered fruits)

Then after I got that 'healthy' arrangement, I went and threw caution to the wind by going to have lunch at MacDaddy's.

This place specializes in Mac n Cheese combos. They serve every combination of Mac n Cheese you can think of and makes it yummy. I went traditional. Insane good stuff. I had a side of pull pork sandwich to just round out those calories to about... gazillion!

I will wrap up my summary on my Mother's day with this sweet sweet note left tacked on my door.

 

Just let's me know that someone is doing things right.