It has been a craaaazy busy week.  I am way behind on blogging and I’m not even going to try to fit everything in. We had a birthday in the family and so I started a new tradition – making a birthday pillowcase.  I’m thinking I might just make one of these for each of the nieces and nephews this coming year.

We had a birthday in the family and so I started a new tradition – making a birthday pillowcase.  I’m thinking I might just make one of these for each of the nieces and nephews this coming year.

I was in JoAnn’s and it turns out they have half a dozen different fabrics specifically for birthdays so that was easy enough even though I didn’t even come up with the idea until the afternoon before.  Thank goodness for 15 minute projects!

Last Sunday’s Splendid Sampler block is embroidery; I haven’t even started it.  I haven’t even printed it out which isn’t like me.  I printed out the one for last Thursday but at the rate I’m going, it will be Sunday afternoon at the earliest before I start that one.

I think I’ve decided that I’m going to substitute a block of my own for the 10th machine quilting block.  The design calls for using a template and I’m about “templated out” recently.  So while October’s block is on hold, here is the November block that is at least pieced together.  I think this is the only block I have in the set that I used all primary colors.  I pinned the 10 that are at least to this stage together to start to get an idea of the layout.  I’m pretty sure that I’ll wait until December to connect all of them together because I want to be able to rearrange the blocks in the order that works best with 6 different colors.

We have a friend/neighbor who generously gave me 4 complimentary tickets to the Quilt Festival in Houston this week!  I asked one friend if she wanted to go with me.  Then another friend who already had plans to go suggested a mutual friend who might enjoy the invitation.  My first friend had a co-worker who asked about going as well and – voila! – we had a group of 4 driving together just like that!

There are signs around all of the (hundreds and hundreds) quilts on display that say if you post a photo of the quilt anywhere to also please give credit to the designer and to Quilts Inc.  I took a lot of photos but I didn’t note the designer so to be fair, well I’m not posting any photos.  But I went to the quilt show!  Honest – I did!

After looking at many of the quilts, we went into the vendor section and were wowed all over again. The convention center is 5 city blocks long and I think there were 25 rows down of just vendors and 3 or 4 blocks across. I did buy a few things, including a “block of the month” for decorative pillows (so it’s a pillow of the month I guess!) from Shabby Fabrics.  I had an “aha!” moment on what was causing me angst for getting the pillow done earlier that I was working on.  If you buy the kit, all of the pieces are already laser cut and have a fusible backing pre-applied.  I didn’t have to cut out a single thing on this pillow!  If you buy just the pattern, then you still need to do that part.

We spent a full day at the show and all agreed we probably didn’t see half of what there was to see.  We are headed out the door again in a couple of hours which means no Saturday sewing for me unfortunately.