Friday, September 30, 2011

TVQG Show

     The Trinity Valley Quilters' Guild Annual Quilt show began today.  We are in a smaller location which makes it seem a little crowded but still a very good show...great quilts and everyone seems to be having a good time with it.

     I am so proud of studioQ!!!  Those who had entries in the show really came out winners!!  Of our 14 members, 8 had entered quilts in various categories and we rec'd a total of 13 ribbons...pretty good percentage!!  Below see some of the entries...I haven't gotten pictures of all of them yet.

Heather Pregger

Bethany Rowland -Reed

My "Aurora Borealis" 

My "Totem"

Kay Scheffer

both are Kay Scheffer's

Susan Garay

bottom one-Susan Garay
       These are just a few of the "winning quilts"!!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Great Trip....Cooler Locations

     It has been so hot here in Texas that we decided to go North where it would be hopefully much cooler.  We had always wanted to go back to Upper Michigan when we had come through there several years ago.   So a couple of weeks ago, we took off...went up through Missouri to visit family then on to St. Paul MN to see some fabulous wood work at a museum there.


There was also a musical instrument museum in the same building which had some very interesting old phonographs and other things.


St. Paul is a lovely old city overlooking the Mississippi River.  It had been a railroad town and has a wonderful model train museum.  I am not usually into this type of museum but this one was close to our motel so we decided to take a quick look.  But we really enjoyed  it....done exactly to scale of the twin cities in the period around 1950's.


We ate at the famous Mickey's diner in downtown St. Paul....a very fun place because of the history and pretty good food to boot!


     Then we drove to Munising, Michigan where we spent a couple of nights.  The town is located right on the Upper Michigan peninsula on Lake Superior.....surrounded by many water falls and the "home base" of the Painted Rocks Park.

One of the falls we saw
And another fall.
It was raining and quite cold up there....especially since we coming from 110 degrees weather!!!  We still got everywhere we wanted to go but had to wait a couple of days to get to take the boat tour of the Painted Rocks.
An arched rock on the Painted Rock tour.
From Munising we traveled to Sault Saint Marie to see the locks.  Again a really great time...we not only saw several huge freighters go through the locks, we took a tour ourselves.

One of the gates of the locks on our tour boat.  We are heading from Lake Huron to Lake Superior, the higher of the two....a great experience!!!  The International Bridge is in the distance.
After leaving Sault Saint Marie, we drove to Mackinac City....staying there a couple of days...visiting Mackinaw Island and the fort one day....going over on a ferry and taking the carriage tour; our own walking tour afterwards.
Team of horses that pulled the carriages...no cars allowed on the island!
The Grand Hotel (where we didn't stay...way too expensive!!!)

From Mackinac, we went to Traverse City home of the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes and other spectacular scenes!    We really loved this area...on a drive up one of the peninsula on Lake Michigan, we saw barns with quilt blocks painted on the sides. Many of the blocks were symbolic of what the family stood for...like a totem pole.


Then we did another car tour on our own to the Sleeping Bear Dunes....very impressive!!  The dunes were huge...created by wind and water...and constantly changing.


     The whole trip was just one adventure after another...we met so many nice people everywhere we went and saw so many terrific things..from nature to museum...wonderful lighthouses; fantastic food...we even visited two Presidential libraries on our way home...Gerald Ford in Grand Rapids, MI and Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, IL.
     I have relatives in Illinois so we spent a few days visiting with brother, cousins, niece and nephews...great time!!  Now we are home and back to where I left off!!  Quilt show is this coming weekend and I need to get my labels and my sleeves on my entries!!!  Much as I loved the trip, I am glad to be home!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Swap quilt ready to go!

      This swap comes from  Kate in UK....it is the 6th Another Little Quilt Swap, but the first one I have been involved in.  After sending the picture to Kate, she will post all the entries; participants will go in and pick out their favorites and at some point in time, Kate will send addresses to mail the quilts.  She somehow sorts out who wants what!!!  I am looking forward to all the entries!  I looked at the earlier swaps and the quilts are quite nice!
Here is my entry!  And I have her logo for the swap on my sidebar if anyone is interested in looking at others.
"Monarchs" (because the focal fabric has Monarch butterflies on it!)
      And for my grandson's 14th birthday, we all went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not/Wax Museum in Grand Prairie then to Medieval Times in Dallas for show and dinner. That was a blast!!!  None of us had been there before so we thoroughly enjoyed it...from cheering for our Knight to eating with our fingers....much laughter!!!
Ripley's / Wax Museum

Medieval Times in Dallas

And I had to make him a Zentangle birthday card!!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Zentangle Challenge #37-"Kiss My Grids"

     This week's challenge is to do "tangles" that are based on grids...which many of them are.  The Diva came up with the catchy title based on the old tv sitcom Alice (which comes from the movie Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore) when the waitress Flo would tell anyone off by saying  "Kiss my Grits!"  And being from Canada, the Diva didn't know for sure what grits were, but remembered the show from when she was a kid!  Consequently, she received many comments with definitions of grits!!! Some pretty accurate..some 'way off base according to what I think grits are!!  Here is my contribution and accompanying haiku!

"Kiss My Grids"

"A good play on words.
"Kiss my Grits" from Mel's Diner.
Seventies sit com!"