My Goodness! Where do I start?

I have had company for the better part of three weeks, and what a packed three weeks it has been!

Our son flew down to Arizona to be with us for a week. He and his dad, Mr.O spent the first few days hiking some of the tougher trails in the area. While they did that I did get a day in working on my stained glass block, and I also managed to get a bit of sewing in. 

My sister, Barb and I got a good start on this month's Schnibbles project. I am still pretty slow at it because of my splinted finger, but slow and steady wins the race, right? I did manage to get all the cutting done, and but very little piecing got done because i had to pack things up to prepare the room for my next company...my brother and sister in law. They arrived Wednesday and I had the next day planned for a "girls day out". 

AQS quilt week was happening in Phoenix this year! In a perfect world, I would have attended all four days of Quilt Week and attended a class both morning and afternoon of each day, and squeezed in the quilt show as well as all 200 vendors booths. This however is not a perfect world, and I had neither the time, the funds, or the energy. We did however, get to see the quilt show and shop on the second day (Thursday) and believe me when I tell you that was more than what we bargained for. Up early in the morning, an hour drive and then 8 hours of walking through the huge convention center was plenty for this old girl.

There is no way to cover all we saw but  I will show some of the quilts in later posts. 

On Saturday we left the guys to fend for themselves again...

Barb and I registered for a class on Saturday...she took machine quilting and I took Beginner Hand Appliqué with Mary Andra Holmes. She is a master quilter and appliquer and also owns a pattern company with her three sisters.    www.sistersquiltingtrunk.com

My class was only 3 hours so in order to touch on everything needed to complete a project, we jumped from step to step, but this is the project we were given to do.(and that I hope to eventually finish)

I really dont have much to show for my three hours, because all I managed to do between taking notes and copying pattern pieces was to needle turn applique about 1/3 of one side of the tree trunk and one of the berries. After the class was finished, i packed things away and I have really not had a chance to even take it out of the bag since returning home with it.

I do however feel more confident to tackle an applique project now and it's a good thing too, because one of my blog readers has challenged me to do a baltimore Album quilt with her! I laughingly agreed, thinking it was my sister Barb, when in actuality it was a different Barb! It was only when she commented that when she returned from her vacation to Hawaii she would be ready to tackle such a project, that I realized it was not my sister. So Barb H. if you are reading this, I have not forgotten your challenge and I am preparing myself to tackle my first block. I am pretty sure I will not be making a full sized Baltimore Album quilt to start, but maybe a smaller version of one...or maybe just a block, that becomes a medallion block for a future project. I will decide as I go along.

I got to see a few big name quilters while there...Carrie Nelson was in the ticket line the same time as us, we saw Lisa Bongean of Primitive Gatherings, the girls from Me and My Sister Designs, Anita Grossman Solomon, and I know there were others but it is 11:20pm and my brain is sort of mushy tonight.

It was an exciting couple of days as far as quilting goes and I am excited to be able set up my machine and get back at it again tomorrow. 

What else did we do to keep busy? Well, we visited Frank Lloyd Wright's home again and had an amazing and very knowledgable guide to enlighten us on more FLW trivia.

We visited the Botanical Gardens that was featuring an exibition of a glass sculptor, Dale Chihuly. 

You may have seen some of his pieces at Belaggio on the Vegas Strip, or possibly the MGM Grand Casino in Macau. He has had pieces featured at Kew Gardens and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London as well. Here are a few of the pieces we were able to see. They are blown glass and keep in mind that they are huge pieces of art.

This last piece is a floating piece. All of the blown glass pieces are in an old boat, floating in a pond. Very striking!

We kept busy at many other things but because we are on the subject of glass, I will jump ahead to today and show you a piece glass art of a much different caliber, I finished cutting, grinding, foiling, and soldering my quilt block project. I still need another day or two to frame, and patina and clean my project but here is another shot of my progress.

It is far from perfect and let me tell you it is much faster and easier to make a 12" churn dash block in fabric than in glass, but I am glad to have tried it, and who knows? I may make another, next year.

I think I will call it a night and hopefully I will get back tomorrow evening to share a few more fun things we did with our company in the last two weeks.

Sweet dreams!

“Creativity takes courage. ” 
― Henri Matisse