sooner or later

All day at work, the suitcase was on my mind. Flew to the store after working till past 9 pm, walked in when someone walked out - I'm sure the doors were already locked. Went directly to MY bag, did not pass GO, then to the case register and charged it. The cashier was laughing to see me again buying the bigger green case. She said she was glad I came back to get it before it was gone! People in the line ahead of me admired my good taste. I was wearing a lime green shirt. Another lady in line was also dressed in lime and we chatted about green. Me gusta mucho cosas verdes! What a sweetie.

I have no idea where I will store this one. It's big enough to live in. I could be a bag lady on the street. A very fashionable bag lady with all my frogs in my green luggage on wheels. No stolen shopping cart for me.

For now, it's beside the Christmas Tree - too big to fit under it. Merry Christmas to me! Thank you to everyone who commented.

While shopping for elegant gray pants to wear to a holiday party, I found this gorgeous suitcase. Couldn't pass it up - on sale. There's another huge one still at the store which would hold ALL my crafting supplies for the next big retreat in the woods. Should I go back and get it? Who's going to be my enabler on this one?

I found the right pants by the way. And two other pairs. It's probably a good thing I don't go shopping often.

I'm on track on a number of projects but I feel like there's a steam engine right on my heels. Running as fast as I can.

I'm in the middle of a big, really big weaving project and I have to go looking for more paper to roll it on with. Mine is wider than my daughter's warp and I really should take my own advice and just get a roll of the right size that is a mile long - just in case.

Then there's the art quilt top I'm just about done with. An online class project. It's coming along nicely and will be a Christmas present for some lucky person who doesn't have time to read blogs.



Yesterday, the grill king and I got a lot of shopping done. Now we need to start wrapping things up and stowing them under the tree. Of course, none of the presents purchased so far are for the out of town crowds so no shipping will be done early.

Still carrying around a box of tissues and cough drops.

Picking out toys for tots and big boys is really hard. Mostly they already have what they need and want. Sometimes we want them to have better things, so we shop and shop and shop. We found some practical things, some fun things, some silly stuff and some good chocolate.

Not a bad haul, really. Rained hard after we unloaded the car!

Got most of the napkin warp rolled onto the back beam - need more paper or corregated.

Finished up some photo editing of a vacation album that will be printed up very professionally for gifts, too.

Need a nap now.

I dreamed someone had removed the shower curtain and I was taking a shower without it and no water was hitting the floor. Must have been because I was thinking yesterday that it was about time to take it down and wash it.... so I did today. Dreams are powerful incentives.

Then I got my hair cut. Just walked in to Supercuts after using my coupon at Hobby Lobby for Peltex and there was an opening with a stylist who has straight, thin hair so I figured I was pretty safe in her hands. She did just what I asked her to efficiently and confidently and I like how it turned out. The grill king commented on it positively. Another item crossed off my to-do list.

Dinner tonight with the kids to celebrate my daughter's birthday some more.

I added a few more photos to the album below to show you what I made and what I bought. I have 129 photos of quilts in another album for sharing directly rather than broadcasting on the web.

Tired, very tired today.

International Quilt Festival

So the jars of fate were on my side! My name was drawn for the one class I would have time to take at Make It University - the delightfully fun part of the International Quilt Festival sponsored by Quilting Arts and ClothPaperScissors Magazines.

Click on the photo to see a few more photos of the fun. I will be adding more later. I took more than 75 photos in the Journal Quilt area. Amazing work there, as always. But this year, I feel like I "know" some of these women, having listened and learned a lot on the QuiltArt Forum.

I met up with a weaving friend, Nancy, and a yahoo friend, Margaret, for lunch and we made more friends while sharing our table with other quilters who joined us. So much to talk about, so much to see. I feel like I need to take a week off from work and really DO the festival next year. I missed preview night (Halloween festivities not to be missed!) and the Friday night QuiltArt reception (traffic horrors which I wish I had missed!) and had to leave early for an event on Saturday night.

Today, my daughter and I go the festival again. Shopping and more photos in my future. Maybe another class if the jars of fate are generous. I'll be wearing my lucky coin purse necklace again today and passing out MEOW Cards. They're sorta copy cats of the MOO cards which I think are cool. The cards have a photo of the coin purse, my email, blog address and the link to the instructions for the coin purse on Handwoven's website. I foisted them off to anyone who commented on my little purse necklace.

One woman asked how long did it take to make the coin purse and I said, well, after you have the two-inch wide wire warp threaded onto your 45-inch-wide, $3,000+ loom, it only takes about an hour to make the whole thing. She was a good sport and laughed along wtih us. I told her if she was really interested I would give her instructions on how to weave it on a picture frame but it would be a little more free-form and less gridlike. We'll see if she really wants to make one badly enough to email me.

After going to a class on Saturday (!) taught by my SIL on computer security and internet safety, I stopped by Texas Art Supply and just about had a credit card meltdown. They have everything I need and want. Working there would be worse than working at Godiva Chocolates.

I went in looking for Diamond Glaze. Of course, there were out of it. But ... they had some Lazertran Silk which I "need" to do some polymer clay pieces I have been designing in my head for a couple of months. Then I also found a pad for making an ink pad dedicated to a big stamp I have that wants to be in multicolor inks. A rubber stamp of "Art and Soul" that is in my favorite type font. Some Scratch Magic stickers for the granddaughter to play with this morning. Some stamp pads in metallics that will work on mica chips *and* some mica chips.



Then as I was checking out, some very large sheets of handmade paper were on sale - and they are the perfect colors for some books I am planning to make with the leftovers of the swatch swap sample fabric I finished up two weeks ago. Just have to clear the worktable a bit so I can start decorating and gluing. These will be for the sale at HCCC at the end of the month.

Today the nasty little truck went back to the shop. Been smoking a lot more than usual lately. To refresh your memory, the little truck had a problem last September . Towards the end of the post. Then we gave it a patch and the little truck promised to quit smoking.

More intervention is needed. Little Truck's proud owner is now reading up on new(er) cars. He'll never buy a "new" car. I just listen. He hates to pay out big bucks. The mileage on the hybrids look good to him. I'm just listening. But they want too much for them. Hmmm. Must be because they are in demand. So instead we will buy a cheap vehicle which will be cheap because no one else wants it. Makes perfect economic sense. To someone.

So now we'll go grocery shopping to fill out the menu of swiss fondue and things to dunk in it. The grilled steak chef moves onto dairy products.

Sometime today I have to get a round robin on travel finished. I have a plan.... I mailed off squares of flannel for a group quilt I've organized. And I sent my mom her birthday present early. And yesterday, I mailed postcards to the Heart-2-Heart project. It's almost too late unless you send them overnight on Monday.

And the guest room needs roto-rooting.

I'm not sure which side is the front and which is the back. This is a reactive round robin. Daune began with stamped leaves in fall colors, Rachel did a leaf watercolor with stamped bare trees, and Wendy punched a million little leaves and collaged them around a textured tree trunk.
These are leaves from my tiny sweet gum tree - the daughter of one that we took down a couple of years ago. The big one was between the house and the garage and was part of our foundation problems - we took it down because it died finally not a last ditch effort to save the house.
I scanned the leaves and then printed them on a transparency which I glued over a crumpled piece of golden tissue. Then a coat of matte medium to degloss the plastic.



This side is the view of the tree just last week from beneath its small spreading arms. I've been watching it, waiting for red to appear. Sometimes the leaves drop too quickly after turning yellow and we don't get any deep reds. Last weekend, I just happened to look out and there was some red so M and I ran out to take photos. I printed the photo on a iron-on transfer and then ironed it onto watercolor paper. Glued on some printed marbled paper and used postage stamps and some die-cuts. Another coat of matte medium.



Nice to finish a project and have it ready to mail next week.