WAZOO! November 2012 Retreat

Here is the slideshow of our latest getaway in Sebring, Florida. Come join us sometime! Our next retreat is January 27th through the 30th, 2013.

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Better picture of the Craftsy quilt top

Okay, I promised I would take a better picture today, and this is as good as it is gonna get. Mr. Wazoo doesn't like to keep holding up quilts for me, especially when he has to get on a ladder to do it!

Now all I need to do is finish the customer quilt on my Gammill and get packed for the retreat.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Mr. Wazoo and I had a quiet Thanksgiving at home enjoying lounging around with coffee watching the Macy's parade and doing a little sewing. We ordered our dinner from Publix and picked it up yesterday afternoon. A big box of goodies, to be sure, but lacking any vegetable or rolls. While the whole shebang was cooking, I sewed the sashings for my Craftsy block of the month quilt. After steaming some broccoli and making crescent rolls, we ate in our 'new' snazzy Ikea dining room with a table cloth and everything!

Mr. Wazoo ready for dinner

Thanks to Ikea and a do-it-yourself hubby, we have a real dining room!

With the longarm in the background, idle for now, it's time to eat!

My Craftsy BOM quilt. I will take a photo in natural light tomorrow. The fluorescent lights make the colors look harsh and off.

After the dishes were done, I set to work on the quilt and just finished putting on the borders. Time for pumpkin pecan pie (my own, and quite yummy), another glass of smooth Chardonay, and my nightly Christmas flick on the Hallmark channel. I think it was a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am so thankful for our bounty that I plan to go to bed early and sleep, sleep, sleep! No black Friday mania here, only the zen of a peaceful day with my husband and puppy.

Night at the Movies challenge

Hey, I forgot to show you the quilt I made for the guild challenge. The rules were that your quilt had to depict a movie. People then saw the quilts and guessed what the movies were. I won a gift certificate to a quilt shop for guessing the most movies correctly (shows you what I do in my spare time...). Can you guess what movie I depicted in my entry? If you get stumped, look at the bottom of the previous blog entry for the answer.

close up

Entire quilt

Quilting for kind hosts and our customers

Mr.Wazoo and I recently took a trip to Texas to see my folks and stayed in the home of some gracious snowbirds who were 'up-north' for the summer. They didn't know us at all, but offered their home just steps away from my Mom and Dad's little house. It was wonderful to have our own space and not feel like interlopers on my folk's privacy. So what do you do to thank kind people like that? Make them a quilt, of course! I used fabric that would go with their living room colors and decor, and chose the BQ2 pattern. It went together in a snap and Mr.Wazoo did the quilting. I think it turned out quite nice!
Last week we were busy doing quilts for people going north for the holidays, and getting caught up on the line of quilts in the back room. I love having the man here working; he is really making a dent in the backlog of projects.

Quilt for Keith and Judy

quilted by Mr. Wazoo

Mr.Wazoo

I quilted this one; oodles of flamingoes!

I quilted this Christmas quilt

Mr.Wazoo again

He did this one, too.

Me again. This is a pretty quilt with hand embroidery

I quilted this humongous quilt; it took three days!

a bit of detail

Mr.Wazoo did the edge to edge...

And I did the custom part! A great team effort.

Now, we're taking a breather for Thanksgiving Day to enjoy some quiet time and give thanks for our family, friends and wonderful life. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too!
*Gone With The Wind

Mancuso Show 2012

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Yippee! A day off at last!

I finished the big custom project and took today to help Tim get the new cabinets filled and do a bit of sewing on my Craftsy blocks of the month. After all, everybody else is putting their quilts together and I am still slogging along trying to get the last six blocks done. Oh well, I work hard and take whatever time I have to do some fun sewing, so I can't complain.
Tomorrow it will be business as usual, on to another challenging custom quilt and more wonderful time at the Gammill doing what I love to do!

Beautiful quilt! Wish it was mine...

Border and corner triangle quilting

Block quilting

Sashing treatment

A peek at the back

Craftsy BOM

Craftsy BOM

Craftsy BOM

Things are buzzing at WAZOO!

Oh my, it has been a busy couple of weeks here at the old WAZOO homefront. We made a trip to Ikea for some cabinets and Mr. Wazoo has been busy with the 'some assembly required' part of the transaction. He also finished a couple of customer quilts, and still had time to mow the lawn! Where does he find all those extra hours? I'd love to discover his secret...
I have been doing custom jobs and they take a few days each, so the progress is slow, but rewarding. I have one on the machine now that has taken 4 days so far and now I am in the home stretch with just 3 borders to go!! Woo hoo!
Molly is doing better with missing Skipper, but still barks and cries when we go away and starts up again when we get home. She acts so hyper and excited to see us, you'd think we left her for days instead of hours. She has never been alone, so I'm sure it will take her some time to get used to it.
Well, the machine is calling me and I am determined to finish the work in progress today, so I had better scoot. I will post pictures of the completed quilt later.
Oh yes, I have 2 entries in the Mancuso show in West Palm Beach, if you are going. Keep an eye out for my name there!
Happy quilting!

Mr.Wazoo #1

Mr.Wazoo #2

Mr. Wazoo #3

One of my custom jobs

I love the fabric selections!

Custom job #2

Whimsical and fun blocks

Setting triangle quilting to mimic the border fabric

My work-in -progress shabby chic customer quilt

One of the blocks

Mr.Wazoo #4

Mr. Wazoo #5!!

Having a wonderful time...wish you were here

Everyone has to have a day off for a bit of a lark now and again, and ours was a wonderful trip to Tampa to check out Ikea. We needed some cabinets for the dining room and had scoped out the catalog front to back. Tim and I dropped off Molly for a play date with her doggy friends Teddy and Toby and headed off on an adventure. Ikea is huge! We spent the day marveling at the stuff there and the low prices, before settling on three cabinets, a dining room table and a desk for me to sew on. I wish you all could have come along; it's a great place.
Back at home, I did some catching up with sewing projects that are due soon like the guild brown bag challenge and the other guild's movie challenge. I wish I could show you now, but it may be your fabric that was in my brown bag, and I don't want to spoil the surprise for you. As for the movie challenge...you might have time to guess what mine depicts before the guild meeting...so I won't show that to you, either! Next month, it will be revealed. I promise.
Meanwhile, Tim kept up the pace with his quilting, and the fruit of his labor is shown in the pictures.
I really wish you were here to see how well he is doing, and how happy he is to set his own work schedule! 'Retirement' is turning out to be the best job we ever had.

Bed runner for a customer

Customer quilt

Seashell quilting

One of my sister's quilts...many more to do!

I'm working on my movie challenge quilt here

Oh yes, I also made my sample project quilt for the November retreat!

quilting detail

pretty backing