Asheville, NC

Yesterday, I went to Asheville with my friend Gail and enjoyed the quilt show there. I took pictures, but not of everything. Here are the quilts that caught my attention and made my heart pitter pat.

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On Thursday, I finished the flimsy of the Block of the Month I'll be doing at the Misty Mountain Guild, and went ahead and wrote the introduction and instructions for the first couple of blocks. Whew! I'm glad that's done. Mr Wazoo quilted a customer project, and then ventured out to enjoy the beautiful weather in the yard.

My BOM flimsy. I hope to get it quilted today.

Pretty quilt, all done

Panto: Bali dream

Charity quilts all bound and gone to the guild effort

Peaceful work day

We got right back into the rhythm of the quilt studio and finished some quilts. I am trying to get these charity quilts done for the meeting tomorrow, but fear that isn't going to happen. The quilting is done, but the binding isn't... we'll see.

All these quilts are for my Blue Ridge guild

The ladies got together at a sew-in and made them

I quilted them with either Flower Power or Simple Meander

The last of the charity quilts. Back to paying customers!

This monster of a whole cloth quilt is almost finished...The tablet crashed three times during the quilting process and re-entering all the settings was time consuming. I finally gave up at 6:30 and went to make our supper.

Mr Wazoo worked in his 'Man Cave' and finished two customer quilts for a patron from Texas!

Of course, I love the lime green! My favorite color.

Panto: Swirl and Twirl

Beautiful pinwheels, and lime green again!!

Panto: Small Splat

I have also been trying to get the Block of the Month pieces made for the October debut. I stupidly gave away the sample for this project after finishing it a few years ago, so I'm having to make it again! I am also tweaking the instructions to make them more readable and easy to follow. I struggled a bit last time, and don't want to confuse anyone.

Well, I had better get going or I won't get anything accomplished today. Mr W is off to SC to see his Mom, so I can do whatever I want!! I think I'll quilt!

Getting back to normal

The show is over and was a very nice event. Everyone who helped seemed pleased with how things looked and the extra exhibits, demos and vendors provided there. It took a while to get the slide show done, but here it is for your viewing pleasure.
FYI: I didn't win the raffle quilt. A nice lady from Murphy, NC had that honor. I guess I'll have to make another one!

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Hmmm...I'm a bit peeved that the vertical pictures have their bottoms cut off...Sorry.

Quilt show week

Quilt take in went smoothly, the judging room prepared, and the first day of judging is over. Oh my! The quilts are beautiful!! We're going to have a wonderful show. I'm off to judging today, scribing for the last fifty or so quilts. By this afternoon, we'll know who won the big prize! (It's not me) My customers are making a good showing, and that makes me happy. My quilts were in stiff competition, so I am still happy with the results. One of  mine will be judged today. In my mind, I know which quilt would be best of show if I got to pick, but I haven't seen it up close, so I can't be sure of the construction. This judge is fair and efficient, a true professional. Kay and I had dinner with her last night, and she is a delightful person, as well. If you ever have to get the judge for a show, you won't go wrong with Lorraine Covington.
Tomorrow will be the "off-day", but we will be anything but off! We have loads of prep to do for set-up day, and I will be loading the car with stuff I have for the boutique and the outreach booths. All this hubbub is exciting to me. I Love quilt shows!!

Odds and ends

 Show week starts tomorrow with the take in of the quilts. I have all my quilts ready, threads trimmed and tidy.

Quilts in bags, sewing machine table ready for the demonstrations...

My bears turned out kind of cute. Not prize winning cute, but nice.

Aye caramba! Daca grew a moustache.

Elmer is ready for hunting season.

All the other stuff is ready for price tags. I have a few more items I hope to finish, but if I don't, they will be nice Christmas gifts!

It will all go in boxes later today.

Basket full of chickens!

I attached snaps to some of the bibs, but it was a frustrating task!

The squeezy tool was nearly impossible to line up with the snap parts, and I wasted at least ten snaps. Prying them off the bib was difficult, and I managed to do this before I switched to velcro...

OUCH!! Pinched it and made a blood blister.

Mr Wazoo took a partial day off from yard tinkering and quilted a couple of customer projects. 

This quilt is so cheerful and pretty! I love the fabric selections.

He used the panto, Small Splat, which is perfect for quilts like this.

The backing is this soft polka dot fabric

This lively, colorful quilt makes me happy!

The hearts and flowers panto is called Springtime

Yowza! I love this backing!!

When Mr W finished his quilting, he was off to the nursery for some plants. He has enough shrubs for the rest of the driveway now.

Why does every shopping trip he takes end up looking like this?

Or this...

I guess its okay when it turns into this

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Or the driveway looks like this!

Here is the tree that fell in the back yard. Way back and not bothering anything. We'll leave it  where it is.

I'm glad it didn't fall toward the house. Its a tall one, so I think it would have hit us.

Later, we were sitting in the living room with the doors and windows open, and I mentioned it smelled like dog poop. Old man says, "oh...it could be the compost in the truck..." Turns out, he also bought a load of cow manure and parked it below the bedroom windows. I had a fan going in the window, and it was dispersing the aroma through the whole house. Yum...
What would I do without him? Its always an adventure.

The source of the smell

My windows, with a fan wafting the smell into the house.
(oh yeah...Go Packers!!)

Everything was fine by bedtime, so I guess its okay to have a load of manure under the window overnight. But, today, it has to go!! I'll be in the studio.

Storm has passed, on with the show!

We lost power a few moments after I finished the last blog entry, and I have been busy with my evacuees from Florida until today, when they braved the ride back to their home. It will be some time yet before we find out how they fared. The road south, Interstate 75, is clogged with people wanting to get home, and the gas situation is sketchy. I hope they do okay, especially with two dogs in the car!
The only perk from having no power is that I cleaned the refrigerator when I had to move all the food to the back porch freezer to plug it to the generator. 16  hours later we had power again and I moved all the stuff back. We defrosted the porch freezer, too. Everything is sparkling clean and tidy! I can now find stuff that used to be lost in the bottom of the freezer. Yippee!
Needless to say, no quilting was accomplished. We wandered out to assess the local damage from the storm, and fortunately, we did well. One tree down, but parallel to the house and not a problem. We'll leave it to nature to use as she pleases. Not everyone did as well. There were many trees and wires down in the countryside by our house, and some of my friends had no power for a long period of time. The weather was wonderfully cool, so we just left the windows and doors open.
Today, we had the last meeting before the show week starts on Sunday. Everything is rolling along well and I sure am excited to see it up and open!
If you are in the north Georgia mountains, western North Carolina, north western South Carolina or south eastern Tennessee and love quilts, come on over to Blairsville and enjoy the show. Friday 9 to 5 and Saturday 9 to 4 at the House of Prayer Church Gym, 1400 Pat Colwell Rd. Blairsville, GA. There are oodles of fun things to do and see besides the show itself, so come on over.
I'll be back soon with pictures...

Hurricane Irma comes to town

Florida had a bad couple of days and my friends there had to bug out. Two of them, and their dogs have come to the Georgia mountains to ride out the storm here. Now, it looks like we are going to get the tail end of the storm tonight.
In order to pass the time waiting and watching it develop on TV, my friend and I have been chatting, perusing Pinterest and making flower magnets. They were more fun than I thought they would be!

I had18 magnets, so we made 18 flowers

some have rounded petals

some have pointed petals

all of them have scrappy cuteness!

I also decided to make one of my little bears a Mexican bear, Daca. 

Little Daca wants to go home with an American quilter.

The other bear will be a country bear who likes to hunt. I am thinking of ways to make his accessories...

Elmer the bear

His accoutrement will include a beer and a gun

Okay, let's get serious. I had a customer who needed a quilt made in a day, so I used her panel and made this little baby quilt for her start to finish in just a few hours.

Very cute!

Panto: African Samba

Her backing was 16 inches short, so I added some teddy bears from my stash.

Now, it's night, the lights keep dimming and blinking, its raining hard, and I fear we will lose power soon. We're watching Midsomer Murders, and I will probably miss the part where they reveal the killer...bummer! Maybe I'll have to watch it on Netflix later. If the lights go out, I have my kindle all charged up and ready to go. I am just a few chapters into a juicy Aunt Bessie mystery. More tomorrow, I hope!