April Showers Bring May Flowers...

April Showers bring May flowers....While shopping in JoAnn Fabrics...Sherry found these pin kits a couple years ago..They were on a clearance table...These are beautiful Sherry...I have noticed that Sherry is getting a lot of UFO's done...the problem none of them are on her UFO list for this year...giggle...The Ol'Blogger

Easter Bunny was Busy....

Easter Bunny Sherry was busy for months before the family gathered for their Easter meal...The knives for Sherry's great nephews and grandsons are in the Easter bags...For the men in her family she made the Easter baskets...She embroidery these with her embroidery machines...in each are Easter candy..One of the guys said it had been many years since he had received a basket. :0) She also made each box to hold the necklaces and bracelet's for each of the girls and women in her family...We are all trying to get adopted into her family...Not only does she always have gifts but wonderful food...The Ol'Blogger

NLCS 32nd Annual Fine Arts Festival 2010

The NLCS had their The 32nd Annual Fine Arts Festival 2010

Pictured above Ally's Pottery..She is the grand daughter of Sherry and is in the 2nd grade..As you can

see she did a great job..

Her grandson Bryce's Fourth  Grade Class made this quilt from paper.Wonderful...

Sherry's grandson Nathan playing his Bass Clarinet at the Festival...He is in Junior High School.

They had a concert with the Art Festival...

Next generation of Artists..

The Ol'Blogger

Hoop Bag

Sherry designed this hoop bag for her embroidery hoops and a sewing table..24"by 21"and 8 1/2 deep..

Sherry place the pockets in the middle with Velcro so they are removable..

She made up the pattern as she went along..

As she said "One can never have too many bags"

The Ol'Blogger

Handkerchief Quilt

I don't know who made this...but I adore it..She had collected handkerchiefs over the years from women she knew..which lead to this quilt top..our friend Sharon embroidery the names of each beside their hankies...shaping the handkerchiefs she made  skirts...in some... parts of the hankerchiefs were use in the blouse..

Close up of one the blocks.....if you enlarge one can get a closer look...

I was impressed with them all....but this one really jumped out at me...

Geisha Tea Ceremony

Rhona's April UFO.Geisha Tea Ceremony

The origin of the Japanese tea ceremony came from China in the 8th century as an aid in alertness during meditation for Buddhist monks. Through the tea master Sen no Rikyu in the 16th century, it developed more detailed guidelines and spread to all levels of cultured society. It became an art form that both men and women participated in for formal guests or performances. It also became one of the geisha arts, in addition to dance, music, flower arrangement, and calligraphy.

She had purchased the piece of fabric at Shiisa Fabric Shoppe in Bloomington..She added fabric to area's and quilted.....which made it extra special...so peaceful...We all loved it..so did the workers at the shop..as she had it with her the day we had our monthly meeting at Jarad's...and of course we were to close to not stopped in at Shissa..so we insisted she take it in and share...They loved it...The Ol'Blogger

And the Winners Are...........

Half of SoTA Sisters were able to make the trek to Chicago.   We were able to get a picture of us standing next to our winning Hoffman Challenge Group quilt.

It was so exciting to see other people looking at our work.

Cindy's Hoffman Challenge was on display.   Can you believe it -she had forgotten it would be there!!!!
Kathy also has a Hoffman Challenge travelling this year.  Unfortunately, her quilt is in a different traveling group, so we weren't able to see it in Chicago.

Shopping is Fantastic in Chicago

One of the high points of our yearly trip to Chicago is a visit to the Discount Textile Warehouse.  This year we picked up a few items........

Oh, the trims, and trinkets and treasure we found! 

Another Chicago Project

Rhona's new kitchen curtains. Every year when I go to Chicago I look for fabric for new kitchen curtains and I finally found something I liked. Makes the kitchen much brighter and cheerier! PS - I made them on my new sewing machine. More on that later!

International Quilt Festival Chicago - Day 4

Breakfast at Eli's Cheesecake Factory and we head for Indiana.
On our first stop at Albanese Candy Factory, we promised Amy a piece of chocolate cheesecake -
and we delivered!!!!
As we left town, we picked up a little lunch to tide us over till we got back home.

And another memorable Quilt Festival Chicago is now history.

On our first stop at Albanese Candy Factory, we promosed Amy we'd bring her a piece of chocolate cheesecake

International Quilt Festival Chicago - Day 3

We started Day 3 of our adventure with leftover pizza for breakfast.

Lunch time - Sloppy Joes!

Dinner - Buffet at the Hotel - Tasty!!!!

And so ends our last day at Chicago Quilt Festival. Tomorrow we head home.

International Quilt Festival Chicago - Day 2

It's Thursday and we have another day of shopping ahead of us, so we have a little breakfast to get our strength up and hold us over for a late lunch.

Lunch time!

Decided to try something different this time - Cindy got the Eggplant Parmesan, Kathy got the Chicken Parmesan sandwich and Rhona got the Chicken Fettucine Alfredo. It was all just as good as their pizza!

On to Preview night at Quilt Festival...... and so ends Day 2.

International Quilt Festival Chicago - Day 1

Wednesday morning bright and early 3 of the SoTA's headed for International Quilt Festival Chicago. First stop was Cracker Barrel in Bloomington for breakfast.

On the road again, we headed north. Kathy had been told about a Candy Factory around Merrillville, so we searched and look what we found!

We decided this was a good place for a mid-morning snack.

They have a 60 foot Chocolate Fountain in the store!

Now we're on a sugar high, so it's on the road again to Chicago.

Next stop - lunch at Mannie's.

A little shopping and then we're off to Garrett's popcorn

Our afternoon snack......

A few snacks in the hotel room in case we get hungry.....

and now it's dinnertime and time for the BEST pizza in the WORLD!!!

And so ended Day 1 of our Big Adventure.

Latte Quilt

A friend of Sherry's and mine made this quilt...It is the Latte Quilt by Kerrie Hay...Sharon has made this for her bedroom..Sherry is going to quilt it for her.. Each block is stunning... Truthfully words can barely describe this quilt—WOW, awesome, fantastic, would come close. It is a tone on tone quilt. Each block is beautifully designed with embroidered lace type motifs combined with decorative stitching and quilting. After Sherry gets the quilting done I will post a picture here of the finished quilt...The Ol'Blogger

High on Life

"Before"...Okay three (Kathy,Cindy and Rhona) go to Chicago for the quilt show...and arrived home safely Saturday with projects challenges to finish....Cindy was to re-upholstery her computer chair...

"After"...She took one hour on Sunday and finished her challenge...while in Chicago in the warehouse she purchased the fabric...it has circles...remember the divider wall she and Kent did for their computer area..the glass was made with circles.. so the reason she wanted the fabric..Perfect....

The man at the warehouse thanked them for entertaining them..."for the show" I believe was his words...People even wanted to join them and know what they were drinking...Cindy answer..."nothing we are just high on life"...that would be the SoTA Sisters always fun no matter what...The Ol'Blogger

My April UFO

My UFO for April...Rhona bought these sewing kits for us while she and Cindy were in Texas for the quilt show...we are to have them done by CN...I added my Elvis watch, now I can always know what time it is...I am not as hung up on time as I use to be...but sometimes time is needed to make life easier for others...so I need to do my part :0)...

Opened.... there is a place for needles, pins and scissors.etc..Thank you again dear sweet Rhona....The Ol'Blogger

PS...while three of our girls are in Chicago the other three got together today....Jody worked on a quilt in progress, Sherry practiced her calligraphy letters and they taught me how to do a DNA stitch with beads...we did check on the girls and they were at the warehouse...Fun was had by all today....

Kathy's UFO

Kathy UFO for April...The girls took a class on fusing glass and these are Kathy's pieces...Then she beaded these chains for each...the one is a pin...I love each one...I will be joining "The Elder" tomorrow at Sherry's and they are going to teach me to make a beaded chain...Making your own jewelry is a practical and inexpensive way to indulge ones creative side...Like we need another outlet...sure we do...The Ol'Blogger

Another SoTA goes Wild....

Another "SoTA Goes Wild" wall hangings...Cindy created this beauty for her sewing room...which was part of our show-n-tell for the April meeting...I think we are all making one of these..for fun....~The group of people you associate with says a lot about your character... in my opinion, we are on the right track.~this wall hanging says: we enjoy each other and life...The Ol'Blogger

April F.M.F.U. Monthly Meeting..

We had are monthly meeting at Rhona's...It was a beautiful day in many ways...Pictured above: Rhona's sweat shirt turned into a jacket...
Here is Cindy's front and back

They used lace, yo-yo's and buttons to decorate the sweat shirts...Rhona created her with the longer length where Cindy cut hers for a short look...Both are stunning....Everyone was to have theirs made for the Chicago trip...Which will be Wed-Sat...

So far these are the only two finished...so time has been lengthened till Chocolate Night...

Rhona served us Rebecca's spaghetti with salad and bread...It was delicious...For desert she had made banana pudding...just like my Mom always made...which touched my heart...Thank you again sweet girl...We missed Sherry and Kathy was only able to stop to drop off some things she had for us..But Cindy P. did join again this month..

Will be sharing our show-n-tell and April UFO'S in the up coming days...The Ol'Blogger

Clutch Purses

This purse I made this week for my niece's prom...I laid a piece of netting with silver beads on top of the black fabric...quilted it with Sulky Shimmer silver thread...

This was the last of the fabric my sister purchased on her outing with us...