Check out this great MSN video: Amazing 'Sexy And I Know It' Cover

Check out this great MSN video: Amazing 'Sexy And I Know It' Cover

This kid is awesome!  Great voice!  And he did a wonderful job of this song.. so much better than the original by LMFAO.

Quilts in Bloom Show 2012 - pictures

No point in talking about these much, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  Let's just say we have some incredibly talented quilters in and around Ottawa.

Beautiful maple leaves

Doesn't this just look like fall?

This one is beautful in neutrals

I loved the quilting on it

I love the celtic dragonfly here

Awesome memory quilt, the ingenuity to make it look like a bookcase is amazing, almost 3D

This little beauty is less than 22" square... such tiny pieces! (see card below)

 

I love the celtic knots

Another celtic beauty

These were just some of the quilts on display (some even listed they were for sale!).
 I'll be going back again today - I was really disciplined yesterday and didn't buy a thing! except my 3 day pass  :)

Superior Threads has a table there an had some beautiful trilobal threads on huge cones for $14.  I'm going to pick up a read one in anticipation of quilting my Jamestown Landing. 

Also, I met Mari, the owner of Bytowne Threads - she's our very own local Aurifil distributor!

Another vendor table, Kallisti Quilts, had a wonderful selection of sashiko supplies, threads in all colours, not just white, and little kits and lots of patterns and printed fabrics.  I'll have to stop by her stand again.

More later.....

Quilts in Bloom Quilt Show 2012

Quilt Show 2012

The Common Thread Quilt Guild will be presenting this biennial quilt show. 

The Quilts in Bloom Quilt Show will take place Mother's Day weekend, May 11 to 13, 2012 at the RA Centre, 2451 Riverside Drive in Ottawa, Ontario.

Quilt Show Times are:

Friday, May 11th, 20012: 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, May 12th, 2012: 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, May 13th, 2012: 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

The admission to the 2012 Show:
General $8;
Weekend Pass $12.

Fabricland Members Sale - 50% off!

Fabricland is having a huge member's sale today through Saturday (May 10th - 12th).

If you make clothing or home dec items, even all the patterns are 50% off!!

I stopped in this morning because I wanted a couple summer skirt patterns, in the books they're listed as $14.95 and $16.95 each (US). 

When I went to the counter for the lady to pull them, she rang them in at 5 patterns x $7.95 each, and then took another 50% off that!  Holy!  With tax I paid a whopping $21. 

I purchased 5 Simplicity patterns, some of which are wardrobe collections (skirt, pants, dress, jacket, blouse), I like getting more than one pattern in a package :)

Now I can sit and figure out which skirts I'm going to make (as I already have some summer fabrics for those) and see which coordinated pieces I want to make to go with them - and go hit the store before the end of saturday for those fabrics - yeah - a lot of them are 50% off too!

You can't beat that deal!!

Bathing Suit Blues (and giggles)

With summer (and swimsuit season) fast approaching... I thought this would be more than appropriate for a good laugh!  I did not write this.. but I've definitely "been there"!

Ok, I wasn't a child in the 1950's but I still like this. :-)

When I was a child in the 1950s, the bathing suit for the mature figure was-boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift, and they did a good job. Today's stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a figure carved from a potato chip.

The mature woman has a choice, she can either go up front to the maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a hippopotamus that escaped from Disney's Fantasia, or she can wander around every run-of-the-mill department store trying to make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of fluorescent rubber bands.

What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice and entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room. The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material. The Lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I believe, by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, which gives the added bonus that if you manage to actually lever yourself into one, you would be protected from shark attacks. Any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer whiplash.

I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder strap in place I gasped in horror, my boobs had disappeared! Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit. It took a while to find the other. At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib.

The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups. The mature woman is now meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a speed bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a full view assessment.

The bathing suit fit all right, but unfortunately it only fitted those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom and sides. I looked like a lump of Playdoh wearing undersized cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtain, "Oh, there you are," she said, admiring the bathing suit.

I replied that I wasn't so sure and asked what else she had to show me. I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of masking tape, and a floral two-piece that gave the appearance of an oversized napkin in a serving ring.

I struggled into a pair of leopard-skin bathers with ragged frills and came out looking like Tarzan's Jane, pregnant with triplets and having a rough day.

I tried on a black number with a midriff fringe and looked like a jellyfish in mourning.

I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.

Finally, I found a suit that fit, it was a two-piece affair with a shorts-style bottom and a loose blouse-type top. It was cheap, comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My ridiculous search had a successful outcome, I figured.

When I got it home, I found a label that read, "Material might become transparent in water."

So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water this year and I'm there too, I'll be the one in cut-off jeans and a T-shirt!

You'd better be laughing or rolling on the floor by this time. Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain, with or without a stylish bathing suit!

Road Trip Saturday

I'm a little bummed... I forgot all about Bonnie's Yard Sale Saturday that was on yesterday.  Checking the listings on her blog, I know there were some items I would have loved to have purchased from some of the quilters who participated.

But... it was an excellent day nonetheless. 

My two quilting girlfriends, Dianne and Katrina, had a road-trip to upstate New York planned for the day.

The girls picked me up a little before 9am and we hit the highway.

First stop, Joann's in Ogdensburg.  I wasn't really looking for fabrics (I definitely have enough in my stash) - but I looked and did find a couple more cheddars of decent quality to use for my bow tie blocks.  Basically I was looking for odds and ends, beads, fabric to make some summer skirts, cutting dies, etc.  50% off coupons come in handy!

There was no way I was leaving the store empty handed.  Katrina fell in love with my little iron that I took to the QOV bee last saturday and wanted to find a portable little iron for herself.  She found this for only $10.00

It's so cute!  I have no idea what the wattage is, or if it'll get hot enough to press seams really well, but for $10 it's worth a try.  I love the fact that the face plate is smooth.  Additionally, I found a larger pressing head for my portable iron, which I love and take with me often. 

I purchased some beads and a container to sort them and the meager supply of them I have at home.... there was a reason I was looking for more beads.

On April 18th Bonnie did a blog about stilettos, see here.  They were so beautiful, and obviously made an impression on me, because when we took Jim's mom to the dollar store last weekend, I found the poultry lacers in the kitchen section.  Honestly, I'd never seen them before.  A package of 8 for $1.00, I bought 2 packages.

So last night I sat down with the beads I had purchased and some that I already had and made these:

They turned out so nice!  Thank you so much Mary Tosch for allowing Bonnie to post the pdf instructions on her blog.

Granted I don't need 8 of these things, and still have 8 more poultry lacers and beads to make more, so I'm guessing some lucky quilters are going to be receiving a gift in the near future.

After the Joann's in Ogdensburg, we stopped into the Fashion Bug store, one I've never visited but definitely will again soon.  It's truly amazing how just an hour from home, in the US, the clothing fashions can be so different from what we have at home.  I loved the different designs and use of colours.  Needless to say, I purchased 2 pair of capri's, a pair of shorts and 2 tops that will be perfect for office wear this summer.

I had done a little research through various sites to see if we could find some quilt shops to hit on our way to Watertown.  Unfortunately, the internet does not have a large index of quilt stores in the upper New York area.  I even checked The Country Register for New York and couldn't find anything in the area we were going to be travelling in, which was very disappointing.

Luckily, I located a site (www.quiltvisionusa.com), which was very busy ie. full of ads and scrolling marquees - making it a little difficult to look at for long.  But down near the lower part of the page I saw links to maps.  Clicking on that you're taken to a page which lists a map for each state/province that they've developed one for.  You can view the map online and purchase one if you like.

I printed the location for Phoenix Fabrics in Hammond, NY.  Since we were leaving Ogdensburg and County Road 6 was right there, we thought, what the heck, lets go find it.

The drive was quite scenic, running along a river and through what we could see was amish country.  Susan has a quaint little shop (that we almost missed) and the poor lady really wasn't expecting much business to just "drop in" since she's in the middle of renovations.

We had a lovely chat about the difference in prices and some upcoming retreats (what they're calling a "quilt camp").  I also mentioned to her that I couldn't find her in The Country Register and that I'd located her shop on the 'vision' site.  I suggested she contact The Country Register as it has a very wide circulation.  More on that in a future post *hint, hint*

I couldn't leave without buying something, so picked up a couple beautiful applique wall hanging patterns and some Robert Kaufman blender fat quarters.

This post is getting a little long so I'll wrap up the balance quickly.

We headed to Watertown from there and checked out the larger (newer) Joann's store.
I did find some fabric to make some skirts, 3 to be exact.  As I was wondering around I saw they had the Accuquilt Go locked up in a display case.  I asked one of the sales ladies if they had any dies... since they have very few Cricut and Sizzix dies in a display.  One of the ladies asked another, apparently they haven't had time to put together a display yet.  She asked if I was looking for triangles or strips.  I asked her what she had in strips and she said she'd go look.

Well, lo and behold!!

The Studio size 2 1/2" strip die!!  It was regularly $75 and on sale for $56.  YAY!!!  I can use that in my Sizzix Big Shot Pro!!  I so wish I'd had this for cutting all those batik fat quarters for my log cabin blocks, but such is life... I have it now!!!

Now the girls have said they know where they're coming when they need strips cut!

I also picked up a couple of the Sizzix dies by Jim Holtz.... I'm seeing quite a few applique projects in my future.

The day ended well, the girls dropped me off at home and then they headed to a poker tournament.

A wonderful day of shopping and companionship and awesome finds! 

PS.  I forgot to add... I picked up a copy of:

I didn't even realize it was out!  As I was heading to the cash I saw it on the rack and just about shrieked!  And you know, the first page I headed to was our Bonnie's Turkey Tracks!  LOL