It has been a very long time.....

I suppose life took over in a good way and then maybe in a bad way, but it has been a long time and I have missed sharing my quilting life with all of you out there.

I have lots of plans and lots to do and I will share it all with you on a regular basis.  A number of things have changed and I will talk through those as well as the things that I hope will change and shape my future.

This is a short post to let you know that I am still here - so watch this space....

Apologies....

I have not lived up to the blogging expectations.  Since getting home from Des Moines life has been a tad hectic...

The challenge of producing two quilts for each AQS show has been a rough road along with the need to quilt custom quilts for customers. I am about on track but have a month to produce a stunner for Paducah.

 

These are the quilts entered into Lancaster!

 



 So please be kind if the Mystery Quilt is late and if I am not as regular as I should be with the blog - life is taking over - in a good way. 

 

 

 

Things I have learned this week.....

since I have been back from Des Moines many things have been achieved. 

I unpacked and did laundry - so I have clothes to wear.

I dealt with all the paperwork that had built up and paid all the bills - I am a little tight in the bank.

I rested up for a couple of days, ran errands and caught up with everything that needs to be done - my to do list is two miles long.

I ran a 5k race and didn't come last!

I went out for a training run this morning with Caper and met up with a black lab that escaped its collar and charged us - Caper did her best to protect me but I fell over the ensuing set to and landed on my knees, hand and face.  So I look like Booboo the clown.  I have a very grazed and red nose, top lip, hand and knees and they should all look spectacular tomorrow.  Not much sympathy (more hilarity) today, but wait until you see it tomorrow.....

I have done some work on the mystery quilt and I have also been working on the challenging prospect of putting two quilts into every AQS show this coming year.  The entries for Phoenix have been sent and I should hear back by December 6th if they have been accepted.  Lancaster entries are due by November 6th so some serious work needs to be done to get something ready by then - not sure what yet but I am excited.

Enough for tonight - if I can get caught up on custom quilting I hope to begin the mystery quilt next week.  It is a fabulous quilt and will look spectacular when it is finished so I hope you will play along with me.  Time for bed....

Back from Des Moines......

and very glad to be home.  It was a wonderful show and there are many new members of the PQ3000 family and it is going to be FUN!!!

The advantages of 17 plus hours each way (wow, 35 hours of my life!) is that my scrappy notebook that I scribble in when I am driving (trust me, a lot of the time I can't read what is there as I have to write with my eyes on the road) is full of silly thoughts.  This trip I worked out a very pumped up playlist for my 5K runs - maybe not music that most 56 year old ladies listen too, but full of energy.  I love it - 41 minutes of pure beat. 

So here is the challenge for 2014 - remember the 'at least one a month 5K' year with 12 T-shirts in the quilt? - well next year is the 'at least one a month 10K' year for the quilt.  I am going to DO IT!!

So I am listening to my new playlist while I am writing this and I am excited.  There are no more shows until February so I can concentrate on the mystery quilt and developing patterns for PQ3000 quilts and getting videos out there.  (And getting fitter).

On the trip I saw a lot of strange things being transported on very long trucks.  I spent a couple of hours wondering what they were.  They were very long, white and kind of fish wing shapes - then I got into farmland and worked it out - each one was a blade from a wind turbine.  I love those things - there is one in Wales that you can stand right next to, and it makes a wonderful, peaceful, swooshing sound. 

I was lucky on the trip up - the weather was wonderful.  There were also some lovely people at the Des Moines show who helped me to unload and laid the flooring in the booth.  And then they sent a volunteer to give me a bathroom break mid morning and mid afternoon.  I wish I could say I saw anything of the town, but I can't - just the show and the hotel.  The trip back was more eventful as I caught the remnants of the bad weather in Louisville KY late on Sunday night, so I got off the road and stayed safe. 

Some years ago, my late husband, John, had made a trip to Hiawatha, Iowa and traveled much of the same route that I took to Des Moines.  So there were many points of the trip that gave me memories - he would call me at regular points of the trip and tell me where he was - my favorite was when he called to say that he wanted to get off the road at 'Stinking Creek Road' to see it the creek really did stink!  As I drove past that exit I really missed him and his sense of humor!  And I also wanted to check it out...

And there were times on the trip when I missed him so much I didn't think I could carry on, but I did - and that is all that you can do after losing someone you love - just carry on, because the alternative is not pretty and, I'm sure, not what your loved one would want for you.  So, for tonight I will finish there.  Moving on there is the mystery quilt and lots of fun thing with the PQ3000 and quilt patterns, classes and books.  But for now there are memories and many happy years....

The mystery quilt is designed....

so give me a couple of days and I will work it out over a few weeks - as a little teaser it is called 'The trip to Morocco" and is the first in the series of a number of 'trips'!! 

So I made it back from the Florida trip and the electronic 'sunpass' device had me sprinting through the tolls on the Florida Turnpike - I love the look of panic from the drivers behind me who see the South Carolina plate in the Sunpass lane thinking 'she's in the wrong lane....'.  It was good to visit with my aunt - she is my only family here in the US.

I am so excited about the trip to the AQS show in Des Moines.  It will be a very long trip and I am going to be alone - someone has to run the studio for the week that I am gone - come on people, it's getting close to Christmas!! 

But for tonight - it's been a long day - I finally managed a run (6 laps of the track in a veeeeery  slow time - about three miles) but at least I got out there - time for bed.  Tomorrow will be faster - I promised Caper.  She ran with me and was not impressed.

So the mystery qulit will start soon and will be fun - come join me......

Well it has been an interesting week so far.....

and it's not over yet.  I have to thank J.P. big time for the free tickets to the Clemson game on Saturday - it was a blast!  I love live football and I went to my first NFL stadium game in Cincinnati in 1975 with my aunt and uncle.  I was a green (very green) seventeen year old visiting from Wales - I did not have a clue as to what was going on.  Then when Michael was about nine years old I took him to a game held at Crystal Palace in London where the commentator explained the game and it finally began to make sense - that was 26 years ago.  I have been a major football fan ever since.  At times it has required some serious effort to be a Dolphins, Packers and Panthers fan - but I just hang in there! 

So Sunday morning the girls arrive at work to find that there has been a break in at the kennel - they did everything just right.  They took pictures (how did we manage without smart phones?) and called the police.  It is very unlikely that we will find the culprit, but fortunately they were too high, drunk or stupid to find anything.  The cash register was turned off but they obviously couldn't work out how to turn it on (Duh!) so they left with nothing.  Just some damage to the window with the a/c unit which will not take much to fix.  New procedures now about putting the cash away in a lock box at night - we keep learning.  Oh and I need to remember to lock my gate between the kennel and the house.......

Off to Florida on Friday to visit my aunt - driving back Tuesday, so just a short visit.  Things are getting busy around here, thank goodness!  I can really feel the Christmas rush starting and there is a ton of stuff to do before the AQS show in Des Moines, Iowa.  

Anyway - stuff got done in the back yard over the weekend.  The honeysuckle was getting out of hand......

 

Hello - there is the deck!  It looks so much better and is ready to paint.

 

 

And the back deck was looking awful.

 

 

Hot tub has been empty and needing cleaning for weeks - I had thought to sell it, but then I thought of those colder winter days when it is so nice to sit in the hot water.

 

 

There will be more pictures of the progress once the painting has been finished.

 

 

 

Caper wants out and that door needs painting - ask the lovely Lindsay how long the painter's tape has been on the glass!!

 

 

 

 

And whatever it is, is out here somewhere - if I could just find it.

 

 

 

 Thank you W.G - the daisies are lovely!!

 

 

 Sometimes a bunch of cheerful flowers is enough to make my day - heartfelt thanks.

Now there was a bunch of other stuff I was going to spout at you tonight, but I need to get some other tasks done before the trip.  But I am going to use the time on the journey (about 11 hours each way) to review all that I am trying to achieve and to make some decisions about my direction and my priorities.  It's been a very hectic couple of years and I need to regroup. 

I also want to make this blog more about quilting (as I have mentioned before) so look for a mystery quilt when I get back - it's a mystery to me right now so we'll discover it together!! 

See you all when I get back and I will update you on my journey - keep safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Passwords are beginning to drive me crazy......

apparently they should all be different, shouldn't use a pet's name (or yours), should have upper and lower case (or lower case only..), should (should not) include strange characters, should be 8 characters long (or more, or less) and SHOULD NOT BE WRITTEN DOWN.  So just how am I supposed to remember them all!!!!?

There is one (government driven) requirement where I have to go when I hire someone new (and I bet they are monitoring me now!) that requires me to change the password every time I log on - so I have to know the last password I used, invent a new one and confirm it, and it has to be totally different from any I have used before - so no incrementing the ending numbers.  And I SHOULD NOT WRITE THEM DOWN.  Ok government peeps - I am 56 years old, I have a few too many glasses of wine at night, I work too many hours every day and I have hormones - I don't always know WHAT DAY IT IS, never mind the password I used last time I logged on - so there is my rant for this week.  Can we move on to retina recognition on the personal computer in the next week or so - pretty please?

It has been a busy weekend - Labor Day and all that it entails.  The kennel was very busy and the lovely Lindsay did a sterling job of staying in control of upwards of 80 dogs.

I will post pictures later of the work done by myself and the engineer to clear the honeysuckle that was attempting to eat my house.  There was one very interesting side affect to the removal of the honeysuckle - tonight J.P. was watching out of the studio window and saw a very perplexed hummingbird hovering over the (very empty) feeder that I had left outside and never filled.  He (she) then huffed off to somewhere else to find food.  I had not realized that the hummingbirds were still around and had been feeding off the honeysuckle flowers - Oh, shame on me - starving the hummingbirds.  So I made some syrup and I hope that they will be back tomorrow and forgive my transgression.  All that said - the garden looks so much better now!

The U.S Open is still on and so it is wall to wall tennis in my house.  Both of the TV's are set to the channel showing the tennis and if anyone hates tennis - I am so sorry!  You are so out of luck!  And it has been very exciting.

So - drum roll please - I.D. your quilt is finished so expect a call tomorrow.  Crazy quilting lady, this puppy has been on the frame forever, has challenged me to the point of insanity and is utterly gorgeous!!  I cannot wait until you see it - but the rest of the blog followers are going to have to wait until you have seen it and enjoyed the fabulousness!  Thank you so much for trusting me with this beauty.

Let me head back to the tennis while I am still awake and I will try to post pictures in the next day or so - the lesson of the I.D. quilt is the same as the Chinese (or someone's) proverb - the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, or something like that, which is the same as the journey of a million stitches begins with the first one.  Wow - I just took the last one!!!