MY LONG QUICK TRIP

Hello there !! I was away ! I had taken a trip to the U.S. .  Specifically I flew to Ontario, Oregon which is a little town on the border of Idaho ,how close to Idaho ? well looking at the photo below you can see the snake river and on the other side is Idaho this picture was taken from my mom's and step father Joe's front porch. My stay was for two weeks , suffering from jet lag I  woke up at 2:00 in the morning almost the whole time I was there.

 

The purpose of my trip was to help my Mom with some items she wanted to ship over here and to  fly back with her.  This trip was planned a while back ,but didn't bother to blog about it .  I was anxious and nervous of the trip  and then thought Hey !! I should take this opportunity to order the quilt table that I have been wanting for a while and I looked up the Hinterberg quilt table and found a dealer near there and lucky me the nice lady by the name of Vicky said that she would order it for me Yay!!!.

 

I got acquainted with some cow's around the farm  ,they roamed around feeding on the  huge pasture around the home.

I went to the local quilt shop the very next day.

 

At  "Charm Shack Quilt Shop" I met Heather which is a very nice lady, since she is a quilter I am not surprised .  The actual store used to be a women's clothing store named Vogue, which still reads the old name faintly   on the other side I  wanted to take a photo of the sign ,but kept forgetting ,my mom used to go in there and shop when I was a kid.

 

And here is heather I had picked up a bunch of fq's I sort of surprised her when snapping the photo.  I told her that I am a blogger so she would understand.

 

Heather had beauties all around, I just didn't know where to look.

 

This is the back part of the store where classes take place  , her mom also teaches applique , and two days before leaving while my mom was at the hairdressers which happens to be two blocks away I ran to the shop and asked if her mom could give me a little lesson on applique ,even thought it was the second day of the shop hop I got started ,bought a kit with all the goodies and completed a flower and I  am now  hooked.

 

These are my purchases on another trip with my sister in law Tina , we went shopping together and I could take my time ,but still I was looking around real fast trying to take everything in.  I think if I stayed there all day it wouldn't be enough .

 

This is the main street I snapped a photo while crossing the street in front of the Charm Shack, Tina tried to step ahead ,but I had my  quick finger on my camera.  I used to ride my bike up and down this street ,if you drove down about four blocks  and three blocks to the right that is where our house was, and three blocks down and two to  the right was a Dairy Queen my friends and I used to go there all the time ,but it isn't there anymore.  

 

On the second day of my stay we went to Nampa ,Idaho to pick up my quilt table and met Vicky and her daughter ,we had spoken on the phone a couple of times and I was so happy to meet her in person she is a sweet lady.

 

On our short visit there I asked if I could see some of  her quilts and she gladly  took some out ,here is my mom taking a close up look at the applique since she used to applique 

 years ago.

  

 Vicky's quilts are proof that simple is beautiful ,I just love her crisp cool lines and her bright and fresh color palate ,the white speaks here, my mom was also having a good time looking and helping hold up the quilts  for the photos.

 

Isn't this too cute ?

 

And here is another one of Vicky's beauties  those squares are only one inch  !  Joe is in the background getting a quick intro on quilts Ha Ha !! He was probably wondering how much longer we were going to be there.

 

This is the first photo I snapped while walking in to her studio ,I was taken by her organized stash and her bright and beautiful fabrics.  I wish I could have  visited  longer ,but mom and Joe took me there and  staying all day was out of the question.   Vicky thank you so much for ordering the quilt table for me and maybe on another trip I'll be able to visit a bit longer ..

And on the 15th of April there was a 50% off on the clearance fabrics , at Joann's  Tina and I went the day before to check out the selection. On Sunday they opened at 10:00 and we were there ,I even talked Tina out of going to church . We each got our own cart and as I  bent over to look at the lower shelf , I stood up and looked at Tina's cart full of fabrics .  I said Tina I knew you were a pro ,but how did you manage to throw those in there so fast LOL.

And here she is getting her yardage cut by Sheryl ( which turned out to be an old high school chum )  and yapping about quilting ,it sounded as if they were having some kind of a contest on who knew more quilting tricks and short cuts, I of course couldn't stand still looking at every direction ,trying  to take everything in.

Here is my cart I found some real cuties and got plenty of yardage.

We also went to a good will store and I found this  gorgeous one with the Saint of Guadalupe. I had seen this fabric when blog hopping and I got a yard of it for one buck ,they had a  50% off sale I couldn't believe my luck.   I beat Tina to it and she gasped when she saw me holding it, I was fast this time, sorry Tina

On the first day of the Shop Hop the first  shop  we went to was Cyndy's Quilt Shop in Caldwell Idaho.    

Here is Tina ! she just found the clearance rack and I went over quickly and found a nice piece of fabric at a great price .

Our next stop was at the "Bluebird Quilt Studio"

Our third was Nancy's Quilts out on a nice country road in Nampa , Now this was a house and  Nancy and her husband  had transformed the whole lower level into a quilt shop except for the kitchen.   And a funny thing is that I mentioned to them that I came all the way over from Greece to go on the Shop Hop , boy were they impressed , they insisted that I sign in noting down that I was from Greece....... and then the owners told me that they had just sent a package over to Greece ,Nancy told her Husband to get the address and he did ,the location was on an Island Naxos   they sent that twisty yarn that makes a scarf  I told them that they have tons of it where I live ,they just don't have many fabrics they thought I would be interested in that yarn LOL  since they sent a big package of it over there , I am a fabric person for sure.   Thinking back on that incident it was weird that it was the first time they had ever shipped something to Greece and the very next day I walk in there shop ,what a coincidence .

These are my purchases at Quilt Expressions  and they were at 40% off , Tina found the clearance section as always .

There is  Tina watching the automatic quilt  machine at work ,I couldn't pass up the chance and  joined, it was amazing to watch .  This shop is huge like a super market and there was plenty to see.  I I took the photo below just to give you an idea of how huge it is. Well dear friends I hope I didn't bore you with my extra large post of my extra large trip , I wish all of you well and I'll be back in the saddle trying to finish some ufo's soon ., wish all of you many pleasant hours of stitching .

MAIL WITH GOODIES

  

Hello to all and wish you a nice sunny Sunday , one day I had been reading LeeAnn's blog Nifty Quilts  she expressed her need of some vintage fabrics for a quilt that she wished to make ,and since we had corresponded previously about a fabric swap I thought about the bag of vintage fabrics that I had scored on e-bay over 8 years ago and had put aside for a vintage quilt one of theses days ,which I haven't gotten around to starting and there were plenty of each pattern leftover for myself ,so I picked out some and sent them to her  and just last week I go these wonderful goodies from LeeAnn . They are so pretty and colorful just what I like , thank you LeeAnn. 

And another day a while back I was visiting sheila at  Sheila's quilt world and she had made fabric post cards and had left a comment that I really am not to familiar with them and that I hadn't seen one,  and Sheila wrote to me and told me she was going to make one and send it ..... and here it is . 

 I wrote to Sheila and told her how beautiful it is the stitched tulips are so pretty thank you so much Sheila  .    I have it placed above an old photo of myself and my siblings at the beach it looks so pretty there and I look over and glance at it while at the computer which is right next to that wall .  It is amazing how generous quilters are , but I haven't sent Sheila anything back yet  ,I don't have the proper materials for a postcard Sheila had told me the name ,but I can't remember it now.   I might make something else,but I now like postcards and plan on finding the material so I can make in the future and maybe trade also.  I know it isn't Sunday ,but I started the post on Sunday and was to lazy to change it hahaha !!!! ,but I wish you all a wonderful quilty crafty day. 

STAR STRUCK AND QUILT HAPPY !!!

 Well  Hello !!  I am star struck these days.  it's been a long time ,but I have been busy with various things.  I haven't had enough time to post ,but today I thought I've got to post something because if I wait to long I will have to many things to show ,so a little at a time.

 I have been working on some stars ..cutting and cutting and sewing and again cutting and some ironing in between. I keep pulling out more and more solids for a mix of pretty points that go around the center blocks which are some playful country scenes .

 And the second part of the title quilt happy  is because of this quilt that I had taken photos  while making and my son's used my camera and uploaded all of my photos on there computer ,I am just not going to bother to retrieve them on too new stuff I quilted this by hand using high loft you ask why? because it was free .. you see a friend of mine down the street which owns a clothing store, had bought it to use as snow for her window display , which she never did so she gave it to me... a big roll of it ,so lucky me .

 The pink rose is from a house coat that I cut up and used ,I love it in the corners , I just love to reuse fabric, I sometimes stare at the shirts that men wear walking passed my shop when I see pretty bright  colors , I really got to stop it though,it is a bad habit.

 I had taken a course in batik and we also did some stamping with leaves and I found this little scrap and stuck it in.

 This top I had made last year and finally got it quilted again by hand I used cotton batting.

And now I am quilting this little one with high loft batting ,as also the first one ,I am not really trying to make the stitches close together as long as they are evenly spaced . Well my friends I am going to do some quilting now,have a nice day and happy crafting and quilting.

CHOCO BAR

Hello to all my friends  I hope all of you are well and busy creating something beautiful . I have been busy with various projects and one of them  is an apron and chefs hat for my little friend which I am fond of ,and her name is Lucy .  Lucy's parents Yianni and  Gill have become good friends  of ours over the years which started when they stopped our shop for frame work ,Lucy takes karate lessons just down the street from us.

Lucy has a little in home shop which she has named CHOCO BAR

and her shop offers cocktails to guests and also makes waffles .  Her mom had mentioned to me about her little in home shop   ,I thought oh! how cute  I thought wouldn't it be cute to make an apron and chef s hat for her in the colors of her logo that she created.  I used fusible web to cut out the letters I had a thin corduroy fabric in my stash and it was perfect.  I ended up hand stitching the letters ,my needle gummed up when I tried to zig zag the letters by machine.

And here is Lucy wearing my creation ,isn't she cute? 

Lucy served us cocktails in her kitchen and I must say she makes perfect cocktails and the service was excellent .  

I hope you enjoyed this post about my friend Lucy ,I am happy how my project came out .  I wish all of you happy crafting and sewing  and a nice day.

FLEA MARKET SUNDAY

hello Friends and welcome,I was supposed to post this shortly after I took these photos and had gone to the Flea market ,but things got in the way.

Plenty of interesting items to look at I really liked this sewing machine ,but didn't wait for the vendor to pick it up and show it to me I was curious of the make,I was really in a hurry to look around for some treasures.

 
                                    
I tried real hard to sneak between the crowds to get some photos , plenty of stuff to look at.

                                   

My eyes just skimmed over the items to see of any interest, I do look for wooden dolls that I fancy ,for which I have a small collection.  I also look for milk glass , I have a few of them,not many .

Plenty of pretty shoes unworn most of them ,but I am not a shoe gal.

This the view from a distance ,it was a nice sunny day for December.

Before taking the train home ,I stop over here  to use the ladies room and to get some juice.

And now for my  finds ,this was a large piece and I just love the period print isn't it lovely I  couldn't pass it up.

I also found some brand new vintage hankies ,who knows some shop emptied all of there merchandise that never sold ,some shops keep there stuff for years.

This is a corduroy skirt that I don't plan on wearing ,it has the tags on in and the fabric is wow ! just love it.

This little treasure was folded right sides together and had strayed from a big pile and people were stepping on it . I am so happy my eyes caught it when I picked it up and opened it I gasped what a beautiful print I washed and ironed it and will probably just keep it or frame it as is.

And I also got some little stitchery ,whats a flea market without .

Here is some more of my loot.

some more pretties .

Love the hankies can't have enough,I plan on making a wall hanging with all vintage hankies , so I need a few.

Was able to find some pretty prints ,can't ever have enough right !!

And some beautiful vintage children's hankies I love the prints  on these.

Love the children playing cowboys and Indians.

And the bear family is super sweet.

And some small cuts of fabric ,I washed and didn't iron  in case you didn't notice.

I love this print kind of like a paisley .

Well I hope you enjoyed my little tour of the flea market I wish I could go more often .  Sometimes I am afraid to go because I might finds to many goodies and I can't resist ,lucky I don't have much time and I rarely go, now one of these day my friend Madelyn will meet me there wink wink !! Madelyn is Greek American like I and she and I had planned many times to meet down there ,but things just didn't pan out ,once it was to hot,once the trains were not running,once she had an obligation and on and on let's see one of these days.   I wish all of you a nice day and I am super sorry I haven't had time to reply to your lovely comments ,not that there were tons of them, Love you all and happy crafting and quilting.