Catching Up

I look forward to January as much as I do to the holidays–just in a different way. January is a time to catch your breath, finish a few tasks and re-group. This past week I have been playing catch up so I can start enjoying these brief weeks of January and February.

I put away –in a mostly organized matter, the Christmas decorations. And we bravely put the wobbly reindeer and faded sled in the trash. I boxed up half a dozen mugs so I no longer play Jenga with them when emptying the dishwasher. They are boxed and ready to go to Re- Store with some other treasures. After receiving more reading glasses for Christmas- my family’s go to gift for me, I took a bag full of glasses with “what was I thinking?” frames to my volunteer site and they were gone in an hour!`And this morning we filled a trash can full of expired over the counter medicines and first aide supplies. This afternoon I catch myself going to the cabinet to admire how organized it looks! Now if I can just keep up this momentum.

We had our first Wednesday together in the Quilting room. We did get some sewing although it had been almost a month since we had been together and there was a lot of news and photos to share! Best of all, we welcomed a new member!

We always report on any new quilt/fabric shops we have visited–here in Kansas or where ever our travels take us. I shared photos of Quilt Mayhem. My Washington daughter in law had heard of this shop from a patient. For Christmas she gave me bit of cash to spend at the shop (remembering my fabric diet) and the promise to explore it together. She caught the bug we were passing around so my husband and I went to Snohomish, WA one morning and “oh my goodness!” It is biggest quilt shop I have been to excluding Missouri Star Quilt Co. which is an entire town and Hancocks of Paducah, KY.

This entire building is Quilt Mayhem. The fabric store is about a third of the building. There is a huge show room full of long arm quilting machines, embroidery machines, sergers and high end Bernina and Baby Lock machines. Plus there were six or more large retreat rooms, of which most were full of quilters happily sewing. They also had long arm machines to rent. A service center and professional machine quilting services is available They have all the quilting bases covered! The fabric shop was full of customers spending their Christmas gift certificates and retreat members looking for the fabric they forgot to bring with them.

Most of the Quilters at First were busy with holiday events since we last meet or haven’t finished their projects completely in order to show them off. Shirley did have one “show- and- tell” for us.

This 66″ x 66″ quilt is so fun! Pinwheels spinning through space–but should it go this way? Or this way?

I believe I like this way best. The bold machine quilting adds to the feeling of strong movement. We have nothing else like this in our collections. It is for sale for $200.

Shirley also brought this quilt in early December and in the excitement of sharing our monies with the TV Ministry and the Religious Nurture Center, I forgot to show it off.

The quilt is a mix of traditional and modern. The small floral prints are usually used in more traditional quilts. But this pattern took the fabric to a different level–not your grandma’s quilt style, but a very modern look. The machine quilting is geometric which complements the pattern theme. It is 54″ x 68″ and $150.

We also received two pre-owned table runners from a former quilt group member who is down sizing.

I really appreciate the opportunities I have to sew and to bring order to a pile of scrap fabrics. When the world out there is crazy, there is something so soothing about creating and sharing the results with you. So thank you, you make the entire process more rewarding.