Oklahoma City & Mountain Home Arkansas

Just a heads up this is probably going to be a long post with lots of pictures :)

Mom & I had 2 big trips back to back with in a 2 week time span. First up was OKC. I was very excited about OKC. I hadn't been there since the summer of '95 when 3 of my best friends & I  took a road trip through OKC on our way to Texas. I had 2 things that I wanted to do while we were there: first I wanted to go to the memorial site & I know this sounds silly but I wanted to go to The Melting Pot for supper one night with my mom. We made good time on out way down, which is very easy to do when you can go 80 +mph! We checked in to our hotel, made reservations for supper & took a nap.

The first time I had ever been to The Melting Pot was here in KC. I had wanted to go there to celebrate my first Mothers Day. Lets just say it was a disaster. That is not the place to take my husband or my dad. They couldn't believe that you had to pay that much to cook your own food. It was complete blasphemy to them.  I remember telling mom at the time that she & I would come back someday without them. Well it took 14 years but we finally made it! Here we are, ready for some cheese & chocolate fondue!

 

 First up was the cheese fondue. I thought this was the bomb!!!! I hadn't had the chocolate yet, LOL!

Next up was the chocolate, HOLY GRAVY, it was Devine!!!

  

After our indulgences in cheese & chocolate we had time to head over to the memorial site. The last time I had seen this place was just 4 months after the bombing. I was completely in awe & very much impressed with the memorial. It was incredible. 

This is the first thing that we saw. We came from the west side.

 

 

Each victim has their own chair with their name inscribed on it. It was a powerful place. At dusk each chair glows.

  

The next day we had 2 presentations to the Central Oklahoma Quilt Guild. What a fun group of quilters! They were very interactive & they asked lots of questions, which I LOVE! 

I am sorry I have but 1 pic of the morning guild ladies.  I try to remind myself to take more pics, I get caught up in talking with everyone, it slips my mind & then I kick myself later when I remember.

 

We were not going to be going home the next day. My kiddo was going to be performing his tenor sax solo at the state competition in Salina KS on Saturday. We were able to go through Henessey OK & visit Oklahomas largest quilt store,  that was a lot of fun, then up to Enid OK where my mom still has 2 aunts living. I hadn't seen them in 25+ years. They were the same though. These 2 sisters are definitely something to shoot for. They are both living on their own, 1 is still driving. Aunt Fern is on the left of mom & Aunt Goldie is on the right. I had a blast showing them some of my quilts. They kept saying "OH my" & "You've got how many with you?". Aunt Goldie said "I'm glad its you making all of these quilts & not me!" They were not quilters but their older sisters & mom were. I come from a long line of quilters! 

This is the scrap bag that I got at "Prairie Quilts" in Hennessy OK, They had a large tub of scraps & while I was going through it they said "oh thats a small piece, just throw that one away." I must have had a shocked look on my face at that suggestion because when I said that I could use something that small they were shocked. They had never done any kind of string/foundation piecing. I brought in a couple of my string quilts to show them what I was talking about. They joked that I should just dump they whole tube into a trash bag. My ears perked up with that comment & I jumped on it! I asked them if they were serious about the offer & they were! To date this has got to be one of the largest scraps bags for $5 that I have EVER gotten. Just to give you some size comparison this is a 13 gallon trash bag that won't close. I'm planning on using them in a string quilt. It'll be fun to see how big of quilt I can make using just the scraps in this bag. I'll keep you posted.

 

We made it to Salina a bit after 9 that night & met up with my kiddo for a few minutes before we went to our hotel room & I crashed. Kiddo did great on his solo the next day. He got a II rating (1 is the best) which I was pretty proud of especially since he's just a freshman. He wanted to come home with us after he was done but there was no room, the scrap bag was overflowing where he would have sat.

I think I'd better close. I'll write tomorrow (hopefully) on our trip to Mountain Home Arkansas. I hope that y'all are doing well,

More later on,

Vicky

Just call me Grace

No one has ever called me delicate. Most of the time it's "quit being a brute" or when I was a kiddo " Vicky you're like a bull in a China shop". I think my parents should have given me the middle name of "Grace" because I don't have any. Case in point the following story of yesterday:

Yesterday we were finishing up sorting cows to see who was going to be artificially insemenated. Too much information, I know. Husband & I had done the hard part or so I thought & had everyone sorted & we were waiting for the AI man to arrive. I was so very hot (remember my spirit animal is a yak or a polar bear. I like it COLD!)

 

The AI man arrives & all we need to do is a little ring around the rosie ( move cows around in a circle from 1 pen to another) & we are ready to put them through the squeeze shoot & get this process started. Well some of the younger cows decided they wanted to be stubborn/obstinate & didn't want to go where I wanted & tried to get around me. I tried to cut them off, tripped over my own feet ( my name is Grace) & fell. It was not graceful. I tried to correct & I went down. I'm sporting a skinned up palm (haven't had one of those since I learned how to ride my bike) & a fantastic bruise on my shin

 

My husband went over a block wall (such a gentleman) to make sure I was ok. I brushed myself off & helped my husband get the silly creatures where they needed to be. 

It went fairly well after that. One of our barn cats Adso 

 

Felt that it was his duty to sit in front of the AI mans open truck door.  Husband moved him a few times, we finished & the AI man was on his way. No one knew that Adso had hitched a ride inside the AI mans truck. He was driving home & Adso popped up on the passenger seat purring & meowing wanting to be petted. The AI man about pooped his pants. It just cracks me up thinking about it. He did bring Adso back. I think he might be closing his doors when he's here from now on. 

Here's another fun pic of Adso 

 

My husband (the softie that he is) has made them a cat box in his shop. He said that Adso slept like this for at least an hour. Crazy cat. Husband also made the comment that "this is your cat. No one else could sleep like that but you". 

I'm hoping to get into my sewing room or have some machine time. It's been way too long. Gotta get a few things done first. Today is my kiddos birthday & there needs to be some house cleaning done, yuck. 

 

Love this kid!!

Hope y'all are doing well. Next post will be all about the workshops last week in Mountain Home Arkansas!

More later on,

Vicky 

(Backup) Just keep stitching!

This funny little fish & her song "Just keep swimming" has been in my head for a while now. I've just changed "swimming to stitching". I've got lots of projects, about half or maybe a little more are all hand work projects in the works. I'm doing my best to stay on task & not get distracted (because I might have to do a parts run for my dear husband & that cuts into my stitching time) from what I need & want to be doing.  I'm working on getting projects finished for my new program on hand work.

First up is my very first wool project. This is the project that showed me that I could do appliqué. When I started it the pattern was designed as a wall hanging. Well that wasn't going to work & I asked the designer if she could make it bigger. She told me that most of the time wool appliqué projects are all small, I'm guessing because of the cost of the wool. I'm working on the center medallion part & have just about got all of the pink stitched down.

 

Next up is my "Twirly Whirly" project. I just finished the stitching on this this morning. This stitched piece will be the center medallion surrounded by scrappy green winding ways blocks.

 

I've finished the white background version of my Embroidery quilt sampler. Now I'm working on the black background version. This block is the "Hungarian Braided Chain" stitch. I think that it looks like a shoelace.

 

My White background group is getting closer to finishing all 12 of the blocks & they want to continue. After some discussion we decided that we wanted more than 12 blocks but not more than 12 stitches. So we're going to be stitching 24 blocks doing each stitch twice in 2 different designs. I've been looking at quilting stencils & trying to decided which to use so that I can order them & get stitching on those blocks. This next year I'm only doing 1 colorway.

On the machine stitching I'm working on making a secondary colorway of each of my patterns. Currently I'm working on my pattern "Independence". The first time that I made it I used red, white & blue scraps.

 

This time I'm using purple, teal & silver scraps. Note: I didn't have any silver scraps so I am using yardage there. The purple & teal are scraps though. Oh my goodness I'm loving it!

 

Its amazing how different a pattern looks when you change the colors that are used. I'm planing on making at least 2 different color ways on all of my patterns. 

I started writing this post a while back & tonight realized that I need to finish it & send it off to y'all. There will be more blogs coming your way!

More later on,

Vicky