Sigh

My parents left last night to head back to the UK. My magic ironing, hoovering and school run fairies have disappeared but the worst bit, it has gone very quiet around the house. I see reminders around the house, like the empty spare bedroom, that remind me they are not here. I know it will fade again, but for the moment I feel low. 

But my youngest daughter T was off for a play day after preschool today so I had the whole day today do to something. I did have a work call in the middle of the day but that didn't last too long and no other interruptions until school pick up. 

So I again got out the thread I had in mind for quilting my Christmas quilt and practiced with some more patterns. I am thankful I did practice as I didn't like the result. Which was not what I planned as I so wanted to make some progress with the quilt. The thread is lovely and I like it but I think it is too heavy for the quilt and will take the emphasis away from the blocks. The patterns I tried today are far too Christmasy for the style and fabrics. Alas, it is still pinned on my design wall, taking up all the room and shouting at me QUILT ME! But there it will stay a bit longer.

So feeling a bit despondent I turned netflix on. I watched a sad film that made me cry, which knocked any kind of productivity out of me. But I did manage to finish off the Christmas pillowcases for the kids. 
That said, I have just taken the pictures and I notice a bit of an error! The trees and the people are not up the same way! Ahhhh. How did I manage that! So now I have the dilemma, do I undo it or just live with it!

Linking up with

2012 Christmas Quilt Show

I have just come across a Christmas show that is being held here.  Some lovely Christmas / winter things have been entered already. Submission opened on 23rd Nov and closes 30th Nov.

I am going to try my best this week to finish my Christmas Quilt so that I can enter it! Wish me luck, I have to do most of the quilting and then bind it! But I like a challenge! If that fails I think my table runner will get entered instead. Anyway, watch this space!

It looks to be a lot of fun. Go take a look and enter something :)

On another note, our youngest daughter turned 4 today! It must be lovely to be four. She had her favourite breakfast - pancakes. Then a trip up our local mountain to play in the snow, see Santa's reindeer and sit on Santa's knee for a photo. And cake! A fun day all round.

Is it really Wednesday!

Not sure where the days have been disappearing too. With visitors here it has been quite busy and not much sewing! But, I do have a couple of things to show that I started and finished this week!

I start a new work contract on Friday and I really didn't like the idea of taking one of our old scruffy rucksacks with me with my laptop in. I wanted a nice laptop bag! A nice handmade laptop bag. :) Whilst at the Quilt Festival in Houston we found some oh so gorgeous flannels, I wish now I had bought more! But alas I bought just enough to make my bag, so this project has been in my mind for a little while, but it took until this week to actually do it! 

I used a pattern from 101 Patchwork Projects magazine. An easy enough bag, a bit fiddly in places and once I worked out what the pattern was actually trying to tell me to do, I finished it in a couple of evenings.

I wanted to have a space for my phone and office door card and a pen, you never know when you might need a pen! So under the flap I added a couple of pockets. I only just had enough fabric for all this, guess that's called lucky good estimation!

Although I adore the fabric and purple colour I had to add some appliqué to the front flap to give it some detail. I didn't have the time for proper hexagons so I cheated with bonding and sewing around them. Pictures are a bit dark, not a good time to be taking pictures at 11pm in poor lighting. 

Really pleased with it. Not feeling quite so confident about the job but at least I have a good bag to put the laptop in!

This next item has been on a to do list of mine since January (I wanted to be really organized this year and have them done long ago, ha, that didn't happen then) but tonight I finally got round to it. The first of three Christmas pillowcases for the kiddies. These are some Riley Blake flannels I got in a sale back in January. They are so soft and lovely, I am hoping I have too much fabric that I have enough for 5 pillowcases - I want one! :)

No progress on any of my quilts, ah well, can't win them all.

Hope everyone is having a productive week. 

Linking up with:

 

Houston - Quilts and Shopping!

Oh the fun we are having here in Houston. The weather has been hot and sunny, for the short periods of time that we have seen the outside world! Given that it is raining hard at home, that's rather nice.

Reflections!

View across town from the JP Morgan Observation floor

Shot outside the convention centre waiting for the bus

Our hotel: 

Glass lifts, that constantly whizzed up and down

Looking down at the bar from our 18th floor.

I dislike my photo being taken, so you won't ever see many of me, but this one just had to be done.

There are quilts galore! I would say the quilts were not always displayed well - such as information stands blocking some parts of the quilts, poor lighting, and a plastic tape to stop you getting too close hindered any decent photos. Moan over!

We didn't always agree with the judges either! But there certainly were some lovely quilts!

The Modern Quilt Guild had a display which was really good. It was really nice to see some quilts that I have seen in books or works by people I have read about, such as Elizabeth Hartman, Katie Pedersen, Jacquie Gering, Angela Walters and a variety of others.

The diversity is staggering and the amount of inspiration makes me want to rush home and start something new! ha ha!

The market area is well stocked with some lovely fabrics and loads more inspiration. I tried to win a lovely wooden cabinet full of maderia threads, but it wasn't my lucky day obviously. I have, however, purchased enough goodies to keep me going for a while. 

And we still have one more day. There are still plenty of quilts we haven't seen and many venders to visit too. Best rest the bones ready for more tomorrow :)