Can't go to Paducah without a trip to Handcocks

Thankfully Hancocks of Paducah is open late!!  Nancy, Caroline, Terry, Julie, and I decided to stop by Handcocks of Paducah on our way home on Friday.  One would think after working all day, you would be to tired to shop.  But, real quilters never get to tired to shop!!  Plus by shopping....we would have dinner ready for us when we got home!!  (Thanks Doug!!!)


Side tangent:  Between Terry's deserts, Cindy's soup and fajita's, and Doug's excellent cooking and  Jeff who got up early, early, early in the morning to cook us bacon and eggs for breakfast.  The meals were unbelievable!!!  Opps....forgot Nancy's veggies and Doug's guacamole ....yummy!!!  Yes mom, I ate my veggies and definitely cleaned my plate!!  The rest of us were very willing to clean up after dinner!!  I brought bacon flavored Pringles....can't go wrong with bacon flavor  :).


Ok...back to subject at hand...

Here we are getting out of the car.....






I can't believe I didn't take pictures of Edyta Sitar's quilts that were hanging in Handcocks...they had several of them with kits to purchase....Neatest part of them.....Julie quilted them!!!!! 

Rut Row....Nancy and Julie found the flat fold table....I had to go find them a cart!!!

Here's Terry....Trying to find some border fabric for her quilt in progress.  She already had her cart....


Side Note:  Terry does the most beautiful applique!!!  I hope I get to see that quilt when it's done!!!


Here's Nancy getting her fabric cut.....

One piece.....

Two.....

Another.....

As for me...... I got something to share with my bestie....so no pictures of my purchase....but I will say...I got away with spending less than $30.

 My husband doesn't believe me...because every other time I have been to Handcock of Paducah....it's been over 10 times that amount.  I guess you can be to tired to shop after all!  

Julie and Caroline showed the most restraint!  Caroline couldn't find the fabric she was looking for and Julie only bought a marking pen.....WTG Girls!!!






I did honor the request of my bestie....well kind of....Last year when we were there....she touched and I am not exaggerating...EVERY bolt of Moda fabric.  She requested I touch them all this year.  I do have a witness (Nancy) I touched a few!

Here's the sunset as we drive back to the lake house...where our dinner was waiting for us!!!






Happy Sewing!!


Jill

Where to begin!!??!!

Wow.....what a week!!!  I'm home and trying to get back to reality!  I got home around 2:30 this afternoon......got a big hug and kiss from my hubby and lots of kisses from my doggies!!  Life is good!!  I'm thinking it's going to take a few blog posts to share my journey this week.


I want to start my sharing with a huge HUGE thank you to Accomplish Quilting!  They were so generous to offer me this opportunity and I can't thank them enough!!  Check them out at www.accomplishquilting.com or like their facebook page:  www.facebook/accomplishquilting 

Standing (L-R):  Jeff, Cindy, Julie, Caroline, Terry, Rick, and Doug.  Sitting(L-R) me, Alvin, Nancy


Jeff Benedict was at the helm of this group of "Innovians".....I have to say, I have worked in a lot of team settings before, but by far, this was the best team ever.  Everyone was there to share their love and knowledge of Innova longarms.  In my opinion:   Everyone who's looking to purchase a longarm, should consider the "community" they are joining when they purchase.  Innova not only has the best product out there, but the Innova community is all about helping and sharing their knowledge with each other.  I met so many Innova owners who stopped by to just say Hi at the show!!

Here we are.....getting everything ready for the last day......ok....there's everyone else getting everything ready for the last day....someone has to be the photographer  :)






Ok....I must warn you....Doug shared the Pharrell Williams "Happy" youtube video/song with us.....boy did we have fun with that song!!  Rumor has it there's a video out there.....hey maybe I'll go viral.....LOL  It was fun getting the crowd to join in!!   The video's (lord more than one.....what was I thinking???) can be seen on www.facebook.com/tadaquilting.  If you don't have facebook....might be worth it to join.....LOL



I think that's what is important in life...being happy!!   It will be a while before I can get that song out of my head!!  Because I'm happy!!!! (but I can't dance)


Happy Sewing!!!


Jill

Having way to much fun!!!

Monday was bitter sweet, I had to say good bye to my son....but I had a wonderful visit.  Why do kids have to grow up and move out?  Oh, wait....I know...so we can buy the toys we want, such as motorcycles, longarm quilting machines, (insert your hobbies here), etc....


Anyways...after one last hug and a kiss, I was off to Paducah!!  I was making pretty good timing....such good timing, I hit Nashville at rush hour, yuck...

After I got through that...it was smooth sailing to my new destination!!  Accomplish Quilting (www.accomplishquilting.com) rented a house for all of us to stay at.  I got a warm reception from everyone!!  I even got a big ole hug from Nancy McNally...I was ready to settle in!!  Jeff made a fabulous pork tenderloin on the grill and Nancy made some great veggies and Terry added a fantastic strawberry pie!!!

This is our morning view from our house.....It is so peaceful!! 


But no time for relaxing now....it was an early departure for setup!!

Here's Julie, Alvin, Caroline, Nancy, and Terry.

Me, Nancy, Terry, and Julie.....last of the photo ops...Now to get busy...let the transformation begin!!

Oh wait...first things first....let's make it official!!!


Ok...back to work...

Machine are getting started....Nancy and Terry testing out the machine.

I was so happy we got to hang 3 of my quilts in the booth!!!  Here's my wool quilt and my white modern quilt!!  At least I can say my quilts have hung in Paducah....LOL

Sign's up....making progress...


Finished setting up.....quick meal and back to the convention center.....Preview show at 7:30....

Boy were we tired at the end of the day!!  Back to the house Doug and Jeff treated us to some pizza and off to bed!!  Show starts in the morning.....


Before the show started...I took a quick walk around and here's who I found.....

This is Julie and JoAnne from Paper Pieces!!!!  I was so excited to meet these ladies!!  The are so funny and helpful!!  If you haven't started your hexies or English paper piecing projects, you need to....GO check them out!!!   www.paperpieces.com

The show begins with the High School band coming through....It is so much fun to watch and gets you pumped up to let the fun begin!!


They let anyone with a quilt walk behind the band and dance along with them!!  I did this last year and had a blast.  I danced in the booth....some guy said "boy you know how to have a good time and dance"   LOL   Seeing the band reminded me of the great time Melly and Heidi and I had last year!!

Here's the Erie crew!!  Chris, Cheryl, Shelia, and Marie came down from Erie and joined the band!!!

Check out their back packs ......Cheryl made these for the girls to take to Paducah!


I had several people stop and see and see me today....It's so much fun to see people I know at the show!!!

Here's Maxine and Debby....2 really nice ladies I met at Birds of a Feather!  Anyone who's looking to take longarm classes needs to check out Virginia Longarm's Birds of a Feather.   www.virginialongarm.com.

Today is a new day...... Hint hint!!!

Happy sewing!!!

Jill

Binding anyone???

I finally settled on putting the binding on my sample quilting wall hanging.

And I decided to use the small binding tool from Missouri Star Quilt Co.  It uses a 2" wide strip instead of 2 1/2" wide strip.

Anyone catch what's wrong in this picture?? To bad I didn't before making that first cut.... (Insert giggle here).

You guessed it...I automatically cut the first strip at 2 1/2".  Sometimes old habits are hard to break!!

Ok, so I trimmed that strip down and I'm off ....

The way I connect my binding strips is I iron one end of my strip at a 45 degree angle.  That gives me my sewing line.


Side story.... (what would my blog be if I didn't go off on another tangent for a moment :)  )

So as you can see for the above picture...I'm ready to sew, step on my foot pedal and it starts sewing backwards.

 I reposition my material, step on pedal and it goes backwards....after scratching my head, contemplating whether or not I forgot how to sew or not, I am puzzled...what the heck.  

My machine has been packed since my last trip (it worked fine then), what could be wrong... a feather weight only does a straight stitch, so no buttons ...what the heck.  I even checked to see if my plug was in upside down....like that could happen or would make it sew backwards...but hey...I was desperate!!


Finally I noticed something........

Must of happened when I put it away in the case....the lever got pushed all the way to the top.   Well for those who don't know (please someone leave a comment telling I'm not alone in the boat and they didn't know their feather weight had reverse)  if the lever is all the way up...it sews in reverse!!

Ok...now that the mystery was solved....I'm back in business.  All strips attached and ironed in half- wrong sides together.  For this tool, you need a 6" tail and an 6" opening.

 

I pin my binding to the quilt and then place a pin 6" away, so I know where to stop sewing.  I make sure that the joined binding seams will not end in the corners by starting off center and roughly laying the binding around the quilt.  If it looks like  seam is going to hit a corner, I adjust my starting point.

I start sewing stopping 1/4" from the corner.  Remember this tool....reminds me of home ec...lol  I was never a great clothes sewer....but I never got rid of this tool either...I guess that's a quirk for another post some day.

Then you fold the binding straight up, then straight down so that you have a mitered corner.  Continue sewing, repeating at each corner and making sure to stop sewing at the pin.

Take the quilt to the cutting table and butt the ruler under the binding where you stopped sewing

Mark the binding where the line is on the tool.

Lay the ruler on top of the binding strip, lining the tool line on the marked line and cut off excess with the rotary cutter (making sure the quilt is out of the way!!)

go to the other side, turning the tool 90 degrees so that the flat end of the tool is butt up against where you stopped sewing and mark on the line.

On this side, you line the edge of the tool with the marked line on the binding and trim using a rotary cutter.

Placing right sides together, you pin the binding together and sew them together.

Take to the iron board and iron you binding flat.

Lastly, sew the rest of the binding down to the quilt........TA DA!!!!!!!  Binding is ready to hand sew to the back and it lays flat!!   THANKS Missouri Star Quilt Co for coming up with a tool that makes binding easy to do for this quilter!!!

Hope this took some of the mystery out of doing binding!!  Don't forget.... Missouri Star Quilt Co. has a tutorial on YouTube for the 2 1/2" binding tool.

Hexie update.....

So with the left over binding fabric....I thought.....

Yup you guessed it....I cut 6 2" squares and am going to make a hexie flower!!

Here's what I got done so far...I'm all caught up to having "1 done a day" and I just have to sew them together....


Happy Easter everyone!!


Happy Sewing!!


Jill