Carrying the Banner

This weekend Newsies came to OKC, and my loving husband took me to see it.  He's not much of a fan of this particular musical, but he knew I really wanted to see it.  The highlight of this musical is definitely the dancing.  It's insane!  The tap dance number in King of New York was ridiculously amazing!  I know the music inside and out, because I grew up loving the movie.  The musical adaptation is a bit different from the movie, but the changes didn't bother me.  The plot is not the deepest thing on the planet and the musical moments themselves are alright, but it's definitely the dancing that makes this musical good.

Small Town Quilting

Some ladies at my church have a quilting group.  They invited me to join them.  The majority of them are in their late 70s with the one closest to my age probably being around mid-50s.  We have little in common except love of quilting.  We even have opposite tastes in fabric, but they are seriously hilarious.  I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy the group.  Two of them took me on a trip to go to a quilting store out in the middle of No Where, Oklahoma about an hour north west of where we live.  It was so much fun.  We drove through small towns.  They look exactly how I would picture old towns off of Route 66.  They are almost stuck in time with their old buildings and one stop light.  It was so charming.  The ladies informed me that other than the military bases, OKC, and Tulsa, this is what the rest of Oklahoma looks like.

The fabric was drool worthy.  I mostly just window shopped, but it's fun to look at all of it.  I loved all the gorgeous quilts that lined the walls.  They were truly stunning.

 This sign outside their shop just cracked me up.  Only in Oklahoma...

The ladies then took me to another small town called City of Kingfisher for lunch.  We stopped at an old school pharmacy that has a little kitchenette in it.  The food was surprisingly good.  They're famous for their orangeade.  It's made with freshly squeezed oranges and it's delish!  BB loved the orangeade and drank most of mine for me.

Wonky Stack

September's block for do.Good Stitches consisted of stacking fabrics and wonky cutting.  I really enjoyed this block.  Kristin asked us to use the colors white, red, yellow, and orange.  Doing through my fabric I realized that I have very little yellow and orange compared to any of the other colors.  I rarely gravitate to those colors, so this was good for me to move out of my color comfort zone.

 This block is a lot of fun, because you stack all 4 blocks on top of each other and then randomly cut outside and inside borders.  When you undo the layers you have 4 different blocks.

 (Excuse the carpet pictures.  It's storming outside.)

Pillowcases

When we moved to Oklahoma I went to the JustServe website to see what service projects were in the area that maybe I could help with.  One project in particular looked doable.  A local hospital has fabric that they would like people to turn into pillowcases.  When a child stays at their hospital they get to choose a pillowcase and keep it.  It was on my list of things I wanted to do once things settled down around here, but imagine my surprise when I found out the Young Women at Church were working on the same project.  I came to help sew, but I ended up showing everyone how to make them instead.  Nora and I were the only two who had ever made them before, so we helped everyone with the process.  I didn't even touch my sewing machine that night.  Since I didn't get to sew I took a bunch of cut fabric home with me.  Yesterday during nap time I whipped up 4 pillowcases and then finished the fifth one in the evening.  I like fun and easy projects like that.  They're finishing up the project tomorrow night at church, so I'll probably take home whatever is left to quickly make the last of them. 

Scrappy Sunsets

I finally finished my March do.Good Stitches quilt this weekend.  It feels good to finish this one up since the quilt top had been sitting in my to-finish bin for several months. 

I took the pictures as the sun was setting and it was kind of fun to see the moon as I was trying to photograph the picture.  The light kept shifting and I got wrapped up in seeing the sunset change the quilt coloring.  I completely lost track of the time.  My husband came outside and asked me if I was ever coming in.  :)

Several of the ladies in my Peace Circle sent me extras from their blocks, so I used them down the side of the back. The rest of it is a fuzzy flannel my mom gave to me.  I used my walking foot to do some straight line quilting.  The front is so busy that I wanted the quilting to be minimal in a structured way.

This quilt is so bright and cheerful.  I'm excited to give it to one of Joel's patients.

Scrappy Star Quilt

Well, I finished it a week late, but I did get it out in the mail.  Here's Baby Emma's Scrappy Quilt Star: (We're kind of partial to their name choice)   ;)

I used the flannel that I really like from Hobby Lobby for the back using loopy lines with stars for the quilting.

Maybe one day we'll make it out to Wyoming to meet her.