Batik Heaven and Creative Cue 2010

Wanda from the Exuberant Color blog had an awesome giveaway here. I was one of the winners and received this huge assortment of batik pieces from her. Thanks Wanda for literally "brightening " up my day with all of the color you sent my way. These are stacked 3 deep in spots so this is just a glimpse of the color and prints... just like candy!


I found this "challenge" through the 3 Creative Studios blog. See post here. It sounds just like what I need to get creatively focused and share with other bloggers through 2010. Wanna come out and play ???

The Journey Home ... Part Three

And then there's the shopping where there is shopping...

some Halloween goodies...

a load of wool scraps, floss and what nots. Wendy has bushel baskets of all kinds of scraps. Stuff a bag to overflowing, cotton - 50 cents... wool - $3... man do I know how to stuff those little bags. LOL

more fabric in the way of FQ's, scraps and books for winter reading.

Saw this adorable CQ witches hat at Wendys...

Is this not the cutest Halloween decoration you've ever seen? Pattern is shown here.

A stop at the Oakland County Farmers market, good thing I was traveling by bus...

Football pumpkin

Old English D of the Detroit Tiger baseball logo




Mary Ellen of Forever Summer always has a stand at the Farmers Market and I was out of everything. The "Hippie Chick" scent has become trademark... wish there was scatch and sniff available here.

We did a power shop... Monarch Quilts - Brighton, The Stitchery - Howell, Christinas Quilts - Rochester, Joannes - Waterford, Creative Corner - Romeo. We also hit Salvation Army, Barnes and Noble, Carols Used Books, Greens Consignment, Pet Supplies Plus and Meijers. Aaahhhhh, the fix felt so good.

All the trees are bare and the real first frost happened last night. D kept the house up and as far as I can tell, no viruses are on the computer LOL. D brought little Tasha along when he picked me up... nothing like being smooched to death by a furry pooch who hasn't seen you for awhile and the other 2 knocked me down at the door. There's definately no place like home! But it was good for the soul to be out and about in the big city, inspiration and the fire of new ideas abound as the winter settles in. Now to get caught up with blog reading... see you soon.

So glad to be back...

and if a picture's worth a thousand words this would be it....

I had a few paragraghs written about the happenings of the past couple weeks but thought twice and decided to just pick up where I left off and spare you the details. I'll just say it was productive and the time spent being with family was what I needed!

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Of course to diffuse and unwind between the family visits and chores, Sis and I had to do a little shopping.

These photos above are from the Viking Sewing Center and Quilt Shop in Ann Arbor Michigan. Very NICE store where everything was right up my alley. The batiks they had were awesome and I loved everything in the place !!!!

We also went to the Lake Street Mercantile located in South Lyon . Here's my sis holding the current Quilt Sampler Magazine with this store (and quilt behind) on the cover. The shop was nice but not geared to my kind of quilting.

The only other shop we went to was Wendys Simple Stitches (no website) in Howell. This little shop was really cute and a total surprise not to be expected from the looks of the exterior.

This was the take from Wendys. I loved her scrap bins, the wool one definitely provided me an inexpensive assortment to try and I found some batik cutoff scraps from a class sample in the cotton bin. A few flosses and a green print made up my purchase there.

But the main damage was done at the Viking store. I could have spent a couple days locked in there!
As crafty things go, I brought home a sack of dads ties along with a white brocade scarf with hunting dogs on it. Highly possible that these may end up in something one day.

Although I'm still reading all my favorite blogs, I've kind of lost enthusiasm for maintaining my own. I'm sure it's only temporary. For a change of scene, I've joined up with a new group called Stitchin Fingers , Sharon B set up and it looks like it'll be an interesting place. Here's the link to take you to the Stitchin Fingers Home Page It's nice to see some pals over there already so please join along, OK?

Now if I can just get past my funk and get back on track.....

Till then, Jane

Trying to Reclaim Some Time...

Somehow I managed to get a block pieced for TIF .... I found a place to use a piece of some of the lovely things Paula sent me. Its the black piece in the upper right. It'll be a great seam to work on. It was a larger block, but due to some funky fabric I used in one of the corners, I had to cut it down in order to square it up. It's roughly 9" now....

but sadly it sits in this basket along with it's threads gathering dust like everything else. (apologies for the poor photo quality here)

The same day I pieced it, I made up some postcards and I'm at least working on one of these for Judy. (a fellow Michigander) She'll have to wait to see which one I'm doing for her.

The other night I did get online for a shopping therapy/fix. I bought a couple things from one of my favorite Ebay sellers kuteasabutton and then at Amazon I ordered the Bead Embroidery book and another I've been wanting for ages, Annemeike Mein Wildlife Artist in Textiles. For good measure, I ordered a music CD, Norah Jones Come Away With Me. I'm looking forward to a peaceful afternoon when it all gets here.

On the other front, my mom and dad are now residing in the same room at a skilled nursing home downstate. My parents have been married for 61 years so it's only right that they're together now. Dad needs the 24 hour care and mom can't live by herself with her own health issues. Assisted living wasn't an option because of Dad. Mom wheels him all over and they're enjoying talking with the other folks there. We do good at burning up the phone lines though and I can expect the daily call from them at 4:45, just like clock work. They're adjusting and I know we all feel better to know that there is someone there at all times.I had to emtionally adjust myself that I'll never be able to go home again and it's taken a sense of security away from me that I've always been able to carry with me and count on. That might sound stupid as I'm going on 50, but it's a Boomer adjustment none the less! Alot of the happenings lately have been hard for me to get my head around.


Speaking of married years, this Sunday is our 14th anniversary. We'd both been married before so the wedding was strictly for us. We had a nice ceremony at Las Vegas' Silver Bell Wedding Chapel on the strip, lots of photos and music we picked for eachother. I'm hoping that we can go and have dinner someplace this weekend, nothing big, just out. I definately won't be wearing my big hair nor will Dan be wearing his dark mustache.



I picked a bunch of Pussy Willows from the ditch last night. A definite sign of spring. The snow is almost gone and the frogs across the road are faintly warming up for their song. It's been a good day and things are beginning to quiet down again. I'll be in the groove again soon as I do miss all my blogging buddies!

Till the next time, Jane

So much for cleaning out ... just move over alittle

When you're the picture taker in the family it ends up where there's not too many photos of yourself but I got Dan to take a couple today and finally have one put up on the sidebar. Out of the few he took this one seems to show what looks most like me.

I made a bit of a mess today organizing my inspiration boxes. The 2 plastic totes that I use for ideas, inspirations and color pallettes are being added to. One is for crazy quilting, the other for sane quilts. The CQ one has stitch ideas, templates, etc and holds a notebook of what I've collected regarding CQ history. The SQ box has fabric swatches, patterns, lists and notes. I want to fix up my creative journal with some of the things that are in these.

I partially blame my quilting friend Barb for this! Yesterday she gave me a couple of paper sacks full of what she was ridding herself of. Now I don't buy many magazines, Quilting Arts is my only subscription. So you can imagine the fun I've been having perusing, clipping and dreaming.

Yesterday when I went to Houghton/Hancock I was able to stop at a 2 stores. I had never been to the Salvation Army in Hancock and had the time to stop. I got a few Birds and Blooms magazines, 2 books and a great piece of lavender velvet to the tune of $2.00 Of course I had to stop at the Portage House quilt shop in Chassel and found 5 flannel FQ's in a purple toned outdoor theme. ( and I'm supposed to getting organized and pared down, LOL)

My sister sent me home with these books so it looks like I have more than enough reading material to get me through these last couple months of winter.

I've been seeing a fabric designed by Mark Lipinski called Katmandu. It's a printed fabric to be stitched on. Over on JK's blog you can see what shes done with it. Looks like it might be fun!

With any luck I'll have a journal pic to show next time. Till then..... Jane

My Trip Downstate

The trip down Saturday was pretty uneventful but it still took me 9 hours of straight driving. I left Wednesday at 5:55 AM to come home and the sunrise looked like this. It was -10 degrees when I took this photo.

I crossed over into the UP at 10 AM. The farther north I got, the more apparent it became that I was in for a rough ride on the final leg of the journey along Lake Superior. The thoughts of home spurred me on and I pulled in at 3:30. Not bad considering.

Here we are gathered around the table at the rehab clinic where my dad is. He is doing much better there than he was at home and it's looking like his neuropathy has progressed to the point where he may require round the clock care. My mom is not able to live alone because of her health so we were discussing what options we have and trying to get everyone on the same page of probabilities. So hard to deal with this from so far away.

Of course I had to have a run into my favorite thread store in Howell. I garnered some new fibers and a couple hanks of beads. I also got 2 different needle threaders by Clover to help my weary eyes & my sis gave me the Caladium fabric scrap left over from what shes working on.

I am itching to start a new project or 2.