Happy Halloween

I'm 17 years old, leave me alone and please don't ever do this to me again. The dog may deserve this, but not me.

I don't think much of this Halloween business either but if I sit and be cute, I might get a bone.

Boo

Last evening we had our monthly crazy quilt meeting at Susan's home.  We always expect wonderful food, a fun project and a great time.  She never lets us down, this time we made  fun little woven bracelets and I got mine done first so I won the door prize.  Isn't it just the cutest?

The bracelet looks better in person.  It could also be made with funky fibers or pearl cotton and used for bookmarks or on crazy quilt projects.

Then she also gives everyone a little gift just for coming and this year is was this sweet little pin cushion.

Picture This Post That

This is another wall hanging from my pattern. I had one that  hung in our business with pictures of our employees but one day on a whim I took it down and gave it to a friend so I had to make another one. I like to keep the fabric and colors simple to keep the accent on the pictures.

Road Trip

Yesterday was road trip day with my two friends Kathy and Jeanette. There will be not pictures with this post as there was an little "incident" while I was gone.  My cat and dog were in punishing me for leaving town.  My cat knocked my thingy that is used to upload my pictures off my desk and my puppy chewed the cord to pieces.
Anyway we had a super wonderful time on the road time.  We laughed way too much, and yes it is possible to laugh too much, as least when you are driving.  We stopped at two great quilt shops in New Ulm, then headed to Manako where there are two more wonderful quilt shops. By then it was 4:00, we had done our part to help the economy and I think they were ready to go home, but NO, I was the driver and had custody of them and no one goes home until I say so. There was one more stop that I felt we must make, but was there time to get there? We had to try, so after a phone call to see if they would stay open for us, they said they would,  once again we where on road.  Our next stop would be The Old Alley Quilt Shop in Sherburn.  This is a wonderful place, not only is the shop great, but the owners are the best. If you are ever driving across southern Minestoa on I 90 be sure to stop in, you won't be sorry.  It ended up be a long but very fun day.

Welcome

I love welcome signs.  I don't know why, I guess because they are just so welcoming. ;>

This is the most recent one  I finished.

The center is removable and there is a different pattern for each month. This hangs on my front door.

This one I designed just because I like sheep.  There is just something so peaceful about them. When ever I see some, I just want to count them and go to sleep.

This spring/summer one was so much fun to make .......

I made another one for fall/winter.

I don't know when I made this angel one, it seems like a hundred years ago, but it was when woolfelt wasn't really very popular yet. There weren't a lot of color choices  out there so I started dying my own. The rest of these take turns hanging above the closet doors in my foyer.

Last Grommet Bag

This grommet bag is for my sister and I think it is my last one, at least for a while. You can see from the picutre I put something in it to poof it out, if you can guess what it is, I'll send you a prize.

Picture pretty

I dashed outside to take a couple of pictures before I went to work this morning. This time of year the snow is only good for one thing - it does make a beautiful picture.

My fall decorations weren't quite ready for this weather yet.

There is one member of the family that can't get enought of it.

Friends, Food and Fun

Two of my stitching friends, Kathy and Jeanette are in a little stitching group that meets every so often and they asked me if I wanted to join in the fun. I was told they do a lot of eating and don't always get much stitching done, sounds like my kind of group, so of course I couldn't refuse the offer. On Friday we headed to Big Stone City, SD to Sally"s home on Big Stone Lake

Just look at the view from her new three season porch.

Perhaps it was a full moon, or maybe the snow that was coming our way, but anyhow, I found them to be a very serious group.

Here are Jeanette and Bev working hard.

 Sally and Cathy M are really concentrating as their sewing machines are humming away and Evy is busy with some hand stitching. Kathy T wasn't feeling well, so didn't come along.

We ate a lot and the food was delicious.

These are the projects we were all working on. I had no idea we would get so much accomplished. What a wonderful day it was.

I love snow

 This is what we woke to this morning. I really love snow, just not in October.

A Meandering We Will Go

This week end was the  2009 Meander Upper Minnesota River Art Crawl.  It's a very fun event featuring local artists.  We first headed to Milan to the Milan Village Art School featuring Fabricated sterling silver jewelry, photographs, prints, canvas and cards.  Then we went to a home in Milan featuring Scandinavian decor.   I managed to take one out door picture before the battery in my camera went dead.

The reason my batteries went dead was because I got a little carried away in the morning taking pictures of my fur balls that are just too darn cute.

This is our cat telling Lucy Lu what she thinks of her with her eyes..

This is Lucy Lu being just too cute and wondering why Smokey is such an ol' crab and won't play.

Now try to focus Cindy, and get back to the Meander.  In downtown Milan there is the cutest little shop, that isn't part of the Meander, but we stumbled in there last year so I just had to go back.

I bought this wine bottle cover gnome that I just could not pass up, in spite of her being  over priced. They had both Lena and Ole and I decided on Lena, mostly 'cause I like her hair. When I saw them I thought they were knitted and then felted so I immediately thought of my knitter friend Kathy.  After a closer look I decided they  may be made out of old felted sweaters and perhaps I could make an Ole and maybe even a Sven to go with Lena.  Then suddenly I had a vision of Kathy and me cracking open a bottle of vine and making gnomes for all of our Scandinavian, gnome loving, wine drinking friends.
Back to reality and on the road again, our next stop was Ortonville where we found landscapes with water themes, drawings and watercolors, then sculptures in various shapes.  I just don't have a great appreciation for nudes so we moved on quickly to a wonderful artist featuring Kindred Spirit Dolls.

I spent quite some time there before purchasing this adorable doll.  I loved all her dolls and all the sayings that went with them.
Then we went to the Red Barn where we found more jewelry, pottery, watercolor, porcelain dolls, and some very intriguing bentwood baskets. I just had to buy this cute little Norwegian Tine.

That pretty much sums up our Saturday travels.
Sunday we stayed closer to home traveling to Granite Falls and Montevideo. I can't show pictures of my purchases since they are gifts, but I will show pictures of the things I was coveting.

These baskets are very cool and if I had the perfect place and unlimited funds I probably would have bought one or two, but I don't have either so they stayed behind. 

Then there is the willow artist.  Now these I really really love and didn't just hint, but came right out and told my husband which ones he could buy for Christmas and my birthday.  They are somewhat more spendy than his usual budget, but I can always hope.

I didn't buy this bag, but I did buy the pattern for it.  I don't know why, since I have not had very good experiences when it come to knitting projects, but for some reason I thought perhaps I could handle it.

Now this was a very interesting display of art.  I had a hard time focusing on the art because I was so intrigued with the barn doors.  I just took a quick picture of one, as he was shooing people out the door.  Some had a window with chicken wire and they were all very unique.  I was very tempted to tell him I would pass on the art, but could I buy a barn door?
That was our last stop and we were out of time so that concludes the tour.