Quilt Market Day 2/3: It's All a (Gorgeous) Blur

I could write a hundred posts about Quilt Market.

Here are a few in my head:

"There's No Accounting For People's Taste"  (or "Things I Almost Wish I Hadn't Seen")

"So Cute I Could Die"

"My Life as a Glue Salesman"

"How to Make John from E. E. Schenck Deliriously Happy"

"All This AND a Fashion Show"

"I Have the World's Best Husband, So There"

"Quilt Market Survival Guide:  Pack Sandwiches Rather Than Clothes"

"Drooling My Way Through the Fabric Booths"

Well, you get the idea.  It is just quite the experience.

I'm going to post a few pictures and maybe a few words, but first a note about my one and only.

Let me just say this:

Last night David took the kids and their friends to the drive-in movie to see High School Musical 3.  I know.  He's a peach.  And then when they got home (late!), he had the girls bathe and then he put their hair in curlers (since the next day was Sunday).  Savannah (overcome by exhaustion) thought they should have been rolled tighter and yanked them all out before finally crashing into bed.  So this morning, David rerolled her hair in hot rollers.  And this is the man I am married to.  It is ridiculous how undeserving I am to have such a husband.  I cannot wait to get my hands on him again.

Okay, enough steamy thoughts.  Back to the convention center:

Another shot of our darling booth.  We opened an old-fashioned sweet shop for market this year...I told Jill that I could be the "eye candy." 

We are here selling Jill's amazing patterns and her new applique glue, which really just sell themselves.   I bet you had no idea I could sell glue.  And how. 

Here's a shot of Jill's sweet treats...yummy little pincushions that draw everyone to our booth...

Here's a picture of her sales pitch...I told her she might want to tone it down, so she took the dance number out.

This is John from E.E. Schenck.  I have never seen a man so excited about applique glue in my whole life.  This trip was worth it just for the look of delight on his face.  Could he be any cuter?  His look of delight was only matched by Jill's after he placed his first order. 

And at the end of the day we went to the Bernina Fashion Show, which was so much fun.  I asked some ladies to take our picture and they asked us how we could be so cute.  I told them it's a gift.  Well, it is.

I'll post more later.  These pictures are taking forever to resize and the other people in the hotel lobby are starting to clear their throats for their turn on the computer.

We are feeling tired, and happy, and blessed here in Houston.

Quilt Market Day 1: Something Out of Nothing

This is mostly for our men, who think we've fallen into some sort of quilting black hole (post some pictures, please...we have no idea why we've been abandoned and we need evidence, etc.).

But my two booth mates want me to come (right now!) and help prep applique leaves..."Make it short and sweet, " they said. "Just post the pictures." They don't know that the words are the easy part...it's the pictures that take forever.

Quilt Market is, well, remarkable. In just about every way.

Anyway, here's a picture story of our adventure in Houston:

After landing,

and car renting,

and garmining our way across the city,

we went to Hobby Lobby were they told us to have "a blessed day" when they checked us out.  (We're in Texas now people.)

Then a little more garmining to find (my lovely and talented aunt) Jill at a completely different airport.

Then a trip to Home Depot, where this man laughed at us for calling this a hack saw and trying to cut steel pipe with it.

You know he was wondering what three completely clueless women were going to do with 60 feet of electrical conduit.

When you go to Quilt Market with your lovely and talented aunt, I recommend packing a couple of extra sandwiches, because there is very little time to eat. We finally stopped for a sandwich at three in the afternoon, which was about 12 hours after I had been up. My blood sugar was a little offended...

 Everywhere we stopped we just kept putting more and more stuff into the car...evenutally I lost my seat.  But luckily I am "young and lithe."  (They disolved into laughter when I announced this out loud.  What's so funny?) 

 When we finally made it to the convention center, the first thing to do was lay the floor. Check out these darling tiles that I expertly layed. Seriously fine job, no?  I know.

There was all kinds of goofing off and redoing and rethinking and undoing, and load of duct tape and a little jerryrigging and then there was this...

(prepare yourself for something darling)

And then it was late and we were starving again.  So we headed for the car, which was almost hauled off by teamsters who were not pleased by the lateness of the hour. 

If you ask me, the chupacabra has nothing on a tired teamster.

There's more of course.  I haven't even gotten to "Sample Spree."  That's a post in itself.  And it will wait until tomorrow or so. 

My lithe body needs some rest. 

The end.

The Unexpected Dangers of Texas

I'm headed to Houston for Quilt Market.

My aunt Jill has a booth there and needs help.  So my mom and I are headed to Texas (very) early in the morning to lend our hands. 

When I told the kids at dinner on Monday, Olivia said seriously, "Beware the chupacabras."

The whole table went quiet for a moment.

I thanked her for the tip.

Caleb rolled his eyes. 

Savannah looked aghast at the thought of this creature roaming free all over Texas.  And only slightly more aghast when she realized I wouldn't be here to "do her hair."

And bless David for not even blinking an eye at my being gone for five days.  A husband like this is more mythical than the chupacabra.

Today Ethan made a list of all the things David can cook.  It included mashed potatoes and carrots and popcorn.  There was a question mark about asparagus and gravy, though. 

Can't wait to get home to you, darlings. 

Budget Be Damned

Okay, after this I'm seriously going to turn off my computer.

I'm headed to Houston on Friday (though it's so early on Friday it's practically Thursday) and I have a million and a half things to do by then, only one of which includes prepping 200 or so leaves for appliqueing.

But when I have lots to do,

sometimes I surf the web. 

(Don't tell David.)

Anyway, in an effort to be a team player (on our budget) I have not been to the fabric store in QUITE SOME TIME. 

And so I don't know how long this has been out there, but this morning I found this *new* Alexander Henry fabric

and I'm wondering

a.  could anything be cuter?

b.  what can I make my girls for Christmas using this darling "starling" fabric?

c.  could "darling starling" be my new catch phrase?

d.  is Alexander Henry a real person and, if so, why did he get his brain that can design this, and I get my brain that can only have arguments with itself?

e.  where's my wallet?

f.  will David notice if there is a large chunk of change missing before I leave town?  I clearly need enough to roll around in. 

g.  do you go all melty and gooey when you look at it too?

Domestic Bliss

A few reasons I'm celebrating my life as a domestic goddess today:

1.  These shoes.  (Darling.)

2.  This quilt.  (Gorgeous.) 

Do you remember our quilt retreat project from earlier this year...this is it.  Finally finished and up on my wall.  It's been in my "to do" sewing box since April.  It only took me 4 hours to complete it...and that included an extra hour for unpicking.  (I always like to add an hour of unpicking...and draw out the fun.)  I wonder why it's just been sitting in my box all these months.  Anyway last night (after my decorating consultant got home from work) I got it up on the wall.  Can I say how happy I was to wake up to this beauty this morning?

3.  This man.  (Delicious.)

A few months ago David asked me if I wanted to be on a committee at the hospital to host a "Spring Tea" next May to raise funds for his cancer program.  I said yes, even though I have no expertise whatsoever in "tea."  ("The Spring Punch and Cookie Party" title just didn't work.)  We had a meeting at the hospital this morning to prepare for it.  One of the ladies there spoke so highly of David and the really (really!) good work he is doing at the hospital for the cancer patients, and all the wonderful programs and people he has put into place to bless the lives of families going through cancer.  She told us how good and brilliant and compassion- ate he is.  It was a good thing that David wasn't in the meeting because if he had been, I would have lept over the table and started making out with him.  Which would have been embarrassing.  For him. 

4.  These peaches.  (Divine.)

I wait all year for these babies.  My canning days are some of my favorite of the entire year and here they are again.  I washed my aprons and my jars this morning in joyful anticipation.  Not to mention the peaches and cream morning, noon, and night.  And pie.  Oh my.  I'm going to the store for half-and-half, THE staple of September.  (Though I may have gone a little overboard this year, [there are four boxes of these in my laundry room], and I am hoping that this doesn't become a post in my "delusions of grandeur" category.)

5.  These tomatoes.  (Spectacular.)

I just went to pick up peaches.  But then I saw these tomatoes.  (To die for.)  I bought two boxes, just because they were so beautiful.  There will be BLT's tonight, heavy on the T.

Word of the Week: Gainsay

gainsay  /vt. /  to deny, dispute, or contradict.  to speak or act against, oppose.  to refuse to admit the truth, reality, value, or worth of.  controvert.  disaffirm.  negate.  oppugn. 

gainsay  /vt./  1.    Summer has arrived in our part of the world.  Just like that.  Our winter has been long and glorious.  In fact we still haven't hit 100 and we're in the latter part of May.  Unbelievable.  But then today it's supposed to shoot up to 110.  I made Caleb go change into shorts when I saw him this morning.  No one can gainsay the fact that summer is really here with these kind of temperatures.

gainsay  /vt./  2.  For years and years, David has gainsayed my contention that he works a lot of hours.  But this last week was particularly bad, and promises to be so again this week.  The hospital is rolling out a new "paperless clinical documentation" (he made me say that) and this has meant even working overnight.  In addition to this it was also "Hospital Week" (Woohoo! I hope you all celebrated) and this meant visiting all the shifts to serve dinner and treats.  He even dressed up Hawaiian-style (wish I had the pictures) to spread house-wide hospital cheer.  Not even he can gainsay the fact that he spent very few hours simultaneously at home and awake last week.

gainsay  /vt./  3.  My Aunt Margaret sent my girls a surprise package this week: new outfits for their American Girl dolls that she had designed and made herself.  Their shrieks of glee were followed by awe at Margaret's sewing skill.  They would heartily gainsay anyone as being as talented and clever as their great-aunt, who was quickly promoted to grandma status ("one of our Grandma's") and their dolls have worn nothing but the darling clothes she sent since the package arrived.

 

gainsay  /vt./  4.  Savannah's eye tooth started getting loose this week.  She has been begging me to take it out since Thursday.  I told her it wasn't ready yet, but she would not be gainsayed.  Yesterday she worked at loosening it and at bedtime implored me again to try and take it out.  It came out and she was thrilled.  She giddily exclaimed that she has now lost 10 teeth, the most in her 1st grade class.  Aha!  The ulterior motive revealed.  School ends in four days and she has been "tied" with another boy in class for "most teeth lost."  She just pulled into the lead.

gainsay  /vt./  5.  Olivia has been coughing for weeks now, but towards the end of this last week she was getting particularly bad.  I had gainsayed the need to go to the doctor because it was "just a cough" (surely viral) and assured her that eventually "it will clear up on its own."  As I was doing her hair on Friday morning she kept getting paler and paler until she looked positively faint and told me she was going to be sick.  She slept for an hour or so and then begged to go to school.  The same thing happened this morning, so after a weekend of serious coughing and another "vagal episode" this morning, we went to the pediatrician.  He jokingly told me that maybe I should stop doing her hair, and then told me that she had two really bad ear infections and pneumonia.  What?  Oh, good heavens.  That mother-of-the-year award is mine for sure. 

gainsay  /vt./  6.  This week we had our Laurel Transition Dinner for my five young women who are graduating and moving on to Relief Society.  There is no gainsaying how very much I love these girls, what a powerful force for good they are, and what a blessing it has been to serve them.   In the past I have been really bad at documenting my quilts...first of all they are really hard to take a picture of without a proper studio and usually I'm in such a rush to finish that I don't have time to snap a picture.  But I did manage to take a couple this year, so for the my record:   

 

gainsay  /vt./  7.  For me, the pleasures of motherhood are really very simple.  Ethan and I took advantage of a rare empty "to-do" list on Thursday and met my sister and her kids at my parents' pool for lunch and a swim.  After Ethan's swim, I wrapped him in a towel and pulled him onto my lap.  I cannot gainsay the absolute joy of holding his trembling, shivery body, towelled and damp against mine.  Our days alone are numbered.  My days of being able to hold him like this at all are dwindling rapidly.  And this thought makes my heart beat hard and fast, because it's swamped and drowning and gulping for air.

SPT: Something New

This is the "official" self-portrait.

This is the one I like even better.  I had quite a time capturing all this quilty goodness in the camera frame (all by myself!).

5 *new* quilts for my *oldest* young women...ready to graduate and move on to Relief Society.  Something to feather their *new* nests.

I'm feeling a bit *old* today, as all of these girls were Mia Maids (15) when I became their young women's president.  No wonder they're ready for something *new.*

These gorgeous things bring my total to 14 quilts I've made over the years for my sweet young women.  I can't think of a better metaphor for the love and comfort they will find in Relief Society.

Word of the Week: Wistfully

wistfully  /adv. /  characterized by longing or yearning.  to be reflective in a pensive or even melancholy way.  with musing.  suggestive of deep thoughtfulness.   

wistfully  /adv./  1.  I wistfully composed quite a few posts in my head this week while I was in the shower.  However they never actually made an appearance on my blog due to my workload outside of said shower.  I am now wistfully dreaming of a waterproof laptop.

wistfully  /adv./  2.  Olivia finished reading On the Banks of Plum Creek this week and so we headed for the bookstore on Thursday afternoon to get the next book in Wilder's series.  On the way home I overheard this conversation between the girls after Olivia extolled the virtues of all things Laura Ingalls Wilder:

Savannah:  Why are you talking "western"?

Olivia:  Maybe I am a western girl.  (and then very wistfully)  Someday I'm going to go out west, like to Kansas or Wisconsin and be a western girl.

We are almost as far west as you can get, but apparently geography is not Olivia's strong suit.  However, wistfulness definitely is.

wistful  /adj./  3.  There is just about nothing that makes me so happy as to see my children consumed by great literature.  I have nothing but wistful, sentimental feelings towards my own travels through the books of my childhood.  And so this scene brought me nothing but exquisite joy:

In my defense, I did do Olivia's hair this morning, but then what we laughingly refer to as "The Ranch Incident" happened at lunch...

We arrived home from the bookstore, but the girls were so engrossed in their new books they were completely unaware and uncaring that the car had stopped.  I finally fetched them out 10 minutes later when I was sure they would die of heat stroke.

wistfully  /adj./  4.  This weekend was our ward's Fathers and Sons Outing.  The boys had a great time camping and hiking with David, but especially loved shooting bb guns.  David reported that Caleb is a terrific shot and almost the first thing out of his mouth when they arrived home was that maybe we should get Caleb a gun for his birthday.  What in the world?  That was definitely on my list of sentences I never thought I would hear.  I immediately protested.  ("He'll shoot his eye out.")  Even more concerning, Ethan has already started wistfully campaigning for a bb gun of his own for his birthday.  Somehow I don't think this will end well.

My little warrior looks a little too comfortable with this Red Ryder bb gun.

wistfully  /adv./  5.  After wistfully longing for summer vacation since last September, we are down to single digits...only 9 days left.  I can hardly stand it.  I have big plans for nothing, and all of it spent together.  My idea of heaven.

wistfully  /adv./  6.  I spent much of the week sewing quilts for my five laurels who are graduating in less than two weeks.   This has meant quite a few hours in front of my sewing machine and, unfortunately, even a couple hours of one-on-one time with my handy dandy seam ripper.  I started the quilting on this one, but hated the design and ended up pulling it all out and trying something else.  I am thrilled with the final result, but wistfully wish I had those unpicking hours back.

The pattern is ridiculously simple (a must when you're mass-producing 5 quilts in a week), but aren't the fabrics just yum?

Word of the Week: Ineffable

ineffable  /adj. /  incapable of being expressed or described in words. incredible. unspeakable.  not to be spoken because of its sacredness, unutterable.  incomprehensibly delightful or joyful.  transcendent.  beyond words.

ineffable  /adj./  1.  When I posted this word for the week, I honestly thought that this was not really "possible."  That no matter what happened, I could always "speak" about it, always be able to describe it, put it into words.  But I find myself full of ineffable feelings and struggling for a way to say it all.  Damn the undeniable, inevitable destiny of the word-of-the-week. 

ineffable  /adj./  2.  This week was Quilt Retreat.  Those five words are about all I can manage and seem to say it all for me.  My kids call it "Quilt Retreatment."  And it's just that.  Treatment, therapy, counselling with scissors and fabric.  This weekend with my aunts and cousins and sisters and mother, fills me in ineffable ways, reminds me that I can do my job, and I can do it with more joy and gladness.  And as silly as it sounds, it is truly almost too sacred for me to describe properly.  It means that much.  Ineffable is just the word.  This magical weekend reminds me most of Shakespeare's line:  "Converting all your sounds of woe, into Hey nonny, nonny."

I will do a proper post on all the details of the retreat when I am a bit more composed about its being over.  I'm afraid today it would be a completely sentimental, maudlin affair. 

ineffable  /adj./  3.  Because I was "off" for the weekend, David took the kids with him to Medical Staff Retreat in Tucson.  The medical staff always stays somewhere really nice and this year was no exception.  They all had a fabulous time swimming and playing when David wasn't in meetings and going to Kids Camp when he was.  One night David had all their "auras" read.  Yes, really.  (I turn my back for a minute and look what happens.)  They called me and reported the conclusions of their aura readings in awestruck voices.  Later I heard Savannah excusing her unsisterly behavior by reminding Olivia of her red and orange aura and the strong will that went along with it.  Concerned about the implications, I tried to explain to them that this was just "for fun" and wasn't an incontrovertable, definitive, lifetime personality statement.  They all looked at me utterly crestfallen, dismayed by my unbelieving heart at their ineffable experience with the aura reader. 

ineffable  /adj./  4.  This week was also my birthday.  My girls were in tears (of concern and dismay) that I didn't get a birthday cake (or pie) or "blow out the candles," but there was birthday fried ice cream which was absolutely delicious.  

I received lots of very nice presents from my sisters, my mom, my husband and my sweet kids, including a necklace that Olivia bought me to replace my wedding ring (her words).  I received a darling apron from my sister-in-law Beckie...don't you think everything I make wearing this will just taste better? 

And I got about the nicest note a girl could want from David's parents.  Made me tear up.  Plus a puzzle for the coming summer and our requisite hibernation.

My heart was also ineffably full and touched by the sweet messages of my very good friends Amy, Kelly and Tiffany, and my sister Rachel who all posted birthday wishes.  David, just reading them last night, said, "That was so fun read and to see that other people love you for the same reasons I love you."  I am so happy to be loved by these wonderful girls.  Then and now.  And cannot express my ineffable joy at how blogging has brought us all back together. 

ineffable  /adj./  5.  It was Tiffany's birthday this past week as well.  I am so grateful for her and her ineffable goodness.  There is no other way to describe her.  She is so good.  So true.  So constant.  So wise.  I remember when we were all young and dreamy having a discussion about the qualities we wanted in a husband.  Tiff said she wanted someone who was kind.  "Kind?"  I said dismissively.  "Any quality in the world and you pick 'kind'?"  And as it turns out, it is the only quality that really matters in a marriage.  She was always that wise.  Happy Birthday, Tiff.

ineffable  /adv./  6.  Inspired by Kelly's post, I have tried a few new hair do's on my girls this past week.  But somehow since the last time I french braided their hair, my girls have grown up.  My girls were all giggles to discover that I needed to stand on our little step stool in order to braid the top of their heads and reminded me that they used to be the ones to have to stand on the stool.  I was reduced to tears at this observation and when they questioned me I could only shrug ineffably.  How could I say that in just one moment they had gone from little to grown, from "at-my-breast" to "out-the-door"?  How could I say just how much I loved them and what beautiful young girls they had suddenly become?  How could I say that my life is passing as if in a dream and how badly I wished we could all be just here, in this moment, forever?

SPT and My Life by the Numbers

1 picture of me for "Self-Portrait Tuesday" just

48 hours before 

24 of my favorite people in the world arrive to spend

70  hours quilting and laughing and talking and

2 hours sleeping.  Incidentally, I am accepting

0 excuses from my husband because this is the

1 weekend per year that is all mine, and he has known about it for

365 days.  And for those of you not keeping track, this is blog post number

101.