Winter decor!

The day after Halloween and here we are changing things around in the store, hanging Winter and holiday quilts, creating a more Christmasy feel! Things are moving way too quickly these days!!

There was a customer in the store as Jeanne was hanging these quilts and a little surprised to see her prancing around on those shelves! But let me just let you in on a little secret.....Jeanne is never going to win any safety awards! And I've been watching her do it (and frankly - this is nothing!) for 10 years now, and I can assure you, she's only fallen once! Her climbing around on rickety shelves, tables and ladders doesn't even faze me anymore!

So the store is starting to look all Christmasy and it's only November 1st! But really - we waited!! Not like the big players, Wal Mart, etc. They pull out the Halloween candy as soon as Easter is over - and you just wait - by this morning there will be little chocolate santas where the mini chocolate bars were yesterday!! And so it goes!
It's kinda like me trying to buy a swimsuit off season!! I want it for our cruise in February, but should have bought it back last March when they put them out in the stores!!! Heck, they're sold out or have moved on to winter jackets by the time the temperature in Saskatchewan makes wearing a swimsuit acceptable!

Soon the snow will be flying and the Christmas wrap still in our garbage cans, the euphoria of the holiday season winding down, and that my friends, is when the bikinis will go on the store shelves!

What I wished I looked like on the beach in a swimsuit!

What i really look like on the beach in a swimsuit!

Following that trend, you will see our new book arrive in May titled Tis the Autumn Season - Fall Quilt and Decorating Projects. That's right - Autumn! Lol! But this way you will have time to whip up all those delicious projects before the Falls season is upon us!

SNEAK PEEK of one of the quilts in our new book!!

Until next time - I will be the one eating the left over Halloween chocolate bars while cruising the web looking for the swimsuit that will make me look like a rock star on the beach! All the while praying for cellulite to come into vogue!
S xo

Missing In Action!!

Just in case you thought that maybe I had skipped the country, dropped dead or plain old forgot about blogging, the answer is, nope, none of the above! Just busy. Crazy busy!!
Jeanne and I just came off of a hectic whirlwind tour!
We did manage to cook turkey's for our families for Thanksgiving!

But after that, it was flat out!! We flew to Toronto on Oct 10th for the Creativ Festival. We flew schlepping SEVEN suitcases! That's right, SEVEN!! 3 that had nothing but kits and quilts, 2 that had our clothes and more kits and quilts. And 2 that had even more kits and patterns and we carried on as carry on! Sheesh!! That was a treat!

Once we landed in Toronto,

and we struggled and lugged and managed to find a cab large enough to take us and all of our luggage to our hotel, the driver dropped our luggage on the sidewalk and drove away. Ok Fine. We're big girls. So Jeanne says, you stay with the luggage, I'll go get a dolly from the hotel.

And yes, there really are 7....you can't see the other 2 in this pic!

So I'm standing with the luggage, yes all 7 suitcases filled to capacity (that's 50 pounds in case you were wondering!) and I watch Jeanne walk down the sidewalk and right on past the hotel!! At this point, I don't have a lot of choices. I can't leave the luggage. I can't take it with me. I can't yell at her down the very full streets of downtown Toronto. And I know she won't answer her damn cell phone!!
So I just waited. I knew she'd eventually have to come back. And she did!
We piled our luggage on the dolly and managed to get it up to our room, only to find that we had booked the smallest hotel room in the whole world!!! Yes folks for the fabulous price of $122/night in downtown Toronto you are entitled to 200 square feet! Our booth at the show was bigger than that!!

Oh well! We were only sleeping there! And besides.....it was that, or $400/night. And besides....we were across the street from the Royal York Hotel. It was a bit of a struggle while all the suitcases were still in that room - but after 5 of them went to the show it was all good!

After setting up and working the Creative Festival show, Thursday to Sunday, we had a teaching engagement with the Halton Hills Quilters Guild. We did a trunk show the Monday evening and facilitated a class on Tuesday!

So right after the class, Elaine drove us.....and our SEVEN suitcases to the airport. At this point, I was tired and coming down with a cold, and wouldn't ya know it.....our flight is delayed!! Fortunately not terribly long! Flew home, drove back to Moose Jaw, unpacked, repacked, slept, and got in the cargo van the next morning and drove to Calgary for that Creative show!

For those of you who are not regular attendees of these large shows inside of these large convention centres.....there's one thing you may not know, that we know all too well.....there are birds inside these buildings!!! That's right. BIRDS! Flying birds. Swooping birds. Usually they stay away while there are so many people, but during set up and take down - they seem to come out again in full force. In Toronto it was pigeons. In Calgary it was sparrows and this one lone magpie that flew in the building throughout the show!! Poor, poor Jeanne. I thought I was going to have to scrape her off the floor if those dang birds swooped any more!!

Don't let it be said that we are all work and no play! Cause frankly that would be a bald face lie!!!
We stayed with our very good friend Janet Samuels, former owner of Freckles Quilt Shop in Calgary, and even managed to squeeze in a nice dinner out!

Jeanne and Janet

Jeanne and Jo

One last thing...................... You know you're from Saskatchewan when..................

Pay it Forward

I often feel like I don't have anything 'profound' to say in this blog. Today I do. So sit back, grab a cup of coffee, cause I'm gonna be a bit longwinded!

This past weekend was the annual Creative Stitches show in Sherwood Park, AB. Both Jeanne and I and our office manager, Jo were there setting up and working the booth for the weekend.

We were staying at the hotel attached to the complex where the show was being held, and they offered a free breakfast, as many hotels do these days. The first day, Thursday Jo and I went down and had breakfast. It was the usual fare you'd find at one of these free hotel breakfast deals....bread for toast,  some bagels and muffins. There was yogurt and cereal and oranges and apples, as well as eggs and bacon. Not gourmet by any means, but all we really needed! The perfect start to the day ahead of us unloading the van, and setting up the show.

The second morning, we were up early, three of us needing to get through the bathroom of the hotel room, getting all ready for the first day of the show! So  by 8am we were down to the free breakfast room, and it was packed with people!! And....there was absolutely no food left!! None! It was kinda weird! I don't think the hotel was prepared for the amount of people they had staying there! People were walking in, and walking back out, not very happy! We decided we could grab a muffin or something later at the Second Cup coffee place that was right outside the area our booth was in.
Well, soon enough the show started, and it got so busy that we weren't able to leave the booth for that muffin. So early afternoon there was a slight break and I headed out to the Second Cup to grab muffins for us. OMG!!! The line up was really really long....and there was NO FOOD left!!! Apparently this facility also was not prepared for the a whole bunch of hungry women!! There was a place that sold fries and burgers, but the line up was even longer and I couldn't leave the booth that long!! (At this point imagine me wasting away to nothing....) I walked back to the booth, kinda cranky I might add!
I was breaking it to Jo that we wouldn't be eating today (usually we do go to a grocery store before a show and get some food to keep in the booth - but for some reason we just didn't this time!) and at this point I hadn't eaten breakfast, nor lunch. Now any of you that know me, know that I LIKE to eat! And if any of you know me really well .....you know I wouldn't be pleasant to be around on really empty belly!!
Now I also have to point out that although there were three of us in the booth, Jeanne was teaching classes on and off most of the day, which really only left two of us in  avery busy booth, so we couldn't leave the complex.
Now, I must have been my quiet typical self (hee hehe!) as a customer overheard me telling Jo our dilemma. She (Darcy Neufeld Mockford) asked if she could go pick something up for us! I thought that was just so sweet, but I could not ask her to do that for us! Here she was a young Mom away from her FIVE children for the day - her SIXTH child (a baby) with her, and her SEVENTH in her belly, enjoying her day off from family obligations at the show.
She absolutely insisted that she wanted to do this for us!! When we realized she absolutely wanted to do this, we finally relented and asked her if she would be so kind as to grab us sandwiches from Tim Hortons up the street.

She left with our orders rambling around in her head! (Mother of nearly 7, it's like she has super powers!) And came back with our sandwiches, coffees and even a box of muffins!!!

I dived into that sandwich like a starving person! (well I was, ok!?) I don't think I had even been so grateful for an egg salad sandwich ever!! It hit the spot. And it wasn't a greasy burger or fries which I was also very grateful for.
Now Darcy was such an angel for doing this for us - and to top it all off - she wouldn't even let us pay for our lunches!!! She insisted it was her treat and asked one thing of us in return. That we "pay it forward".

So not only is this blog about sharing Darcy's kindness to us when we really needed it, but also a lesson to everyone out there about human spirit. And Darcy's reminder that we all need to 'Pay it Forward' once in a while to make this world a better place!!

THANK YOU DARCY!!!
You are an inspiring young woman!
xoxo

Randomness!

Well I will be the first to admit that I am not very good at this whole blog thing. However in my defence, can I just say I always feel like I have nothing of real importance to say!!! So today you will get some randomness from me!
It's the first day of school and I officially have no one off to school this year! That's right - my youngest is done high school and taking this year off so....no one! (how I got to have children this age I will never know!)
How's this for random.....I sprained my ankle 6 weeks ago and it is still healing. Wow!! At my age (39) you'd think that something like that would heal just a little quicker. Below is a picture of what it looked like about one week into the sprain. And really, that picture totally does not do the bruising any justice!

It was awful! And I don't even have a good story!!! I was walking and then I wasn't. Sad but true. I just stepped wrong and went down. AND had to hobble home!! So not only have I had a swollen painful ankle all summer, but I haven't been able to wear any of the fabulous wedge heels I own!!

So the next random thing I want to talk about is the Little Black Dress collection by Basic Grey for Moda. O. M. G! This stuff is literally flying off the shelves here!!!

You can see what we've whipped up with it, we call it A Night Out. It finishes at
54" x 60" and the kit is $79.95.






















And how about this for random....meet my  newest family member.........

His name is Charlie and he belongs to my daughter! Isn't he just the cutest grand kitty ever????!

Ok, so my real excuse for not blogging...I have been away! Like on holidays?! Not something I usually indulge in, but it was a family get away (minus my youngest son....whose girlfriend was more important than hanging with his family!) and we rented a condo in Canmore, Alberta and had a very fun time!








If you have never been out that way,
Canmore, Banff, etc. I beg you to add
that to your bucket list!!
It's so amazing to see this area!
I won't bore you with all 489 pics I have!

But I will tell you that I'd be happy to show you a few more if you just drop me an email! Lol!
My daughter was the 'official' photographer on this trip and she gave me a ton of fabulous photos!











So my family, minus me of course, cause I took this one!
My daughter Sarah, my husband holding the most beautiful granddaughter in the world, my oldest son Brian standing beside his wife Raesean, who has her arm around my grandson Aiden.
Missing of course is my youngest son Jared!

Missing son ------------->









So check out these fun pics, I'd say that my grandchildren are a chip off the old block quite frankly....

Now my daughter and I have this thing we like to do when we are together....let me show you what it is!

Are you getting a pretty good sense of what it is?? And if you notice...we have the same cheesy smile!

And here is one of my favourite pics...I have no idea why it appeals to me so much......heck, I don;t even know what they were looking at!

Orange Night!

So all you blog followers, we can safely establish that I am a crappy blogger!! I know this will come as a complete and utter shock to lots of you (especially those who know me well....) but I just had nothing to say. I know, I know.....shocking.

So Orange Night. First of all, as you know (or not so I'm going to tell you!) Jeanne and I have our fingers in a lot of pies! (I love pie......) We own and operate The Quilt Patch. We write books for Martingale and Co. We design and publish our own line of patterns under the Quilt Patch Pattern Co. label. We have a wholesale division for our pattern company. We create a new collection of quilts and patterns each spring and each fall. We do a TON of shows, both retail and wholesale. And we design fabric. Oh ya....and we try to maintain a normal life while doing all this.

Soooooo.....what's the real secret behind our juggling ability.....are you ready for this big secret??

OUR STAFF!!

Yep. That's it. That's our secret weapon. That's how we can accomplish as much as we do. And so while we pay like crap, (but we're a lot of fun!) we do try to make sure we throw in a few perks for them along the way! Cause well, we know that to keep them with us, they must be happy!!

Which brings me to Orange Night.

And I don't mean Orange, like the fruit. I mean......

Orange....like the fabric.....

Jeanne bought and scrounged and saved and stashed a HUGE amount of Orange fabrics during the spring show season! Enough to make 8 quilts!!! Thats 8 quilts x 15 fat quarters per quilt!!

AND.....she took the time to precut all this fabric for our staff!! (I want you to know that I ordered the pizza, and that was incredibly hard work!!!) 

So we picked a night and our staff brought their sewing machines in, we ordered pizza for dinner, drank orange drinks (the adult kind!) and had a sew in!

Jeanne, Edna (Jeanne's Mom!) Jo and Yvonne

Flo - teacher extrordinare!

Jo - our office manager and resident 'know what's going on' girl!

Yvonne - second in command to Jo!

Everyone was pretty darn thrilled! We opened our packages and got down to business! Most of us completed a quilt top that evening. Some of us... (me and Yvonne) just didn't make it all the way!

Young Jeri! We'll be sorry to see her head off the University!

Jeri's ironing

Colleen - she headed up the Outdoor Quilt Festival!!

Jeanne had saved up sooooo incredibly many oranges - everything from bright orange to cheddar to pale yellowy orange and everything in between! Everyone left with an orange but different and unique quilt top!

It was a great evening! A little thank you to our hard working staff! 

I wish I had a picture of the finished quilts - but the ones that did complete theirs, whipped them away to be long arm quilted! I guess they were scared we'd change our minds......

But this is the quilt we all made:

Oversized Hopscotch

But Orange!

So the next time you are in the store, or call the store, or pick up a beautifully packaged kit....take a moment to thank our staff for doing an amazing job...they would really appreciate that. And so would we, cause we know we couldn't keep doing what we do without them!!