It's been way to long since I last wrote. As many of you know I was sick much of last fall, and between work and school but blogging on the back burner. I had surgery the week of Christmas to have my tonsils out... and that is supposed to solve the whole sick and never really getting better part... we'll see. I'm feeling better than I was, but I'm still chalking that up to the two week vacation and having a million and one people stop by to check on me, bring me food, walk the dog, do housework etc.

I'd like to thank those of you that are still reading and finding my blog. There's been lots of traffic even though I've not been writing! So now that it's the new year- there's lots to be written about. As you can imagine, if I didn't have time nor energy to write, there wasn't a lot of time to be crafty either... but I'm starting off the year with a quest to finish works in progress (well those that are easily finished)

1. Katie's Wedding Quilt. It's one of the hardest quilts I've ever made, not because it was a hard pattern but that it was traditional and so not my style. It's a Triple Irish Chain in dark colors. She got married over a year ago (oops), needs borders and to be quilted.

2. Random Baby Quilt, made from the original Moda Robyn Pandolph. I started it for my niece when she was adopted (she's now 8) but they changed their color scheme after they told me what colors they were going to use. It's a nine block log cabin. It will probably end up on etsy when I'm done with it.

3. Quilt my mother left when she came to visit when I had surgery. Gift for my friend from home. She brought the quilt top to work on while she was here, and 'forgot' it when she left, and then called to ask if I'd finish it. It's little tiny octagons and triangles in pastel pinks, purples, and yellows.

4. One Block Wonder in Free Spirit's Marabella. This quilt has been "Almost Done" for months. I half quilted it and then couldn't decide if I liked it and took it off the frame. Needless to say it never made it back.

5. Blooming Nine Patch. This quilt's been in previous posts and was moving smoothly for a while.... not so much any more. I get tired of making 1,587,643,587,324,958,734 little nine patches. I know it's not REALLY that bad but I'm about as ADHD as they come.

6. Moda Blossom Quilt. This was a shop sample for the shop, and needs borders and to be quilted.

7. One Block Wonder- Asian by Alexander Henry. These are all cut, and pinned together in a pile in my "Studio". Notice the word studio in quotes. That's because there have been various people sleeping on the couch in there. I think I need to get rid of my pull out couch some days. This quilt is much farther from being done that the others.

So I know I haven't been posting much recently but the school year has started again and I've been in Dallas, Texas all week for the Pfaff convention. (More about that later though) We drove to Dallas on Tuesday night, and got here a day before the convention to make stops at the Moda/United Notions and P&B Textiles warehouses to shop for the quilt shop before we had to go to classes.

We started at Moda/UN at about 7:30 am. First of all, it's a beautiful building, and the lobby is nicely decorated with many of the Moda premade house things and many of the sample quilts are hung off the balcony upstairs.

We of course started in the clearance section, where it almost looks like a normal everyday fabric store. Bolts on racks, flat folds, notions, and fabric headers all for sale (other than you have to buy the whole bolt!). So we did a bit of shopping, picking up some more pieces of the Roman Holiday Collection, and picking a lot of more random fabrics to fill in some holes on the color wall. Everyone who works there seemed really happy, and they all wear thouse cute Moda aprons. Even better several of them were riding around the warehouse on tricycles with big baskets filling orders. We also bought a bunch of great jelly rolls for the shop since they've been so popular recently (Monkeys, repros, and great trendy prints)!

We also hit the United Notions side of the warehouse, picking up lots of odds and ends for the shop, including scissors, books, and Mary Ellen's Best Press (If you haven't tried it you have too- it's amazing and it smells nice. It also doesn't leave crap all over my iron).

Above the United Notions warehouse is their showroom. As one of the staff members explained it to us, it's their idea of a perfect shop, and it's even better because no one messes it up! I've included a couple of photos, but you can find more in my flickr account! They've got one of the coolest classroom spaces I've ever seen, and use it for business meetings and conferences. It seats 12 students, all at their own table and chair with lighting that's independent from the rest of the shop area. You can also see it's in the middle of the area, so everyone shopping can see how cool the class is.

Just off the showroom was possibly the coolest feature of the whole place. They have a Moda fabric library, where they've kept a half a yard of every fabric Moda's EVER PRINTED. It was awesome to look through and see fabrics that I have and love, or remember seeing in the stores or in great quilts. There are literally thousands of pieces, labeled by name and the year and month they came out!

The P&B warehouse was hot, way smaller than the other, and not quite so customer friendly (Though I do understand... it is a warehouse after all). Though the awesome part was that there were people working while we were there putting fabric on bolts from the hug commercial runs! They were working on these big awesome machines that I'm not sure what they're called (Folders?) that take the big commercial bolts, folt the fabric, and spin it on the cardboard ones we all know and love.

More tomorrow on sewing machines and convention!

Life has been a bit nuts recently, as evidenced by my lack of posting. I'm sitting here actively procrastinating my final exam for statistics this afternoon (whomever decided finals should be on a Saturday was EVIL)

This weekend is also the shop hop of quilting shops here in southern Louisiana! (which I'm missing most of because of said final). I did successfully complete the pattern I wrote to make this adorable children's book from the 5 Funky Monkeys fabric panel from Moda! I wrote up a pattern with lots of photographs and directions for fusible binding techniques.

For the book itself I used a coordinating fabric from the same line for the inside and back of the covers, and did a fusible binding for the edges. I 'bound' the book with eyelets and yarn and tied a cute bow on the back!

The patterns were a big hit the first day of the shop hop, we sold several which is always a happy event to know that people like your patterns. They're also available here at ShootingStar on etsy, my second shop for supplies and destashing. I'll slowly be making more of my patterns available online...