Thursdays at the quilt shop.  But this Thursday no one is getting much done.  They are visiting and that's great.  It's the holiday season!

Happy Holidays to everyone.  My friend made this wreath for me for Christmas.She's sooo talented.  Our group meets every November and she made a wreath for us all, one had yarn bowls and a hand knitted washcloth (way to pretty to use) and the other did emergency kits with lip soother, tissues, etc.  They are so much fun to be with!  We always say we are going to meet more than once a year but it doesn't seem to happen.  We all grew up together in Gardner, Ks. and formed lasting friendships. 

   Now that I look at the picture, I think I have the wreath hanging sideways.  Guess I need to change it.

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We had a wonderful weekend at the Elk Falls Pottery Open House and a trip the Pawhuska to the new Mercantile of Ree Drummond's aka Pioneer Woman.

The is the first selfie I've been in...didn't turn out too bad and I think Sharon's phone is still working. So all is good.

We shopped, sewed and visited the whole weekend away.  Don't know what I ever did to deserve such great friends.

Here is our lovely demonstrator, Jane.  She demo-ed in my booth at market.

As you can see by mid day, there is no one in the aisles.  Don't know how the Market can attract more buyers. But they are needed.

We all had a good time.  Ate at some fantastic places.  Mannie's Seafood has great seafood at good prices and is easy to get to.  At Hickory Hollow, Kevin had a chicken fried steak about the size of a platter.

On the way home, we went to Moda fabrics warehouse and Amy now has a plan and fabric for her 2017 Block of the Month.

First day at wholesale market in Houston.  This is a picture of some of the booths from the second story of the George R. Brown Convention center.   It's about 3 blocks long, 1 block deep and three stories high.  It's pretty overwhelming for a buyer to try to sort out what they need in their shop.

All the Overbrook Quilt Connection crew went to the Moda party after close this evening.  A wonderful meal and then entertainment.... Texas style dancing and a mechanical bull.  Amy tried to get me to ride the bull but I had on a straight skirted dress.  It would have been quite the show just trying to get onto the thing with that dress.

Back to the show tomorrow from 9 to 6.  We try to get in there a little earlier so I can see some of the other booths.  The bad part of having a booth there is I'm stuck in it most of the day and miss a lot of the show.

This is a very busy time of year.  Last weekend was a sewing retreat with friends which included a wiener and marshmallow roast.  The weather was beautiful for this.  And we had a great time.

Now we are getting ready to go to wholesale market in Houston.  Dennis will be holding down the fort at home.  He always tells his friends that I'm on vacation.  But what kind of vacation is it when you stand on your feet for 10 hours.  Visiting with old friends is nice, but why don't they stage it in a nice meadow or something.  Concrete floors are for the birds.  Amy will be shopping for new items and on the lookout for her next year's block of the month.  I'm mostly stuck in my booth and the only time I get out is usually early before the show opens.

Jane Anderson is going with us.   She will be doing demos in my booth on embroidery with a regular sewing machine and re-hooping for large designs on an embroidery machine. If you are at the show, come by and visit with us.

We have been checking the weather in Texas and it looks like we are traveling to summer and leaving the nice fall weather.  Fall is my favorite time of year!

Hopefully, I'll get around enough to take some pictures to share.

Saturday morning found us in Taos at the Wool Festival at the Kit Carson Park.  Lovely weather, slightly cool to begin with but it turned into such a beautiful day.

This lovely fellow was the winner of the best felted dog coat.  I think this is especially lovely since they are sunflowers for this Kansan's eye.  And he was such a very well behaved model and just ate up all the attention.  If you want to know he is an Italian Spumoni.  As the announcer said, he sounds more like a food than a dog. 






 Don't know how I managed to get the next two pictures on their sides and, worse, I don't know how to correct it.  I guess you'll just have to lay on your side to view them.  Or truly you can just drool over the colors like I did and not worry which way you are viewing it. However, the trees are a little distracting to be laying on their sides.  This booth had lovely felted pictures.

 
 

 
 



A fellow fiber addict.

What a pretty send off for our
last evening in Dixon, New Mexico.

We tried something different from the regular motel room.  We did an airbnb.  We had a three bedroom house in the middle of an apple orchard.  It was adobe and it sure kept the sounds from the outside outside. 

Went to Ghost Ranch north of Abiquiu where Georgia O'Keefe painted.  Saw lots of different terrain from mountainous to desert. 

Fall is coming to Kansas. 

The sunsets get more vivid as the shadows grow in length.  The birds are gathering up for their trek South.  And the nights are getting cooler finally.  A blessing for us since we don't have AC in our house. 

I put my fall wreath on the front of the house this evening.  Guess that makes it official!  

TRAIL BOUQUET

Fall wholesale market in Houston is quickly approaching. This is the first quilt that is at the printers to get ready.  I thought I would be far ahead in my readiness, but life happens.  There will be two more pieced patterns and hopefully the digitized barns will be ready too.

I designed this quilt to be used as a block of the month in the Kansas Country Register.  The flowers were found by the pioneers using the trails across our country,  For the retail pattern, I've added two more flowers that might work well on a lighter background.  On my quilt I used more intense colored flowers so they would show up on a dark background.

Researching various wildflowers for this quilt was fun!

So what's up with the pretty pink and white althea I planted last summer?   I think it forgot what color it was supposed to be.  Makes me wonder if the color changes with the soil condition like hydrangeas.



But good old Kansas sunflowers always know what color they are supposed to bloom.

Today a lot of ladies came together to help me test my machine embroidery for the barns quilt.  Jane has worked like a madman (woman) to try to get them correct.  But there are still some changes that need to be done.  I'm going to try to learn digitizing, but it's going to take me a lot of trial and error before I'll even begin to learn enough to make things work.

On a good/bad note, my quilting machine is dead in the water.  It needs a new encoding board which I've sent for.  But in the meantime, I will get to play with my new embroidery machine.  Baby steps with at least doing some embroidery before I know enough to start digitizing.

 Work, work, work.  Four of us "had" to go to Branson in order to get some sewing done. That's our excuse and we are sticking to it.   Then a friend from Springfield joined us to sew.   Norma worked on a quilt she had on a closet shelf for a FEW years.



 Roxane finished her purse and started a wallet. 





Joan finished several hot pads for friends and Shirley did some hand work and then worked on paper piecing blocks. 

Lots of fun, laughs and eating way too much!  

An image from our town in Osage County, Kansas.  Don't Overlook Overbrook.

A town of just near 1000 people.   A nice place to live.  But we don't live in town.  We have a farm south of town.  Big news in the community is that we now have a new Dollar General.  Saves a trip to Topeka or Lawrence (each about 35 miles away) for things like shoe laces, shower gifts, etc.  We have a great quilt shop... Overbrook Quilt Connection , a nice grocery store, a farmer co-op and lots of other businesses.

The Santa Fe Trail traveled on what is now 4th Street.    

Holiday weekend
It has been a nice holiday weekend. Pretty great weather for early September in Kansas.  

Yesterday we had dinner at a friend's house and grilled and ate well.  These people have been friends since school.  Of the six, five were schoolmates and of those three of us rode the same bus.  Now as we age, three of us have become quilting friends as well.  Unfortunately we were missing another couple who rode my bus and my husband's and also a quilting friend.  The Ozarks were calling to them.

It's great to have such long time friends as these.