Blue Quilts

Last week I finished piecing the top and backing to make a baby quilt for my friend Marcia and her mother to give to a new baby in their family.  Her mother pieced the blocks before she had to stop quilting due to health reasons. 

Here is the top.  The blocks all had long pieces that formed a lattice when joined together, so I did not use any sashing strips.

The outer blue border might become scalloped- I am not sure yet.  There was one pieced block left over, so I used it when I pieced the extra blue fabrics for the backing.

Since the baby is going to be a girl, I am planning to add lots of swirly flowers and hearts to all the blue.

We went to visit Charlie's family last weekend.  Our Christmas visit was snowed out.  We barely got in this visit before they got six inches of snow up there last night.  While we were there, it was sunny and cold.

One reason I always enjoy the trip to visit the McBrayers is that Mary Jo's Cloth Store is on the way in Gastonia, NC.  A former grocery store full of fabrics, trims, notions, and bargains!

I bought some fabrics for the blue and white quilt that The Whacky Ladies are making.  White for the sashing, a blue batik for posts and binding, and a contemporary floral in sky blue for the backing.

They had some small pieces of suede in autumn colors, so I picked up a bunch of those. 

I bought some shiny crystal organza for a project for an online class I am taking.  Mary Jo's has a huge bridal section, along with quilting fabric and home decor fabric.  I had to wait behind a bride buying yards of white satin for her dress, and a grandmother buying white silk for her granddaughter's First Communion.

The only other purchases were of some flower pins and a few fat quarters. I got out of there for less than a hundred dollars for the first time ever.  (Okay, $99.95!)

We had a nice visit at my brother-in-law Richard's house.  All Charlie's brothers, his sister, and several nieces were there for dinner Saturday.  Richard's daughter Lindsay brought her teacup chihuahua, Jasper.  Here he is posing in front of his picture in his Santa Claus outfit. His stuffed toy is bigger than he is!

Here is my husband, his cousin Tommy, and his brother Richard when we went to Tommy's house for a visit.  Charlie only has four first cousins, and Tommy is the only male cousin.  This is a huge contrast to my family.  I have 18 cousins on my father's side, and 13 on my mother's.  They live from New England to Florida.  I wouldn't know many of them if I saw them.  Charlie's four all live within a short drive of each other.  Charlie is the oldest of all his siblings and cousins.

We had a beautiful ride home on a sunny but cold day.  There is a long stretch of country highway with lots of farms, pastures, and churches nestled in the foothills.  We could see the snowy tops of Mount Mitchell in Asheville and some of the mountains near Boone.

We were glad to pick up our Kasey from the kennel when we got home.  Teacup  chihuahuas are cute, but don't seem like real dogs to me!  What do you think about that, Kasey?

Fun at Mary Jo's

We had an easy trip to Gastonia.  As soon as we got to the exit for Mary Jo's, a black cloud appeared above, along with thunder, lightning, and rain.  I was given an hour to whirl through the store, and when I came out, the rain was just ending.  I was looking for red and gold fabrics for a project I am contemplating.  I got some yardage and some fat quarters ($1.39/yard) and other large scraps ($.25).

Then I broswed through the scrap bags of laces and trims.  One 99-cent bag had 27 pieces of lace about eight inches long- perfect for post cards and small art quilts.

I chose another because it contained various widths of white and beige twill tape.  Ruth-Ellen showed us how to print on twill tape with an inkjet printer at one of our Anything Art bee meetings.  Now I have some twill tape to experiment with.

I picked up some colored rickrack

and two nice pieces of white silk ready for painting

and some other stuff, and I am happy!

The pool party was lots of fun.  There was a little rain, but most of the thunderstorms went around us, and we spent all Saturday afternoon enjoying Richard's pool.  When we got home, I cut the grass, Charlie washed the car, and then the thunderstorms began here.  Perfect timing!

New Stuff

We had so much fun yesterday at our Whacky Ladies sew-in at Quilts Like Crazy. We had a good turn-out, and got lots of quilt tops started or completed. I came home with two finished ones to quilt for others and donate to our guild charities.

I decided to work on a nine-patch in an analogous color scheme of blues and violets. The alternate blocks are a white print with little pointing hunting dogs in blue. It is about three-fourths finished.

One of our bee members is the long-arm quilter at the store, and she and another store colleague prepared our delightful meals. It was even mostly on my current diet plan, which is South Beach Phase 1. I only cheated a little by eating a bit of zucchini bread. That's healthy, right?

As a little thank-you to the store for hosting us, I just had to make a little purchase. I can't resist those little fabric tulips of fat quarters, so I got one of those in teals and avocado greens.

Here are those fabrics opened up a little.

And I added a few more FQ's to the yellow-salmon fabrics I purchased there recently.

Today several of us had planned to go to Sanford, NC, for the Quilting and Fiber Arts Marketplace. Thirty-seven vendors will be in the Dennis Wicker Civic Center for a two-day trade show. This has my name written all over it---like the vendor mall at a big quilt show without all the distracting quilts to look at!

Snow was predicted for today, so we decided not to go. And I remembered all the stuff I had recently purchased at Mary Jo's, Michael's, and Jerry's Art-a-Rama during Christmas vacation- and had not even put away yet. So, I think I will pass on the trip. I wish it was not scheduled for right after Christmas! But it did not snow a bit here, just rain once again, although the snow caused a lot of traffic problems just north of here.

When I went to Mary Jo's Cloth Store in December, I did not have anything special to buy, like backing fabric for a certain quilt. So I just zoomed around and looked in all the bargain bins, fat quarter tables, button collection, etc. The only fabric I had cut were three pieces of organza. But here is some of the booty:

Some buttons (all are marked down at Mary Jo's)

Batik scraps and some fat quarters:

I love bluebirds, so had to get this fat quarter:

Here is the organza, some thick black satin, and some voluptuous tassel trim.

Some brass stencils for embossing or ???I have a needle-felting machine, but sometimes you need to do a little by hand to stick fibers down before running them through the machine.

And I found two more Cedar Canyon rubbing plates for Shiva oil Paint Stiks.

and some big bags of seed beads.

Okay, gotta go create something!

Weekend of Fabric and Fun

Thursday night it was my turn to host the Whacky Ladies quilt bee at my home. I hauled my Babylock Embellisher and lots of fun fibers down to the kitchen for a little demo. Then some of the ladies tried their hand. A few of them went home with a project to turn into a bookmark or postcard.

This demo almost did not happen because I decided to clean and oil the machine and replace a broken needle (one of twelve) before the meeting. It took forty-five minutes to remember how to get the needle cartridge back in!

Then on Friday morning, we set off for the western part of the state for a McBrayer family party at brother-in-law Richard's home. He has a beautiful above-ground pool with a sun deck all around, and this year we had a beautiful sunny weekend.

Going to visit any of Charlie's siblings usually means I get to shop at Mary Jo's Cloth Store on the way. I did a lot of damage in a short time! I got a yard of beautiful white silk that I hope to paint or dye, lots of fat quarters for only $1.25 each,

and some gorgeous batiks for playing with the techniques in the Bold and Beautiful book I got last week.

They had some rubbing plates for Shiva Paintstiks, and I got the Garden Flowers one.


And lots of notions. Everything costs less there, and I always stock up!

This year our son Bryson was able to attend the pool party at Richard's, and brought the grandkids. They loved the pool, and we loved the time together. Lily and I added lots more pictures to our sketchbook

And Avery and I had fun fooling around with the digital camera and taking pictures of ourselves!

Today our Internet, air conditioning, and my sewing machine are all in working order...but I have to finish my last assignment for my online class to teacher renewal credit. Must wait til later to play with my new toys!

New Things Quilty

I told Santa I only wanted one thing for Christmas this year...but it is a very nice thing! This is a Babylock 12-needle embellishing machine. I have not had a chance to play with it yet...

but now I have these...
which came from JoAnn's and from Mary Jo's. Lots of lovely soft wool roving to play with.

And for months I have been saving a bag of these at each of my sewing areas They are bits of thread, Angelina, yarn, and other various fibers. I have lots of these ready to be part of some future project.

The nice folks at Carolina Sew-and-Vac gave Santa a bag of this gorgeous rayon thread when he picked up the embellishing machine. I found it in my stocking on Christmas morning.



And here is a great gift for the machine stitcher...the little bendable sewing light. It attaches to the sewing machine. This was on my wish list at Quilts Like Crazy in Wake Forest and was a very appreciated gift from Dave and Emily. When the CyberBee met a couple weeks ago, I saw many of these being used by the girls who participated in the sew-in.

When I go to Mary Jo's Cloth Store, one of the first places I check is the Fat Quarter table. They had a great variety this time. Most of the FQ' s there are only $1.25, but not the batiks.

My niece Melinda sent me a link to the baby nursery bedding that she likes. So I looked for some fabrics that might work for a home-made version. She would prefer to have more lavender than pink.Anyway, I am ready to play! My alma mater (North Carolina State) has a bowl game this afternoon, so I will probably be watching football on the tube instead of sewing. But do you think I will need to start a new blog...All Things Felty?

Mary Jo's Goes On-line

Love fabric?

Mary Jo's Cloth Store in Gastonia, North Carolina has been a must-stop destination for quilters, seamstresses, costumers, brides, and interior decorators for decades.

It goes by another name in my house: Mecca.

Mary Jo's is located in a former grocery store building right off I-85 near Charlotte, North Carolina. That's right, a whole Harris Teeter full of the goodies. I have trained Mr. Quilty to stop there for at least an hour every time we go west to visit the in-laws. He has found many pleasing manly destinations nearby in Gastonia. While I frantically throw bolts of fabric on the counter for one of the helpful staff members to cut, he visits Northern Hardware, Sam's Club, and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. We both achieve near-euphoria during that hour or so.

What is so different about Mary Jo's? It is mind-boggling. First of all, everything in the store is discounted. Quilt shop quality fabric is about three dollars less per yard. Pick up your tab when you enter the store, and veer left for the cotton selection, which makes up about half of the store. Then: do you want to search by theme? Large signs above the aisles let you know where to find ocean prints, leaves, florals, animals divided into cats, dogs, jungle...got the idea? Need coffee cup fabric? Chili peppers? Got it!

Now, if you instead choose to shop for certain colors, they have another section farther back divided into shelf after shelf of bolts sorted by color.

Need baby fabrics? Flannels? Head to the back. Want a Fossil Fern? They have every colorway.

Drooling yet? They have a table of fat quarters for about 99 cents each. Oh, and all the notions, threads, tools you could imagine. And batting. And bolts of muslin.

Head to the right of the store, and you find the ribbons and trims, followed by the formal fabrics and home dec section. One of my brothers-in-law has been known to shop Mary Jo's to find bling-bling for his Elvis impersonator outfit!

Not heading to Gastonia any time soon? Here is the good news. While they have always offered mail-order service by telephone, they have just rolled out their new website. Yup, finally, the actual fabrics are viewable on the Web! Here is your Bookmark: http://www.maryjos.com/

Mary Jo has also started a blog at http://maryjoscloth-design.blogspot.com/

That blew my mind! Mary Jo's has never been exactly high-tech. Congratulations to Mary Jo on all the hard work to improve your services to the fabri-holics of the world.

You can take a virtual tour of the store here: http://www.maryjos.com/about/tour.aspx

Don't take the Quick Tour- you will get seasick. Check out the Quilt Front and Quilt Back sections.

Ready to shop? Sit down with your Krispy Kreme and coffee, and let 'er rip!