Perscription for FUN!

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to teach two classes at Dave's Bernina Fall Retreat. On Thursday evening I taught the Spooky Treats quilt and Friday afternoon I taught a fun new bag. The staff at Dave's had made us the cutest sewing first aid kits. Everything from a new needle, just in case you broke one. It had treats, pencil and notebook and our presciption for having fun.

This is the Spooky Treats quilt that has been hanging at Dave's. I wonder why they hung it so high? Oh I know, they didn't want the treats to disappear.

Darlene and her quilt. I just love this lady. You wouldn't believe all the sewing she gets done. I have had her in several classes and she just keeps coming back for more. Aren't you sick of me Darlene? She just happens to be the wife of Dave and her two sons now run the stores. She is one sweet lady. I hope to see her in St. George.

Barbara and her cute, cute quilt. My students.

Another great customer of the Corn Wagon and one of the best employees at Dave's. Chris is so good with the customers and she knows so much about the machines.

A few snapshots of Fridays class. We had alot of fun doing this class. No one knew what the bag was going to look like. It was a mystery for them.

I am so glad everyone played along. They all did such a great job sewing their bags.

Way cute all of you. Am I going to see some of you in St. George next weekend? Check out the classes that are happening at the Red Rock Fall retreat, Nov. 4th - 6th. Everything is listed on their website www.davesbernina.com. Check them out and then come sew with me. We are making a bag on Thursday night and Friday morning is Christmas stocking. See you there.

These boots...

are meant for quilting. Myself and Marsha(my boss)took it upon ourselves to learn the trick of machine embroidery applique. Dav'es Bernina in Provo was having their fall retreat so we decided it was time to pull the module's out of their boxes. Only I didn't know she was taking the class and visa versa. What a surprise for both of us when we both showed up at the class. I have had my 730 for two years now and haven't learned to use it. I had the 180 embroidery module and I just about wore it out. So I don't know what was stopping me from doing it with the 730. It's not to late to teach an old dog a new trick is it? I know the cowboy boots played a big role in to getting me in the class. These boots are so much fun to make. I might just like this thing called embroidering again. Can the rest be as easy as this first step?

The machine does everything for you but cutting around the part that is being appliqued. I think I can do this.

First boot finished and not looking to bad.

Maxine put both Marsha and I at the head of the class so she could keep an eye on her two troubled students. Oh we weren't that bad were we Maxine? We maybe laughed alot but we were serious when it was time to get down to business.

This is Maxine, the teacher. She is in front of her quilt she made from the boot designs. This is a Lunch Box Quilt and I first saw it at spring market and I remember thinking to myself that that quilt is so much work I will never do that. Never say never I guess, so when I saw that it was on the class list I thought to myself maybe I can do this.

Marsha and myself celebrating our first boot! We both finished two boots at class. Yahoo!

Meet Petunia!

The girls met here on Friday morning to finish up our Petunia bags(I guess I should say they) that we started in St. George a couple of weeks ago. As you recall I posted about this project earlier. This bag is Petunia and she is the cutest thing ever. I have only had mine on my arm for a few short days now and the compliments just keep coming. You can find this pattern at Izzy and Ivy Designs. We are lucky enough to know these designers. They live right here in our area. Watch for some of their new stuff, as usual its amazing! Kaitlyn and Kira sporting Petunia. The bags look really cute out of anything, I think.

Kaitlyn's bag is made from Fandango from Kate Spain.

Kira's bag is made from Meadowsweet from Sandi Henderson.

And this is my bag, I also used Meadowsweet from Sandi. It's always fun to get together with these two doing a little sewing, even if I wasn't much help on this day. Thanks girls for sneaking my bag away and getting it finished for me, otherwise it probably would still be sitting on the sewing floor. I owe you big time.

Fall Pleasures!

I don't know about you but I am so glad to see the cooler weather arriving. Fall is my favorite time of the year, so why in the heck has it taken me so long to get everything out and in it's right place? Maybe it was buying a pumpkin and sugared acorns in St. George that did the trick. That was just the thing that got the ball a rollin'. I spent Monday getting decorated so I could start enjoying all the beautiful things that come with this time of year. Here are a couple of snapshots of the decorations on my entertainment center.

This is the pumpkin I'm talking about. It goes so well with the wall hanging above it. And the acorns are layered in the apothacary jar. I usually have the lights on but I was getting to much of a glare in the picture. So just pretend your seeing it all lit up. I should have bought the pear too, dang it all.

With fall comes some of my favorite snack recipes, like caramel corn. So Wednesday while I was

watching Thayne we made this scrumptious treat. I have been using the same recipe for over twenty years. My good friend DeAnne shared this with me when the kids were small. It has been passed on several times since then and I don't think she would mind me sharing it with all of you.

These two kitchen items are the best around for making the perfect popcorn. The Popcorn popper is called a Whirly Pop. I bought them several years ago at the Cracker Barrel and they make the best popcorn. I think they may even still sell them. And the green Tupperware bowl is a colander with a great a grated lid, just right for shaking the unpopped hulls out. Don't you just hate biting into one of those? I'm always afraid I'll break a toothe. Anyways I wore my first one out and had to throw it away. I was sad to think that I would never be able to replace it. I was in luck. When we cleaned out my mom's kitchen cupboards I was so glad to give this little beauty a new home.

She's in perfect condition. I am trying not wear her out so she will be a permanent fixture here at the White house for a very long time. Hopefully I can pass it down to one of my kids. Can you even buy these from Tupperware?

The finished treat. Thayne couldn't wait for it to cool down so he could get his hands all sticky.

Hope your having a beautiful fall. Here is the recipe for Caramel Popcorn from Deanne Ainge.

2 1/2 Cups brown sugar

1 C. light Karo Syrup

1 cube butter

1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk

1 tsp. vanilla

Pinch of nutmeg (that's what makes this so yummy)
Bring to boil, boil until soft ball stage. After removing from heat add your vanilla and nutmeg. Pour over a large bowl of popped corn.

New Quilts!

I had the most amazing sewing weekend. I spent most of the day on Friday and Saturday doing some catch up work. I finished everything up on Sunday afternoon. I sewed three quilt tops total. Two of them are for shop displays and the third is a baby boy quilt for Kaitlyn's baby. The first quilt is made from Bliss by Bonnie and Camille for Moda. I ussed 2 charm packs and a little yardage. This one was so simple to put together. The quilt in the back is the Turning Twenty Simply Sashed called Sew Simple. This is made from the line Tea for Two from Whistler for Windham Fabrics with a little bit of Valori Wells Nest thrown in, and oh some Riley Blake's Rainy Days. The last quilt has a little bit of everything, but the focus fabric is baseball. The browns, tans, golds and rust are a bit different for a baby, but it turned out really cute and Kaitlyn loved it and that's what counts, right?

Stacked up and ready for the quilter. Give me a week or so then I'll post them again after they are quilted and bound. Which is my favorite part of the quilt's completion.

A girl's weekend!

Kira, Kaitlyn, Karas, McKinley and myself headed to St. George for an all girl's weekend. We would be meeting up with my sisters and their girl's and their girl's. In total there were 16 of us going. The girl's and I left on Thursday afternoon so we could make it to our early morning bag class at Dave's Bernina on Friday morning. The last time I was there I signed us up for the cutest bag called Petunia. The timing couldn't of been better for scheduling a class in. What a great way to start the day. Karas and McKinley came in my room to make sure I was up. These two little ones don't know how to sleep in, but then again we couldn't on this morning.
We got the girl's ready and fed them breakfast and it was off to a babysitter. One of Kira's Stampin' Up friends offered to watch the girl's while we went off sewing. How nice of her to do that. Thanks Wendy, we owe you big time.Let the sewing begin. Kira and Kaitlyn both have nice Bernina's to sew on. Aren't they lucky? I am so glad that both of them like to sew. We have alot of fun getting together, which isn't often enough.

Here we are with Jana or Lola as she is called from time to time. We are showing off our Petunia bags. We didn't quite get finished but you can get a glimpse of what it looks like. Jana is a designer for Izzy and Ivy Designs which is located right here in our area. I guess you could call Salem our area. This company designs darling kids clothes, bags, hats, etc. Check out both of these blogs for some great inspiration.

Later Friday evening everyone else started to arrive. Me and my girls made supper for all of us. We fixed taco soup, green salad, chips and salsa. And everyone brought some kind of treat out of mom's recipe collection. There was everything from caramel corn, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, rice chex mix and puffed rice balls. We weren't going to go away hungary this weekend. I think yummy treats are all a favorite of ours. You can tell we are all Thomas'.

My sister's Collette and Jan. My two neices, Lindsay who belongs to Collette and Karissa who belongs to my other sister, Tamara.

Even the little one's were invited to the get away. Here's my great neice Maddie and my two little crazy's, McKinley and Karas. So well behaved, sometimes!

Belly up to the bar! Now that is funny, we had two cute pregnant girl's at the party. Kaitlyn and Alayna are both due in December. Both are having boys.

We had no longer finished supper and Collette was already preparing breakfast for the next morning. I told you we weren't going to go away hungary.

What's this? A guy at the girl's weekend. I don't think so! Colby stopped by to pick up his two girl's after supper. Colby belongs to Collette and happens to live in St. George. It was fun seeing them again even if it was for such a short time.

Let's eat, again!

Saturday morning we welcomed Annette(my sister-inlaw) and her girl's Amber and Shanna.
Annette brought us yummy cinnamon, raspberry and orange rolls from Shirley's. Oh my, just the right thing to go along with our breakfast casserole Collette fixed the night before.

Amber and Shanna, showing off pictures of their kids.

After breakfast and visiting a bit, we all headed out to do our own thing. Most all of us hit some kind of store or another. We really didn't do alot of shopping this trip. It was just fun hanging out and getting caught up with everyone.

Oh no,

what should we do about this? Can you tell just how high these ceilings are? The little ones were a little bit curious of just how we were going to get this balloon down out of the fan. Watch and you will see.

Tadah, Kira and Alayna to the rescue. Thank heaven's great grandpa had a ladder in the garage.

For Saturday nights supper we all met at Iggy's. Front to back we have, Amber, Annette, Shanna, Lindsay and Quincey. From back to front we have Collette, Maddie, Alayna, Tamara and Karissa.

And at this table we have McKinley, Kaitlyn, Karas, Kira and Aunt Jan.

Back at the house for some pictures.

Isn't she cute? I think so.

Say cheese! We were trying to get McKinley to pose so we could show off her new boots. We couldn't stop laughing she was trying so hard.

And this, isn't it the cutest thing ever? This is something you don't see Karas doing very often. I snapped this picture at just the right time. I love it and it will bring back fond memories of all the fun we had on this weekend.

The Thomas four. Shannon, Jan, Collette and Tamara. We're missing someone, Mom. She would have had fun with such crazy girl's, granddaughters and great granddaughter's. We are so thankful for such loving parents that have given us a wonderful home to have such great get aways and making memories that will last forever.

Three silly sister's in St. George.

Later Saturday evening Kira brought us some of her Stampin' Up supplies to make charm necklaces. We all commented about having craft night in years past when we used to get together on deer hunt weekend. Oh we did some unique stuff way back then. Remember sponged painted sweatshirts, button collared sweatshirts, beaded fabric necklaces and the list could go on. We laughed about all of the above mentioned. Times have certainly changed.

The Stampin' Up demostrator giving directions.

Everyone was so involved. Intense stamping!

They all had a good time creating their charms.

Even Maddie had fun.

Here are a couple of examples of the templates that go in the glass saudered charms. "T" is for Tamara.

Love the black and red.

Great Aunt Collete entertaining the kids on her new play toy, her Ipad. She had downloaded some games for the kids on it.

McKinley doing a little relaxin before the long trip home.

Home again, home again jiggety jog! Boy were these girl's really testing us on the travel home. We finally had to seperate the two little one's in the back.

Karas playing the waving game. I told her to wave at every car that passed us. That lasted about a second, or maybe two.

Finally she's asleep. Peace and quiet at last. Maybe!

Not now, I'm driving!

Let's say cheese for the camera, Karas!

What a great weekend, but there's no place like home.

Give me a little time to rest up and we can do it again.