2018 County Fair----and family !

Kelley and the kids came down on Saturday afternoon.  We had fun going around to most of the local second-hand stores.  We found some fun goodies and had a good time.  Arriving back at my house, Zoe talked her brother into a facial masque, telling him that guys, as well as girls, need to practice 'good hygeine' with a really clean face!

Then I fixed us all a little supper before we got ready to go to the fair.  It was funny to hear the two struggling to open their mouths wide enough to eat those burgers with that masque holding their cheeks tight !
Plain, simple fare to eat.......hamburgers, (boxed) mac n cheese , and, by request of my daughter, my fried potatoes (she says no one else's come out like mine).

This being the first time we've all been able to go to the fair together, we had a wonderfully, fun time!  Upon arriving there, I was immediately talked into going on a ride with my daughter (really, a pretty tame one), and it wore me out from trying to keep the centrifugal force from making me squish her!   That was enough riding for me !   But the kids tried most everything but the kiddie rides, had some lemonade and funnel cakes, and went with me to see the quilts that I had entered into the exhibits.

  It was demolition derby night, but somehow with the allure of the 'midway', we never made it over to the grandstands to watch the smash-ups.  I think the boys would have loved it, but it just couldn't compete with carnival rides.

I wound up bringing home a couple of ribbons for my quilts, but was very disappointed with lack of public participation in entering, and with the fact that the quilts that WERE there were not well-displayed.

Remember this 16-patch quilt that I made last year while working at WalMart?
It won first place in the hand-quilted category.

And this one, that was made for a friend's grandson, won second place in the machine-quilted category.

 Still, atleast my grandkids got to see good, ol'-timey fair exhibits, such as they were.

When we finally took time out for funnel cakes, the bit of spitting rain picked up until it was a steady downpour coming over us while we sprinted towards the other end of the park where we had parked the minivan.  More laughter ensued !  God is good !

P.S.  I got this quilt-top basted.  It was pieced so many years ago that I hate the fabrics that I used.  But it reflects the time period in which it was done, so I'm just trying to make it a finished work.

Prep work, Kelley's move, and Rod Stewart

I've been getting a bit of quilting done since I last posted.  One of the projects was a secret, and I haven't received word that it has been gifted, so I'd better not say more about it.  But it was a project that I had forgotten about, so it was good to be able to check it off of my 'to do' list.

Yesterday, I cleared the furniture away in my living room, and set up my basting frame for this quilt.  County Fair time sort of snuck up on me, so I don't guess I'm going to have an entry, but atleast it has motivated me to do a little bit of prep work this week.

I resurrected a batting (from my shed) that I have had in storage for

probably 20 years !  It is one of two that I bought at an estate sale back then.   They were both 'new' in the package, and I used one of them on several smaller projects many years ago.  It made the most drapeable quilt that I have ever produced, so I hoarded the second one, waiting for a very special project.  Well, time has gotten away from me, and I figure that I either use it or now, or it winds up in MY estate sale some day.  I

I bought a luscious solid fabric in coral for this backing, thinking that it will give me a nice option for flipping the quilt over and using it as a whole-cloth look sometimes.

On July 2nd, my daughter and her family moved to Clarksville as her husband has been restationed at Ft. Campbell.  It's so nice to have them so near to me after all these years of them being 12 or more hours away !
She had said that if she ever lived close to me, she would take me to see Rod Stewart live in concert.   Well, surprisingly, that opportunity presented itself on the first of August, so her husband drove down to take me up to their house for a few days.  She and I attended my first 'real' concert, and we had a WONDERFULLY MEMORABLE night !

It was great to get to spend some quality family time too, before Tim had to leave for a year in South Korea.  We played monopoly late into the evening one night, and really got to see each other's competitive side.  It was fun.

I like this photo of Tim and the kids at the airport.

Other big news..........ZOE GOT CONTACT LENSES !