Las Vegas, Baby?

Last week I went to Las Vegas. Yeah, you read that correctly, I went to Vegas.

I went with my friend Angelia who is the creator of fantastic fairy wings and related ephemera (check out her Etsy store: On Gossamer Wings). She had been invited to teach fairy wing construction to dance costume designers (Tutu Seminars). I was invited to go along as the muscle (because every good fairy needs to have some muscle and protection behind her).

Angelia's seminar went from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM on Thursday and Friday nights, so that put a bit of a hitch in doing anything exciting in the evenings (and yeah, I know technically that is still early, but we are old...and cheap, err frugal). The sessions were great and Angelia had the opportunity to meet some of her fans...and she does have fans. I have to say that the women and men that were participating in this seminar are amazing. They all schlepped sewing machines and sergers to this place and learned to make all sorts of different bodices and tutus and dance wear for the schools and professional dance troupes and theaters. The work that they were doing blew me away and they so enjoyed what they were doing. After the classes, they would continue to gather together and discuss the hows and whys of doing certain things in the construction of their costumes and they were all more than willing to open and share what they knew.

Now, Angelia and I we were not there for learning all the ins and outs of working with tulle...I was there solely as an observer. We also didn't stay anywhere near the strip, which is always the first question that people ask when I say I went to Vegas. In fact, the strip was about a 30 minute cab ride over there, and we just weren't that interested in checking it out....we could see it from our room, and that was good enough. We were on the 19th floor of a 20 floor building, so we declared ourselves to be staying in the penthouse basement or penthouse adjacent. The room fit our needs. It was clean, had two beds, and good AC, so really, what more could you ask for?

The casino, however, well, it really wasn't what you imagine, or rather not what I imagine....

What you expect in Vegas....bright lights and beautiful happy people

This would have at least been interesting to see:

This is what we actually saw in our casino (not an actual picture because I just couldn't bring myself to take pictures in there....)

Rows and rows of slot machines manned by the elderly or the depressing

Mind you, the casino was right across the street from a retirement community, so I really think they just bus people over from there every afternoon. The highlight of the casino, though was checking out all of the names on the slot machines. My personal favorite was:

Willy Wonka machine with the motion seat

Now this casino didn't have just slots and a handful of tables for cards, craps, or roulette....they also had a giant smoke-filled bingo parlor (although there was a little glassed in room for the non smokers to sit in), a bowling alley, and a movie theater (not that any movies were showing at times that were convenient for us).

Just to give you one last feel for this place.... As I stated, our class was finished at 8:00 PM, which meant we would get out of there around 9:00, after all the clean up and final questions. We would try to go to dinner after that, however, the restaurants would all stop serving around that time. The buffet was closed, the surf and turf restaurant was out of our price range...and closed. The bottomless taco and enchilada restaurant stopped serving. The sushi bar...you guessed it, stopped serving. The only place left to eat was TGIFridays. Yep, I went all the way to Vegas and we ate at Fridays...both nights. Not that I really minded because they currently have a Tennessee Whiskey Cake that is really scrumptious and Angelia and I split one....twice.

Will I go back to Vegas? I'm sure I will.....it didn't kill me this time and who knows, maybe third time will be the charm where I meet somebody and get married there...

The Three Rs Quilts

I have been participating in the Art Quilts Around the World, quilt challenge for a while now. The latest was "The Three Rs...Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" and the only rules (aside from staying within the size range) was that we were not to purchase anything new for the creation of these quilts. I immediately knew what I was going to use for my quilt....I have been doing a lot of fusible web stuff lately and really enjoy it and always end up with bits and pieces of fused fabric left over that I have just been tossing into a box. I decided that I would pull all of that out and and figure out a use for it. I then came across a picture in a recycling ad of a swirly tree with its limbs all ending in what can be recycled and the importance, blah blah. Well, I decided that I wanted to make a tree. This is what I ended up with: 

As I was working on it, it felt a little Dr. Seussian to me...but I loved it.

Then, sadly, I quilted it....

This is with the quilting and the binding. I am very disappointed in both of those.  I wanted to do a bunch of free motion quilting, but need to practice a lot more on that. Ah well, I learn with each challenge. 

This is the backing. I used a wallhanging that I made for my friend Sara's nursery...or rather, I used the first attempt at the wall hanging. I wasn't happy with the placement on the fabric after I had fused it all down and decided to make a second version....which is what she received. However, since this was the reduce, reuse, and recycle challenge, I figured I would go ahead and use it. The binding is also a bit that I had left over from some other quilt and you will notice that the bobbin thread on the backside is all different shades, that is because I used up a whole bunch of bobbins that were partially filled with different colors (nice thing about that is now I have a bunch of empty bobbins that I can prefill in preparation for my next big quilt rather than just having a single or couple of bobbins that I have to repeatedly stop and refill. 

As I look at this more, I may take the binding off and redo it...if I get done with the next challenge early...

This was a great challenge for me and I really enjoyed it. I've always wanted to attempt doing a "snippet" picture and this was my first foray into that but it won't be my last....I'm thinking about just covering a whole bunch of fabric with fusible and then see what moves me... 

Quilts for Wee Watson

So a couple of weeks ago my friend Sara was given a baby shower (Waiting to Meet Avery Hope: Baby Shower). Me being me decided that I wasn't going to go off of the baby registry, but instead, I decided to make a quilt....A quilt... yeah that didn't happen.

We all knew back in March what we were having (and yeah, I'm using "we"). I happened to be at the Dallas Quilt Show when I saw a pattern for a wall hanging called "Faith, Hope, and Love" and knew that I wanted to make that for Sara and the nursery, since she was having a girl and it would be fitting for a girl's room. While also at the quilt show, I came across a booth that was out of Bryan, TX and specializes in Texas A&M fabric and patterns and saw the cutest baby quilt pattern that I had to pick up.

The thing is....I had already found a really cute quilt pattern and fabric for a baby quilt that was all about puppies, and I know that both Sara and Randall are dog people as they have 3 crazy critters already. And then I found out that she was doing the nursery in pink and grey, and well.... the black and red doggie quilt nor the maroon and white A&M quilt would really work there. So..... Yep, you guessed it, there were 3 quilts wrapped and a triptyche of angels for the wall:

Faith

Hope

Love

A&M Quilt

Puppy Quilt with Razorback backing fabric

For the Nursery

And because I am notorious about talking about my mistakes... The Faith and Love quilts were made twice as I didn't like the original placement of them. I then trimmed all three wrong so that I had to do a little adjusting there and lastly, after it had quilted all three of them and taken them over to my mom's so that she could put on the binding(and actually finish them off nicely, I realized that there was a black thread showing on Faith, so I had to take out a small chunk of the quilting, dig out the thread and then quilt that section again. Needless to say, there was much cursing to be had while making these small quilts.

(Thank you, Sara, for getting pictures of these and letting me 'borrow' them from your blog.)

Happy Anniversary, Leo!

So, on July 22, 2011 (yes, I had to go back through my Facebook feed and find the actual date) I decided that I was going to welcome this beastie into my life, and I couldn't have made a better decision. 

That face makes me so happy every time I come home and he greets me. His cough worries me almost daily, but we are accepting of the current situation and as long as he doesn't turn away from food or starts to wheeze, then we are doing good. Our daily walks are the best time for some fresh air. Dancing in the kitchen as dinner is prepared makes me laugh. Cuddling in my lap at night to watch television warm my heart. My life would be so very different and so very empty without you in it. 

I love you, my crazy dog.