A Treat For You Today!

So many of you have told me that it's nice to see the face behind the blog. The photos of me in Galena are a bit far away so I thought I'd share a couple of close-ups with you today.

These were taken back in March on my mom's birthday.



This is me with my fat little Simba. He's very shy and quiet and doesn't care too much for being photographed. He's very gentle and sweet, and because he's fat, he's very mushy!



And here I am with Nightmare. This little one is my baby. He's been with me since he was 3 weeks old and I truly believe that he thinks I'm his real mother. He has separation anxiety whenever I go outside or leave the house. He sits by the door or the window and paws at it until I come back.

Antique Crazy Quilt Repair Begins

First, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who left me comments regarding my Galena and Field Of Dreams photos. I'm so happy to know that you enjoyed seeing them. Thank you everyone! I love having comments to read even though I don't always reply to them. It's not that I don't want to, it's a matter of time. You know me, I'm always into a lot of different things!

Today, I'm back in the real world and ready to start the repair on my 2 antique crazy quilt projects. I cleaned them both yesterday. What a tedious project that was!

To clean them, I put several layers of cheesecloth over the hose of my vacumm cleaner and worked over the quilts doing a "set & lift" motion. After several hours and quite a bit of cheesecloth (yes, you wouldn't believe how dirty they were), I'm happy to say that they are clean. Or, at least as clean as I can get them.

The first repair that I will make is on my commission piece:



I'm going to start by repairing the beaded area. The beading was worked on netted lace and then sewn into the quilt. I have some beads that are a close match to the antique ones on this quilt so I think I'll be able to replace the missing ones. My plan is to anchor all of the beads to the quilt. Remember, when I complete this, I'll be adding a new back and binding to it so I'll be working through everything that's all ready here.

I plan to meet with the quilts owner on Friday to discuss my ideas with her regarding more embellishing and embroidery. Basically, I want to share my ideas with her first before I go any further on it. So once I have the beading repaired, I'll put this one to the side and figure out what to do with mine.

To be honest, mine feels extremely overwhelming. There's just so much to repair on it. I honestly don't even know where to start. Scott reminded me last night that I don't have to look at the entire "staircase". I just need to take one step at a time. I'll just have to pick a place to start and work from there.

Tomorrow, I will have some interesting information for you on my quilt. My friends Susan and Bennie shared some history with me that you might find interesting!

Back From Galena!

Hi everyone! I'm back! We had the loveliest weekend in Galena, Illinois. I know I've mentioned it before but if you're new to reading my blog, Galena is a gorgeous little historical town located in the northwest corner of Illinois. It's about 2 1/2 hours west of where we live in McHenry, Illinois.

The weather was wonderful this time! 80 degrees and sunny all 3 days.

Since I don't have any stitching to share at the moment, I thought you would like to see a few of the photos we took on our trip. I was finally able to get some nice pictures of the gorgeous rolling hills there:





Does this look like Ireland or what! Not that I've ever been to Ireland but this looks like the photos I've seen of Ireland. The view from the road is breathtaking! It looks like this on both sides.

The northwest corner of Illinois was left untouched by the glaciers so the landscape is nothing but rolling hills. Were we livein Illinois, it's flat as a pancake!

The next photo is The Belevedere House. It's an Italianate style Victorian and my favorite house in Galena:



The highlight of this trip for me was yesterday morning when we drove to Dyersville, Iowa to see Field Of Dreams:



This is where the movie was filmed. As you know, I love baseball and have so much been wanting to see this.

Here's the actual baseball field:



It's not quite the same without the corn but that won't be tall until August!

Ok, here's a fun one for you. Another rare picture of me. I'm standing on homeplate:



I always look so stupid in photographs! We were there at 8 am yesterday and I have to tell you, that wind was quite cold! This part of Iowa is all farmland as far as the eye can see and it is just so wonderful! The only sound was that of birdies singing.

Here's one more photo for you:



Scott and I sitting in the bleachers. Think about this, Kevin Costner sat here!!!

We met the nicest couple there. A retired couple from Florida and they offered to take a picture of Scott and I together. They were so nice!

Well, those are the photo highlights of our trip. There are more photos on my Flickr site. If you'd like to see them, just click on one of the images and that should take you to the rest of the pictures.

We did a bit of antiquing while we were there but I didn't find anything all that exciting. In fact, I only bought myself a necklace and a magazine! That's ok though, it's more about the "being there" for me than the shopping.

Galena does have 2 used book stores and both specialize in out of print books. Guess what I had hoped to find? Yes, I was hoping to find the Crazy Quilt book by Penny McMorris. No such luck though. In fact, I stood there, staring at the very small needlework sections, realizing they didn't have it and yet, expecting it to materialize right before my eyes! Scott keep saying, "Pam, they don't have it. It isn't there." He kind of had to drag me out of the stores! Oh well, I'll find it eventually. Probably when and where I least expect it!

Well, that's it for today ladies! I hope you enjoy seeing pictures of my favorite place in the world! For now, I'm off to start cleaning those antique crazy quilts!

More tomorrow......

The Mozart Journey Complete!

The stitching is complete on this:



Mozart looks happy, doesn't he? I would like to think that he would be pleased with my tribute to him!

I'll assemble this next week when I have some free time. Michael's carries beaded gold purse handles so I need to run up there for a pair.

Also next week, I plan to start work on the antique crazy quilts. My sweet mom was at Hobby Lobby earlier this week and she bought some fabrics for me that will work nicely to replace some of the damaged pieces. I need to pick up some #8 perle cottons in a variety of colors. I usually use #5 on my CQ's but my antique CQ is worked with finer threads.

Quick question for you: Does anyone have any clue as to when varigated threads were introduced? I was looking at my commission quilt and there are varigated threads on there. If I could find out when shaded threads started showing up, it would help me to "ballpark" date that quilt.

Ok everyone, I'll be away from my computer now until Tuesday, May 22nd. We're off to Galena, Illinois for the weekend and this time, I hope to see the "Field Of Dreams" movie set in Iowa!!!

Have a great weekend everyone. I'll see ya on Tuesday!

My Beloved Mozart

I don't know why I didn't think of doing a Mozart themed purse sooner. I have loved Mozart's music for as long as I can remember. I do enjoy other Classical composers such as Bach, Beethoven and Vivaldi. But Mozart...how could I ever describe what his music does to me? Mozart's music is glorious! When I listen to it, I'm instantly uplifted. I get lost in it. It puts me in a "higher" frame of mind and I can focus for longer periods of time. Certain pieces, such as Symphony #25 and The Requiem, almost make me incapable of doing anything but listening.

Oddly enough, I've never heard anything by Mozart that I didn't like. In most cases, I don't care for vocal music. It's kind of like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, almost like the words get in the way. Mozart's choral works, even his operas (and I do not care for opera)are soothing on my nerves.

Well, I know Classical music isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I'm sure you can appreciate my tribute to whom I believe is the greatest composer of all time:



All I have left to add to this is my little signature cat so I will stitch him on this afternoon and then this will be ready to assemble.

I would like to share a photo with you that was sent to me by one of my readers. This is Mozart's birthplace in Salzburg:



What a thrill for me to see this! Thank you Michele for sending this image to me and for granting me your permission to share it here on my blog so that my other readers can enjoy it too!