Campbell House-St. Louis, MO

As promised, here are the pictures I took of the inside of the Campbell House in St. Louis. I was fascinated with the story behind this house. The people that lived in this house, had thirteen children. They were very wealthy and had running water in their house. The water came from the river(is it the Missouri ?) and as a result, 10 of their 13 children died from either lead poisoning from the pipes or from the river. At the time, none of this would have been know...so they never really knew why their children were dyeing. The three remaining boys lived in the house after the death of their parents and NEVER changed anything. They loved their mother so much that they didn't want anything changed. This house is one of the few houses that has all of it's original furniture. One of the boys died 2 years after his parents and of the remaining 2, one of them had a bipolar disorder of some kind. Apparently they now know that it was due to the lead in the water that their mother drank while pregnant. Of course, he lived the longest and the house was willed to I think Harvard when he died. There was a lawsuit, because people in St. Louis wanted to preserve this house and when the furniture was auctioned off they all came...bought the furniture and put it back in the house. The house is restored to perfection! The museum has a website if you google it and want to read more about.

See you later,

Val

Victorian Fancyworks Sampler Update

Many of you know that last year when Miss Carole came to Wichita to teach, she designed a brand new sampler just for us. If you look at one of my older posts, you will see the earlier stages of my sampler. It is now about 90 per cent done and I am for the most part happy with it. It is certainly not without errors but that's okay...very hard for a perfectionist like me to say! I don't know...I might redo the snowflakes, they are much bigger than Miss Carole designed them to be..I just don't know what happened there.

Now to explain many of the reasons that I have not posted for awhile. Early August I went to St. Louis on vacation. I will post later some pictures of a FANTASTIC Victorian house I went through. It always seems that crazy quilters also like to visit Victorian houses. They allowed pictures, so I will post at a later time.

Now for something that was more exciting than my vacation, was an unexpected trip to Colorado this last weekend. Okay, for one thing, it was more exciting than vacation because being the mother of 4 boys the trip was essentially a BOY TRIP and I had one little meltdown about it and that is why I insisted on the above mentioned Victorian House. This last weekend I found out that Christine Dabbs was teaching in Loveland Colorado and I was not going to go but with the generous urging of two of my friends and a very generous offer of one friend to babysit, off I went. It was absolutely wonderful and I felt that God guided me through the whole trip and I knew that he wanted me there. Here is a picture of her holding one of her UFO's, she says will never be finished. Her work is fantastic, awesome...whatelse can I say.

Okay, now for the unexpected bonus of the trip. The entire Hoffman Challenge entries were displayed and as I turned a corner...there was Betty Pillsbury's Peacock Wallhanging right there is front of me! So only did I get to see all of Christine's Dabbs many crazy quilts.. there is Betty's Wallhanging. It was wonderful. The reason I got so much done on my fancywork sampler is because I had alot of downtime and NO CHILDREN. I missed them but boy did I get alot done.

Well that's all for now,

Val

Prom Dress Swap Purse

I had one comment recently that asked me to tell you more about the Omaha Crazy Quilt Convention. Soo...every year they have what is called the Prom Dress Swap. Everyone who wants to participate brings a prom dress (like from a garage sale or Goodwill). The dresses are all laid out on tables and at the count of three, everyone proceeds to cut the dresses up. Of course you must be polite and no matter how well you like a dress you should save some for the next person...Well that night after the swap we were all admiring our fabrics and an idea came to us. Why don't we make something for the Scholarship auction with the prom dress fabrics. So, I went through my fabrics the other day and came up with these two squares. I figure if I do one seam or open spot a week it will be ready for the convention next year. Oh.... and I have decided it will be a purse. Oh if it is too pretty well...I don't know what I will do!

See you later,

Val

Back From Omaha!

I am so sorry that I haven't posted anything for awhile...I guess I became a little discouraged with what happened in the spring...but I am back! I just got back from the Crazy Quilt Convention in Omaha and everyone I was with had a wonderful time! I worked on my Victorian Fancyworks Sampler while I was there. That is the class that Miss Carole Samples came to Wichita last fall and taught us. I have only 3 more full seams to go and a few embellishers on two of the seams. The sampler has definitely been a challenge! We are busy working on our new MCC Quilt for next year and it is being done in pastels! Here is a picture of the beautiful stitching that has been done on a fan so far. The beautiful work in the corner has been done by Miss Lori of our group. Also here is a picture of my sampler in it's final stages!

See you later!

Val

Needle Case Swap

As promised, here is a picture of the needle case that I received in the needle case swap I was in. Isn't it beautiful!!! It opens up like a fan and fans are one of my very favorite things! The fabric is a beautiful grey/blue brocade and the silk ribbon roses are hand dyed. There are even little roses embroidered on the tassel. Thank you so much for my beautiful needle case Barbara!

See you later,

Val

New MCC Quilt Block with Some Embellishments

Sorry I haven't posted for so long....it's not that nothing is happening around here! Here is a picutre of the latest MCC block that I had. This is the picture of it after I was done with it! I really like the bright pastel colors we are using. There will be only six blocks in this quilt, four fans, two regular squares and then an 8 inch pieced border. We mail the squares in cardboard mailing tubes to each other. I only hope that the long borders will fit in the tubes! The other picture is a Pretty in Pink Needle case. I was recently in a needle case swap in one of my Yahoo groups and this is the needle case that I sent to Barbara Blankenship. I will try to post the BEAUTIFUL needle case that she sent to me. I just love it!

See you later,

Val

2008 MCC Crazy Quilt was a success!

Well, yesterday they auctioned off our crazy quilt at the MCC sale! All seven of us attended the event and there were many pictures taken of us with the quilt. I watched people stopping to look at the quilt and it was interesting. One group of ladies must have stood there 30 minutes or more looking at it. They then pulled back the plastic that was protecting it and began touching it and it looked like they were trying to find out how we tied it! Okay...my maternal instincts kicked in as you all know, I felt like the quilt was our group's little baby. I approached the ladies and told them I helped make the quilt but they still proceeded to touch and analyze. Oh well. Our quilt went for $1,350 and that made us feel really good. What made us feel even better is who the new owner of the quilt is. It is our own Miss Pat who is one of the 7 that helped make the quilt. You should have seen the grin on her face when she knew she won the quilt! We know that it is going to go to a good home where it will be loved and appreciated. We also decided that she can't come to the Victorian Stitchery Retreat unless she brings it along! Ha! Since there are 7 us, we also decided that we need to do this 6 more years so each of us can end up with a crazy quilt. We of course would have to be polite and not bid against each other! All in all it was a wonderful day. The naked block that you see here is the start of our new one for next year. I'll keep you posted again like I did last year on the progress of this quilt.

See you later,

Val