If it's not Scottish.....

It's Crap!

I love Scotland. Anyone who knows me knows that. I love everything about it. Every year they have the Highland Games down in Oak Brook. I usually go with my friend Amy, who I went to Scotland with the first time. Sometimes the hubbies come along, sometimes we are left to oogle men in kilts on our own. This year the hubby and I went, but didn't get in touch with Amy in time so we missed seeing her. The hubby isn't contented to sit and watch the actual games as I am. I mean really, does it get any better than Tank-like men in kilts tossing a telephone pole with the bag pipes playing in the backround? I think not. Yet he'll watch the tedium that is baseball for hours on end. Go figure. I wasn't able to get photos of the caber toss, but I did get the sheaf toss. The contestants use a pitchfork to throw the 20lb bail over a very tall pole.

This year the weather was lovely so we took the girls, Bug and Daisy, with us. They love the games. They get soooo much attention. We found out that despite being a Golden Retriever, a Scottish breed, Daisy is afraid of the bag pipes and drums. Bug doesn't mind them unless they are between her and food.
Speaking of food, there's only one place to eat. Well, there' s really a lot of places, but only one that I need. Winston's.

They have bridies (ground meat and spices in a puff pastry), sausages, meat pies, sausage rolls, fish and chips, the whole shabang.

They also have ale, not beer. And they do a whisky tasting. I'm told that Amy's hubby did the whisky tasting and was very happy the rest of the day.

The hubby only wanted to stay a couple of hours, so much to my dismay we left early. We totally missed the haggis eating contest and the haggis hurling! The haggis hurling is relatively new to the games here. It's a womens event that while balancing on a half barrel, they have to throw a 1lb frozen haggis as far as they can. How funny is that? I'm just glad the haggis is frozen. Just thinking about a splatted haggis is gross

They used to have a Border Collie sheep herding demo, but haven't the last couple of years. I'm not sure why they don't do it any more, it was great fun. Bug went ballastic over the sheep. I had to turn her away from them while I watched.

The bird of prey tent is always interesting too. I think they are just the coolest birds. This white barn owl was not happy that Bug and Daisy were in it's vacinity. It kept bobbing it's head and watching them. I thought the little fluffy owl was the cutest thing! I thought of Pigwidgeon in Harry Potter. I think it looks like a Pigwidgeon, don't you?

Current projects

I always have multiple quilting/sewing in progress at any given time. In the summer, I also have my flower and veggie gardening projects as well. I thought I would share with you my latest projects.

This is my tomato, basil and nasturtium bed. My sister started the tomatoes from seed, I don't really have the patience for it. I prefer the small leafed spicy globe basil, but I also grow classic Italian basil. My backyard neighbor keeps a close eye on the Italian basil. He loves it, but can't seem to get it to grow, so every summer I hand him tomatoes and basil over the fence. I love the way my lettuce looks! It's very inspiring. I see a lettuce colored quilt in my future. Batiks perhaps. I actually have a printed fabric that looks a lot like this. This is my first harvest of the season! Isn't it exciting?

I just thought this was such a pretty shot:

Now for my quilt/sewing projects. Can you see a theme in the colors of this quilt?

I didn't realize it until just now, but it looks a lot like my harvest!

The fabric is from multiple manufacturers, but the majority is the Princess Butterfly line by Gray Sky Studios for In the Beginning fabric. I love the line, but felt it needed some more contrast, since it's all rather mushy and soft, so Jennie and I ran around Tammy Tadd's store and pulled the others to go with them. I used the Sweet Emma Rose pattern out of the "Miss Rosie's Quilt Collection" book by Carrie Nelson. It went together super fast. I just started this quilt Sunday, June 15th. I really like it, though it's significantly larger than I had anticipated. I thought it would be a throw or twin but it turned out to be 88" x 100"!!! Yikes! In reality it's a little longer than a full/queen bed! I really should start reading the directions more throughly.
I quilted the main part free hand with swirly roses and butterflies and loopies. I used Golden Threads paper to trace the butterflies, since I can't draw. I did the rose thingies on my own. They are my fall back, since I'm good at them. I'll tell you, even though I sew on a Janome 6500 with the extended area between the needle and machine, it was not easy getting this thing through my machine!

The back is pieced together with the brown and pink roses and the left over boarder fabric.

I hope you like it!

The Wedding

It’s so nice to go to a wedding, especially one where you can tell how happy the bride and groom are to be with each other. This was one of those. They are a really cute couple. My cousin Ashley’s wedding was beautiful, and I’m not just saying that. She, as well as the entire wedding, was gorgeous.

Her colors were pink and brown, which she very cleverly worked into her ensemble. She had a creamy white dress with a chocolate satin sash around the waist, and the best pink veil/headpiece. The veil looked vintage, but was actually new. Apparently she found a lady online, told her a bit about herself, and the lady made the veil. It was stunning!

The bridesmaids wore short pink dresses with brown sashes, except the maid of honor, who wore brown with a pink sash. The girls’ bouquets were just fabulous. And they had my favorites, hydrangeas and peonies.

The men wore dark brown suits with pink vests and ties. I felt badly for them in those suits! It was hot, hot, hot and extremely humid that day. I don’t know how she did it, but Ashley looked great the whole evening. The vows were in front of a pond with three statues on pillars and Chihuly bubbles floating in it. As I mentioned, the weather was HOT, about 91 degrees, which is 9 degrees over my 82 limit. As I arrived at the Botanic Gardens large, dark, stormy clouds began rolling in, making my carefully straightened hair curl back up. The weather is always the scary part of an outdoor wedding or event. I must say though, she lucked out. There was a huge crack of thunder during the vows, but the rain didn’t start until they were announced to the guests as husband and wife. Huge drops started as they made their way back down the aisle, and everyone started running for cover. Whew that was close!

Carolina, DiscoJen’s daughter, was the flower girl. She looked so cute, but unfortunately didn’t feel well the day of the wedding. She’s normally an outgoing, talkative, smiley child, but she just felt so awful that day that there’s hardly any pictures of her smiling. She was so looking forward to being the flower girl too. It’s all she talked about up until the wedding. In the car on the way down she called excitedly to me “VICKI! I HAVE SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT TO SAY!” I asked her what was so important and she said “I’M GOING TO BE A FLOWER GIRL IN ASHLEY’S WEDDING!”

Thank goodness for the groom’s nephew, without him walking her down the very long path to where the vows took place, I don’t think she would have made it! For those planning a wedding, having the flower girl and ring bearer hold hands and walk together is a very effective way to get them down the aisle.

The reception was in the Spink Pavilion at the Gardens which was a narrow room, lined with windows. Check out the tables! Aren’t they amazing? And the flowers! Have you ever seen flowers like this?

The food was fantastic too. They had a blueberry theme going on with the catering. There was a blueberry mojito drink featured during the cocktail hour that was great. It was very refreshing in the hot weather. There were blueberries in the cake too. I forgot to ask Ashley if there was some symbolism for the blueberries, or if she and Chris were just concerned that their loved ones don’t get enough anti-oxidants.

My dad thought that they must have fortified the tables for those vases, since they were like 4 feet tall and filled with water.

I waited to post about the wedding, because I wanted to show you all what I made for their gift:

It’s from Tula Pink’s line, Moonlight Forest. As soon as I saw this line I thought of Ashley. First, it’s pink and brown. Second, it has bunnies, squirrels and various nature-like items hidden in the fabric. It’s so cool how she weaves them in! Ashley loves bunnies and used to name the squirrels when she lived in Colorado as a child. The owls in the line totally reminded me of the Beatles, and she loves the Beatles as well. I named it “All You Need is Love” I hope she likes it. I made it big enough for her and Chris to cuddle under together in cold weather.

The designing of the quilt was very different for me. I usually draw it out, have a pattern or put it together on my Electric Quilt program. For this quilt, I just grabbed a bunch of my charm packs of the Moonlight Garden and the Sweet Hearts collection by Deb Strain and Arin Turnmire and wacked them apart willy nilly. Then I sewed them all back together again into long strips. I highlighted the owls by fussy cutting them out, and making them their own row. I needed something not so busy to break up all the pattern, so Jenny helped me pick out the dark brown w/purple dots. I think it really brought the top together, don’t you?

I like to piece my backings with my leftovers, so I took the extra strips and pieced them in with the brown bunny brocade fabric.
I quilted it with hearts and swirls all over in a variegated hot pink, turquoise, and white thread by Aurifil, my thread of choice. I outlined the owls and some of their design elements. And in the border of the corner square units I quilted some free hand leaves.