Today was a sad day for me.

Well, I usually start my posts with good morning, or good... what ever, today not such a good day.
You see today I am very sad. I just returned home from a quick shopping trip to my local Joann's. Now I need to start by saying we actually have two Joann's here in the Tri-Cities, we have the Richland Joann's and the Kennewick Joann's. Now I will try very hard to keep this positive and not say anything bad about the Kennewick Joann's....BUT, I love the ladies at the Richland store, can't say the same for the Kennewick one. The folks at the Kennewick tend to treat the customers as a bother, and have at times been flat out rude, enough so that I avoid that store unless it is the last place I know I will find an material that NO ONE else has.
On the other hand, at the Richland store the ladies always have a smile, a kind word, an "oh what are you making today?" The store is bright and clean and friendly, there are wonderful people like Wendi, and Sandy, and well all of them!
So you can see why I would be totally devastated when it was confirmed today that the Richland store will be closing this spring. :(
Now, my logical mind understands the reason for the closure, the building they are is old, and I mean old and not well maintained. So the corporate office made the decision to combine the two stores.... now I get to drive farther, to a darker dirtier store with staff that is less than friendly (to say the least)
I hate it when places we rely on and love to shop close, it makes me sad. And in a way makes me mad. This is a GOOD store, with GOOD employees, in a GOOD location. Well I think I will go send an email to the corporate office. Not that it will do any good, but they have to know that some of us are not happy with the choice.
Thanks for letting me cry on your shoulder...
Oh and have a good day!
Ginny

My Daughter Died Last Night! (in a play)

Good morning,

I hope every one has had a wonderful weekend so far! Mine has been a blast. Last night was opening night of my daughters school production of Bugsy Malone, oh they were so great, I have to brag for just a moment! Morgen has always been a little introverted with a bit of low self esteem, this is her first time performing in a play and she did awesome. She had 5 minor roles, three with speaking lines, her best part was as a waitress, and I have to say (with agreement from several people) that she stole the scene! I was going to load a short clip of her as the waitress, but Blogger did not like it. So I will have to see if I can work out the problem and upload it later, for now I will just show you some of the pictures from the show.

From left to right, Bugsy, Morgen the waitress and Blousey

Same scene, just before Morgen gets shot!

She died very well!

Morgen is the one in white, Reporter, Lucy O'Hara, from the Irish Times!
Morgen as one of the Down and Outers, we think she looks rather like an old down on her luck school teacher, the scary part, in the next scene, she carries a neon green splurge gun.

OK, just so you don't think this is ALL about Morgen, I added this picture also, I posted a while back about doing the costuming for the play, well these are some of the costumes I worked on, actually me least favorite ones, I did not have to make them thankfully, but had to add length and take in every single one, and make bloomers for them so we didn't see any panties! The girls looked really cute!

All in all, I was super impressed, these kids worked really hard for 5 weeks to make this show great and they all did a wonderful job!

Congratulations to all of the cast and crew for a wonderful production of Bugsy Malone.

Oh and if you live locally, please consider stopping by tonight or next Friday or Saturday evening to see the show. It is totally worth the $5 adult admission to get in, show times are at 7 pm both nights, and if you want to know what school, just ask I will email you the school name!

Now I am off to do some shopping, and then Girls Scouts, no rest for the wicked!

Have a great weekend, and thank you for letting me share.

Ginny

Patricia From Quilt Mama, I NEED You!

Ok so I am desperate! Patricia from the Quilt Mama blog, I need you to email me, I seem to have lost the email you send with your shipping address and I have a purse to send to you. I know you need it soon.
Thanks
Ginny

Happy Birthday Torrie

Good Friday!

Oh my gosh so today is a 10! Please join me is wishing Torrie a Happy 15th Birthday!!! My baby is growing up!

I sold another purse last night!

And I am a guest blogger on the Quilting Gallery site! If you have not done so yet please stop by over there and check out Michele's site, she has hundreds of links to quilting blogs, and quiting shops on so many other things. This month she is having guest bloggers on her site and I was chosen as one! So please check out my guest blog by following the link....
http://quiltinggallery.com/tag/february-2009-guest-blogger-month/

Thank you for stopping by to day, now I am off to make Torrie's Birthday cake!

Ginny

Torrie will be able to eat for a week... Oh now that is a cryptic title :)

So here is my cool news for the day...

As most of my regular readers know I have been going purse crazy for the last several months... I know this is a quilting blog not a purse blog! But I have been trying to supplement my regular income, after all I do have two daughters heading for college in just a couple years. Oh and one starts driving next month.....
So that all lead to making and selling purses..... Well I opened my Esty shop, but I still want to talk about and give away my purses. So I decided yesterday morning that I would created a purse blog!
So if you are a fan of my purses and want to see what I have been making for my Etsy shop I encourage you to hop on over to

www.bagsnrags.blogspot.com

That is where you will find the latest news and purse giveaways! Feel free to sign up as a follower if you want while you are there.

I will continue to post my family and quilting stories on this blog as this is the one that is near and dear to my heart.

Oh and the coolest news of the day, I went to quilt party last night and showed off my bags, I got one custom order and sold two more!!! Yea that means that Torrie can eat for at least 1 week during her freshman year! LOL

Thank you for stopping by,
Have a great day,
Ginny

Torrie's Bento Box Quilted, Ugg what an experience!

Good Tuesday to all!

What a wonderful weekend! I go so very much done, I have to say I love getting a 3 day weekend. In my line of work those long weekends are few and far between!

I am so excited, I got Torrie's Bento Box quilt quilted, and boy oh boy is there a story there... Lets just say that I will NEVER rent time on a long arm machine from that store again!!! EVER!!!! And I will not say where I quilted it at as I have local folks who read here, but I will not recommend them either, it was an unpleasant experience from start to finish, all on a really really un-level frame, and it was dirty too, the wheels kept sticking... Oh so enough of the bad, here is the good... It is almost done I just have to bury the threads and bind it, here are the in-progress photos!

Yes, that's me, I do not really like this picture, I hate when people see how big I am! But this is the only distance shot Torrie took! you can see by the look on my face how happy I was at this point, the owner of the store is a bit.... well lets just leave it at that.

Is this not the prettiest fabric you have ever seen? I love this quilt! Here is another shot with the machine, Oh the distance I could quilt with out having to stop and wind up the quilt, it was wonderful! I do wish the machine had been stitch regulated, it would have made it so much easier. I was under the impression that it was when I signed up to use it, boy to I know what questions to ask now!!!!!!!!!!!!!All in all, I can say it was a learning experience, I am happy I used did it, if only to know what to look for next time and to know that I really don't have room for something this big in my quilting room. I also know that I will rent a big machine again when I do Stuarts new king size quilt he ask for, I also know it will be at a different quilt shop, on a long day off!

Well, I have more to share, and will be doing so later today, so look for another post this afternoon, right now, I need to go get some breakfast, (trying to have a bowl of special K every morning to start to loose some of that extra padding I hate so much)

Have a great day!

Ginny

Oh My Gosh, I Have Such Great News!

Good evening, or maybe I should say good morning, it is about 12:30 in the morning here, I am going through a little bit of the can't sleeps! I hate it when this happens, of course tonight it might be due to the overdose of Valentines chocolate my family gave me! And I had been so very good about watching what I eat!!!

OK so with fair warning that I am a bit loopy and getting sleepy, bear with this rather rambling post, because I have two wonderful thing to share tonight, I will start with the easy one....



Yep, On February 20th I will be a guest blogger on the quilting gallery, so make sure you stop on in and read all of the wonderful posts on Michele's site. And if you do not have your blog listed on her site, go do it now! LOL.

OK so for my other very cool news. (condensed for space) (I hope)

Many many life times ago I was in the U.S. Army. For years I have been searching for my friend "Gus" I had lost contact with her when I got out and she was shipped to Germany, I have done the people searches, I tried to find her family, I searched and searched and searched, every 6 months or so I would look again, I never had any success. Gus was one of those people that made such a impact on my life back then, she was the nicest person and the best friend a girl could have. I missed her and always wondered for years how she was. I knew she was married, I knew her husband as he had been in the same unit as us. I knew she had a little girl, she had just had the baby the last time I saw her, I just wanted to know what had become of my friend.

Then, the other day I got an email from another friend, she was on face book, and one thing led to another, I ended up with a face book account, did some searching, nope no Gus... But my mind was working overtime (I can be a bit slow sometimes) so I decided to to a my space search, now you must know that I am very, very, very anti my space, it's just a thing with me, long story, not tonight though... Any how I digress, I did a my space search, and BLING! There she was, complete with a picture of her and her now 17 year old daughter, yes the same baby I had seen so many years ago, Well, I emailed, and yep it was her! She send me her number, I called we talked for an hour, oh my gosh it was so wonderful!!! I am so excited, I cannot believe after all of this time, to have found my Gus! Yea, I am pretty excited. I think we will have to make plans but it would be wonderful to see her again after all of this time.

Well that's it for tonight, I think I need to head to bed as the screen is now getting blurry!
Have a wonderful night and I hope you all had a lovely Valentines, and hey reach out and find an old friend, it is an awesome feeling!
Good night all,
Ginny