The WRCA and a Bit of Fabric Therapy

This past weekend we went to Amarillo, Tx for the WRCA World Championship Ranch Rodeo. Its the one weekend a year we actually all get away from the ranch. Grandpa stayed and kept an eye on things for us - thanks Grandpa! This is always a highly anticipated weekend for us. We're kind of like kids in a candy store. Thousands of ranching folks descend upon the metropolis of Amarillo and take part in the festivities. One of these days we'll stay for the 4 days of fun, but we generally only get to stay for 2. Which really is about our limit because by the end of the second day, we're peopled out.

This weekend is somewhat like a family reunion for us because  we see friends from all over the country as well as catch up with folks just down the road whom we seldom get to see. We even ran into some of DH's relatives from Nebraska and I got to spend some time, although not enough, with a dear friend from Oklahoma.

The entire shindig takes place at the Civic Center I'm pretty sure we all walked miles and miles during our stay. There are 4 nights of Ranch Rodeo competition,a huge Expo with hundreds of booths (where your entire Christmas budget can be spent and you had better get everything looked at before Saturday because if you venture into that hall on Saturday you will feel like a salmon swimming upstream with 10,000 buddies), musical entertainment, cowboy poetry, auctions, lots of food (including fabulous spiced nuts), and a ranch horse competition. The ranch horse competition is held in the arena that is actually an ice hockey arena and it is ridiculously cold in there, but we're diehards and spend at least 2 hours first thing in the morning, watching the horses...and shivering to keep warm.

I am a horrible blogger. I didn't take very many pictures, although my intentions were good. Here's one of our friends competing in the ranch horse competition:

I didn't take any of the rodeo. I just had my little pocket camera along and it doesn't take very good action pictures in an arena.

So you get random pictures like this:

Yes, those are curtains, or swags..in our hotel room. We got a kick out of them because we felt like we were in Europe instead of West Texas. DD said she thought it looked like we were staying in Persia. I didn't even know she knew Persia existed since Geography is not her strong suit. Can you tell we don't get out often? Doesn't take much to entertain us.

We weren't even staying in a swanky hotel.

On the first morning we awoke to this:

It had been 70° the day before, but that's West Texas weather for you. We scraped off a couple inches of snow off of the truck and headed to the arena where, two hours later, I scraped another 4" off.

The trees were still showing off their fall coats. I don't think they were expecting this:

After all the hobnobbing, I try to sneak off and hit the town for a bit of fabric therapy. This year I attacked with a plan and a list and boy oh boy, did I have fun! I'm debating whether I should even fess up to all I brought home. Honestly, if only quilters read my blog, they would understand, but the rest of ya'll would think I had taken leave of my senses. I keep telling myself I only get there once a year so if I divide it all up into 12 months, it doesn't look so bad. Yeah, I didn't fall for it either. I bought a lot of fabric. I spent a lot of my cooking check from cooking for the crew this fall.

A lot of the yardage I bought was for backs of quilts so that added up quickly. I got backing for this quilt:

As well as this one:

And some snowflake flannel for the back of another one.

I bought 9 yards (yes, 9) of this lovely, rich brown from Moda's French General line for the Granny Square quilt Moda Lissa designed that is in the October issue of American Patchwork & Quilting:

I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it and have been searching for a rich brown. I will go through that brown like crazy. It was the perfect brown for the horse baby quilt I pieced and I've already used it for borders.

I couldn't pass up the Fun Flower line either. I think it'll make a darling baby quilt for a little girl...or two: Seems as if there are a lot of babies on the way around here. There are a couple of odds and ends mixed in here too:

Then I mostly picked up lots,

and lots

of half yards. I am addicted to scrap quilts and I went through my stash before I left, cutting strips for some projects waiting in the wings, so I picked up some things to fill in the blanks. Looks like I had lots of blanks to fill, huh?

I guess I really shouldn't be let loose in a quilt store alone. I really have lots of self control when it comes to other things. I have no desire to shop for clothes. I am perfectly content with our 11 year old truck. I don't buy dishes...or jewelry...or shoes. My weakness is fabric, but I'm fairly certain that those of you that quilt, have the same condition...or sickness...or obsession. We're all in the same boat and as long as we've got our needle and thread and stash, we'll just keep sailing along. I know I'm not alone...I read your blogs!