Red Barn Quilt Shop

 I thought I had posted about this little quilt shop at some point, but I can't find a record of it, so this seems like a good time to fix that. The Red Barn Quilt Shop and Retreat Center is just South of Lubbock, in Wolfforth. 

The first time I went there, I was with a dear friend who now lives in Texas and we try to meet up in Lubbock once a year or so. She's a quilter too so we naturally navigate to quilt shops. This is one of our favorites

I mean where else are you going to find a quilt shop with chickens?

There was a retreat going on - everyone was working on Cross-stitch

                                     

Coffee station ready and waiting

                                     

If I hadn't needed to get back on the road, I'd have pulled up my sleeves and helped out in the kitchen

                                      

This is the retreat center

They are a Brother, Bernina, and Handi-Quilter dealer

Lots of  wonderful fabrics to choose from

It's not a huge shop, but they pack in a lot of good stuff without making it feel crowded

Fun displays

I only bought a few basics to add to my stash because I honestly do not need any more fabric, but I want to support the local quilt shops.

Because the last time I was there I bought this stack of fat quarters and I haven't even touched it

                              

And someone's going to ask, about the framed piece next to those fat quarters. A friend and former co-worker made this and sent it to me recently after we'd gone to a quilt show together and I shared some patterns with her. It's absolutely darling and I treasure her friendship so it gets a special place in my sewing room

So if you happen to find yourself in the vicinity of Lubbock, add this fun shop to your itinerary.

Temporarily Relinquished my Hermit Status

 So much busy-ness! I have been on the go a lot lately. This kind of a schedule is probably normal for many of you and it's all been a really good kind of busy, but WHEW, I am pooped! I am just going to catalog a quick daily update here because living out on a ranch, I often get questions like 'What do you DO all day?' or "Don't you get bored?". The answer to that last question...NEVER. Other things have been going on besides the following timeline as well, but it'll be a bit before I can share that.

April 17 (Monday) - Work at the Sale Barn on Mondays - I'm a Clerk there and sit on the block by the auctioneer. There are 2 of us and we enter tag numbers, descriptions, prices, buyer numbers, weights, and assign pen numbers for each animal sold and something's sold about every 20-30 seconds. If you've never been to a sale barn before, just know it's very fast paced and the sale goes straight through until everything's sold. We live 25 miles from town and this is usually the one day a week I go to town. I try and run all of my errands after work which ends anywhere between 1-10, depending on how many head we sell so it's always a very full day.

April 18 (Tuesday) - Drive 2.5 hours to Lubbock. The closest 'city' to shop for wedding things and to pop into a quilt shop I drive past (future post). Drive back 2.5 hours. City traffic stresses me out. A stop at Braums helps.

April 19 (Wednesday) - Drove into town  a second time for appointments with the mechanic, State Tax Office, and met up with a friend for lunch to deliver a couple of quilts

April 20 (Thursday) - Finally a day at home to cook and clean and pack for a roadtrip. DH is staying home and I always cook so he'll have something decent to eat.

April 21 (Friday) - 7 hour roadtrip to Oklahoma to visit our girl. Oklahoma is SO green!

April 22 (Saturday) - Wedding Shower Day! 

                              

Plus a trip to a nursery because it's Spring!

April 23 (Sunday) - 7 hour drive back to the ranch.

April 24 (Monday) - Sale Barn Day

April 25 (Tuesday) - Cooking and cleaning and packing again.

April 26 (Wednesday) - Catch a flight to Arizona to visit our boy and his family

April 27 (Thursday) - Celebrating a special Birthday Girl!

April 28 (Friday) - Fly back home

April 29 (Saturday) - RECUPERATE 😂... after I clean the chicken coop.

I packed in SO many wonderful memories into 11 days, but I'm feeling my age because I'm exhausted, but I'm also incredibly grateful and my cup runneth over.

You Make Me Smile Quilt

 In 2019 I stumbled upon this HST triangle quilt on Instagram and I fell for it hard. 

Handmade Myrth

I have a healthy collection of low volume prints and this is the perfect way to showcase them, but I'd be lying if I said I still didn't bring them home from time to time

 I intended to make this a long term leader-ender project, but once I sewed a few, I simply could not stop. I had so much fun pulling colored fabrics from my scraps and stash. Anything goes.

The HST's finish at 2 1/2".  I used my Easy Angle ruler and cut them from short strips. I like to nest my seams and this is what worked best for me and how I pieced the blocks. I just let everything fall where it fell. 

I finished piecing it in September 2020. There are so many fun fabrics in this quilt! 

And as much as I love the whole quilt, the fun really begins when you take a closer look. 

Jackie said that when Sandy was quilting it, she kept calling Jackie over, saying, "Look at this one!"...:and this one!"..."Oh, this one is so fun,"..."Come look at this one!". She used a pattern called Whisper. 

I ordered this fun wide backing from Missouri Star and used a turquoise print from my stash. 

I call this my You Make Me Smile Quilt because when I was piecing it, I would often break out in song: This song

I also sing this when I'm dancing around the kitchen a lot - it's one of my favorites! It's part of the song track of my life.

This quilt finishes at 74x82 and I'm seriously considering making another one because this one was just so much fun and now I want everyone in my life to have one!

Branded Quilt

 This will probably be the first in a series of Branded quilts because I love this collection from Sweetwater. I love that it's western, yet understated. Sometimes western can get kind of cheesy (not a criticism because I have lots of western fabrics and I love the quilts I've used them in, just not what a lot of folks living this lifestyle really want). This time they got it right.

I used it as a jumping off point and pulled lots of coordinating fabrics from my stash to make this quilt. This is a quilt I made on commission for a friend who requested a few. Guy quilts are hard unless they're sports- themed, but I think the plaid worked well for one quilt

And this is the second one

I didn't use a pattern - just a simple block design and added an hourglass block in alternating blocks

I had Jackie and Sandy use a simple stipple with stars design that I think is called Barbed Wire

I found this wide backing somewhere online and I was really pleased with the way it looked with the other fabrics. I bound it with a brown from my stash.

I added labels

I love the end result and I hope our dear friend will enjoy them both

At 10 x 11 blocks, it finishes at 87 x 96. I do not have a design wall so things just fall where they fall and then it's kind of a fun surprise when I throw them up on the side of the barn.

Made for a special friend who is a great hand and always made our cow works more fun!

And thankfully there is more fabric, because these were both hard to give away - good thing we like him so much! 😉