Vegas Baby!

Look at this!  Doesn't it look terrible!?!  Frozen wastelands of the Midwest....We are leaving thee!

Madison and I have been pushing for a Sister's Weekend with the cousins in Las Vegas for probably 2 years now.  Do you like how we are not their sister's but we squeeze ourselves into their party?

My cousins are the BEST!  And that is why we put just so much on hold and left for Vegas.

More than a little excited.

Yep.  That is the Midwest I know.  Long stretches of farmland with little clumps of trees surrounding each little farm site.  It amazes me to look down and think, "There is a family living in each and every little patch of darkness down there.  They have lives, joys and sorrows.  There are people in some of those patches that are doing great, and people in other patches that are in total despair."  That is all probably too deep for this blog post, but it still amazes me.

Beautiful sunset....are we there yet?

NO?  Fine, I will read the Skymall magazine AGAIN!

Dang it!  I am already married.  "Hey Madison!  You should do this!" 

 I am a terrible mother.

Mountains!!!!!!!!!  We don't see mountains in Minnesota!

We are getting closer.

Arrival!  We, um, actually carried-on our sewing machine.  Yep.  We went to Vegas, flew in for the weekend....with our sewing machine.  What else do you do in Vegas....when you don't drink anything stronger than Mountain Dew and you don't gamble...unless you count the airplane ride as taking a gamble.  I will tell you what you do, YOU SEW!

Auntie Patti picked us up from the airport.  We were whisked away to North Las Vegas and taken, first stop, to a food truck selling the largest fried wieners I have EVER SEEN!  Talk about a corn- dog.  That was a full meal on a stick.  I am going to go out on a limb here and say they use Costco hot dogs to make these corn dogs.  You know how huge those hot dogs are, right?  OK, dip that sucker in cornmeal batter and fry it up.  There you go.  My first food truck meal.  Yum.  Where's the mustard?

First project of the night was pillowcases for my Madison and my Eli.  Those were followed up by a unicorn skirt for my Emmers.  She was more than a little disgruntled that she did not get to come to the Sister's Weekend, so I thought maybe this would smooth things over for her a bit.

Next up, replacement bubble guppies blanket for nephew who is 2.

Madison put me to shame by making the most adorable quilt blocks EVER!  More on those in another post.

Do you like this picture?  Yes, thank you oldest cousin Candice, ye who leadth people astray.  Candice is all, "Hey, we should all make funny faces."  Insert the only person apparently that listens to Candice.  Yep.  Vanessa is the ONLY one making a funny face.  Thank you cousin.  Yes, please post that on Facebook.

The cousins did not disappoint this weekend though.  We worked and sewed and unpicked to our hearts content, then crashed hard in the guest room.

Thanks to my inability to sleep at other people's houses, I had the privilege of this room all to myself every morning.  What a beautiful sight!  Rows of tables and sewing machines and stacks of gorgeous fabric.  If it can't be my fabric, we should at least have a few hours alone together.  Is that bright yellow shiny thing coming through the window...what's the word...sunlight?  We don't have that in February in Minnesota.  p.s. this is the closest I got to enjoying the warm weather.  I was fine with it too.  

We were alone...Me and Valentine.  He did not like Madison and I when we got in the first night, but by morning we were basically BFF's.  

You see, the way Valentine works is he sits there with longing in his eyes and just stares at you.  Eventually you lose your resistance and end up making eye contact with him.  Once that happens, he starts the slow climb up your body.  He climbs on the very tip of your knees....then next thing you know he is in your lap....then just bum in your lap, face and front paws working up your chest.  I think he was headed to my neck or something.  Me and Valentine.  We sew*ed together.  Thread is thicker than blood, you know.

So, Valentine and my's first project Saturday was finishing up these dish towels.  I had like 10 of them.  One chick...

A whole bushel of carrots, and then a den of bunnies.  More photos coming on those.

I stitched together this Easter Egg table runner.

Frank was one of my Saturday projects.  He is supposed to be a pin cushion, but he is HUGE!  I also didn't bring any stuffing, so he was just mostly finished...Frank AND an orange pumpkin pin cushion.    

Must buy crushed walnut shells.

This is my terrible sister that went into the hospital on Saturday with flu like symptoms, nearly died, then delivered her baby 5 weeks early via emergency c-section.  Yes.  Saturday was not as relaxing as Friday night.  I was on the edge of my seat most of the day, constantly checking texts and messages to get updates on whether she was going to live or not.  

She is still in trouble for that...but home and very much alive.  Baby is the healthiest kid she ever had.

Party party!  I love these ladies!

Projects continued through Sunday night, late.  This was my very last project, my farm stand quilt top.  I bought the fabric last summer when we were all the way North in Bemidji, MN.  Since I don't have a speck of time for crafting October through January, I was very eager to get this guy put together finally.  

Sadly, I sewed the whole thing together, then realized I sewed all the orange blocks in basically a stripe.  I wanted a diagonal line.  

After we were home a day or two I unpicked every other row, flipped them upside down, and made the orange squares follow a path instead of working down the quilt in a stripe like the photo above.

I just bought grey minki dot to use for the back. so hopefully this quilt will be in use in a few more days.

Here is a pic of all of my projects.  How many were there???  I still don't know.  Lets see, I sew*ed

2 french seam pillow cases

2 skirts

2 baby blankets

1 toddler blanket

1 quilt topper

2 burp rags

1 nursing cover

10 dish towels

2 pin cushions

1 German dress

1 table runner

4 American Girl clothing items

2 pacifier ribbon clips

***

That's 31 projects.  Not bad for 3 days in Las Vegas.  And guess what!?!  I can remember everything I did in Vegas and none of it needs to stay in Vegas ;0}

I tell you, Sewing is the way to go for a Las Vegas vacation.

Bright and early Monday morning Madison and I got to carry our sewing machine and billion projects through hours of lines before getting on a plane and flying into the desolate Des Moines, Iowa where we drove a rental car...

To Krispy Kreme, then all the way back to Minneapolis to see that new baby.

He liked the donuts.

And, we're back.  Frozen wasteland, sweet frozen wasteland.

Home.  Thanks for the great weekend my Las Vegas Cousins!

OH!  Here are a couple of the cousin's projects....

Zannie made this cute baby blanket.  She used a glue stick and glued fabric squares to the black and white striped fabric, added batting and a backing, then machine quilted straight lines over the edges of the squares.  I was seriously going to do a quilt just like this, different colors, but I couldn't find one of my fabrics that went with the quilt so I picked the farm stand quilt instead.  Zannie says NEVER make one of these quilts ;0}  Looks great though Zan!

Robyns daughter Kennady made this cute quilt.  Each fabric square is something that she loves.  Totally a cute idea.

There was a long, dramatic battle over this carrot fabric...over who would donate it to Goodwill so Aunt Pat would not keep holding on to it.  

Ahem....I do not really want to admit this....but I actually texted Auntie about a week after the Sister's Weekend and offered to pay her to ship this to me.  I got home and was suddenly struck with the perfect project for this fabric.  Yep, I own it now.  Thanks Pat!  One more project added to the list.

So, I had to add these two pictures.  As everyone gets older, their kids do too.  The kids all wanted to be there sewing with their moms.  You see, we are all so passionate about the art of sewing that we have taught our kids.  I was so excited to see that 3 of our suffering children were able to take part in Sister's weekend after all.  Our plane left at 7am.  Just a few short hours later these guys were sewing away on quilts and stuffed bunnies.  It makes my heart glow.

Gracie wearing the skirt Grandma Pat made for her the very day before.

And last, Candice's quilt.  Isn't it cute!?!  I love the fabrics you chose Candice!!!

I would LOvE to snuggle that quilt!

Well, that is all for the picture taking.  I always swear I will get pictures and then am lucky to get half.  I hope you get your stash out and finish some of those unfinished projects!  It feels much more satisfying than looking at what everyone else accomplished on Pinterest ;0}

Get Crafting!