New Venture

A friend and I have been talking lately.  She inherited a lot of collectibles from her mother.  And like I have so often seen and heard, it's just not possible to hang onto everything that you inherit.  Some people say you should just be happy with the memories that you have.  Anne inherited a lot of Lladro figurines.  Although nice, they are not something she wants to store. 

I got pulled into collecting by working my brother's estate sales and buying items that were left after the sale.  Those that were too pretty to let go, so I would buy them and then started selling at a flea market.  But this was a poor summer for doing fleas for me.  In June alone I had my trip to Ireland, the next weekend taking a bus load of women to Chicago for the international quilt show and then the next week my niece's wedding.  But that hasn't stopped me from buying at area estate sales.

So push has come to shove for both of us.  So this weekend we went to the Mega Mall and rented a show case.  We are hoping for a pretty reasonable monthly rent and secure space, maybe we can start getting rid of things.

 

 

Ann loaded in some items on Sunday.  I went and took measurements for the spaces to make a couple of display boards for smalls that might be in bags.  I hope this weekend to take a few things in as well.  We will see how this goes.  We have a 3 month contract and after that it is month by month.

AQS quit show in Grand Rapids

Well, it has only been about a month since the American Quilters Society show in Grand Rapids.  It is one of the large national shows held here and it's great that it's so close.  When the Grand Rapids guild visited one of the Capitol City Guild meetings asking for volunteers, I thought why now.  I volunteer for 2 1/2 hours and get free admission ($14) so why not? 

I met Friday night with my roommate from my June trip to Ireland.  Mickey and her friend decided that Grand Rapids was closer than Des Moines so they came to the GR show.  After work Friday I hot footed it to GR to meet them for supper.  I got to meet her friend and here about her extra week in Northern Ireland after the rest of us headed home.  It was good to see her again.

 

 

Following are a few of the quilts I enjoyed see.

 

This quilt was in the area where I "white gloved" AQS author's quilts area.  Bought the pattern.

 



Where has the time gone...

Can't believe September is already here.

The first part of August I and my mother went down to Bourbonnais Illinois to see my nephew and his wife, Darryl and Anna.  We got there about 6 pm on Friday. Saturday we had lunch with Anna's grandmother and parents.  The grandmas hit it off at the wedding 2 years ago.

After lunch we went to see Jennifer and Leif in their new apartment in Chicago.  Nice newly refurbished space.

When we headed down to Navy Pier because the tall ships were in town.  We walked the pier and found some of the ships out sailing.  We had supper outside and I was completely entranced by looking at the skyscrapers and all their lights.  It was just very magical.  I think we left at 10 am that morning and didn't get back to Darryl & Anna's until 10 pm.  Long day, but we really enjoyed it.

When the next weekend I volunteered to white glove at a national quilt show in Grand Rapids.  As it happened my roommate from Ireland, Mickey Donahue and a friend, Karen, were in GR for the show.  So I went up Friday right after work and we were able to go out to dinner and have a good visit.  Got to hear all about Mickey's extra week in Ireland.

 Following are a few photos from the show.  Dennis came down and took me out to lunch after my white glove shift was over.  On the way back to the convention center we stumbled across a small antique show where I found a few treasures,  then we went back to the show and had a look at the show and vendors.