Hooray for the Red, White & Blue Show

It has been a long time since I posted anything crafty or quilty related. I just have not found the time or the energy to do any of these things of late. However, I did take the time to go to a Quilt Show on July 27th. This quilt show was presented by the New Braunfels Area Quilt Guild and held at the New Braunfels Civic/Convention Center in New Braunfels, Texas.

I arrived at the show a tad early and it was a little nuts. They were not selling tickets until the opening of the show. A crowd had gathered and I was not expecting this for a smaller quilt show. They need to handle crowd control better in the future. But, other than this small problem, it was a very nice show to attend with a decent amount of vendors.

I first wandered among the quilts on display. I saw other quilters taking pictures; but, I still did not feel comfortable taking pictures knowing the history concerning taking pictures of quilts especially at the Houston International Quilt festival. I found a worker and asked if we can take photographs of the quilts and she said yes. I still respected the fabrics and did not use a flash. It was tough to photograph quilts in manual mode in a dimmed environment without a tripod. However, I think I did okay.

Anyway, here are a few of my favorite quilts that I took at the show:

In Honor of Those Who Serve
Pieced and Quilted by: Peggy Meathernia, Artisan
This was the first quilt I came upon that I absolutely loved. This picture does not do the quilt any justice. I discovered later that I made several critical errors with the camera itself and I am surprised this picture came out okay. The quilt itself was flat out gorgeous.

Lighthouses
Pieced by: Sherry Lambrecht, Open
Quilted By: Kelleigh Sommer
This was a gorgeous quilt that reminded me of Dan's mother, who loves lighthouses. It actually is from either a kit or a block-of-the-Month program. This goes to show you that, in spite of my bad experiences with them, these can and do turn out wonderfully.

Sadly, I did not get the name of both the quilt and the quilter. In looking through the show guide, I do believe this is Feathered Friends which is pieced and quilted by Fawn Kunnemann, Master. Please, please, if anyone can confirm or deny this for me, I would appreciate it very much!

Anyway, you should know why I loved this quilt. No further words needed. Ha!

Tattoo Virgin
Pieced and Quilted by: Sherry Duringer, Artisan
This made me laugh out loud! It not only was wonderfully done, it was humorous. If you cannot read what the girl is saying, it said "Oh!.. I KNOW I'll REGRET this in the morning". By the way, it received a red ribbon, which meant it placed second in its category.

Spirit's Flight to the Stars
Pieced by: Jeanie Fincher
Quilted by: Sherry White
This was absolutely gorgeous. And, it reminded me of my Dad, who was deeply patriotic and loved birds of all kinds. It had a blue ribbon, which meant it placed first in its category.

I really enjoyed myself at this quilt show. There is another quilt show being held in Fredericksburg, Texas in August/September. I would love to go to that one too and I am planning to go on Friday, August 31st. Now that I got a little experience with picture taking and if this show allows it, I hope to take better pictures. We shall see.

Piece,

Pictorial Monday: Schlitterbahn 2011

What some of you may not know is that I love to be in the water. It does not really matter if it is the pool, beach, water park, river, etc., and etc. as long as it is water and safe to swim.


On June 23rd and August 4th, we went to Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels, Texas. We had landed some discount tickets through Dan's company. Because I like this water park so much, we are considering getting season passes next year; but, it will take three visits to break even and four or more to make it our worthwhile. So, I don't know what we will do especially since we are going camping at Garner State Park next year too. I pray that this severe year-long drought breaks long before we go camping!


I have a Vivitar digital waterproof camera that I bought on an extreme clearance sale late last summer. It's not the best camera; but, it serves its purpose. I took some pictures. However, I neglected to put a SD card inside; so, I was only able to get a few pictures because the internal memory rapidly filled up. I was mighty disgusted with myself. Oh well, such is life!


There is a new ride, called The Falls that is supposedly the world's longest waterpark ride. We rode it TWICE. Once on individual tubes and once on a double tube.


I have to say it is rather cool. It is kind of like tubing down the Frio River at Garner with some rapids and falls with the exception of not having to get out and walk from time to time because the river happens to be low.


There is one section when I first went on this ride that made me slightly fearful. It had a short steep drop (not the one pictured above). We had just shot out of fast rapids on a curve. It was perfect for me because my tube practically went straight to the first falls. I was laughing and then suddenly shouted "Hallelujah" when I spied the drop. It made the lifeguard standing in the water laugh. And, before I knew it, I was sucked down the falls and boy howdy, what a brief adrenalin rush!


As you can barely see, I was enjoying myself. Immensely.

The only negative thing I would say about the ride is the bottleneck that occurs at the bottom where we all wait to sucked/placed onto the ramp that takes us back up to the top (or beginning) of the ride. Dan wanted to get out before this bottleneck the second time we rode the ride. However, I refused to get out. The positive is that we do not have to get out of this ride unless we are ready to get out. I would always want to get out at the original Schlitterbahn part of the park simply because I do not want to walk! Ha! (The original Schlitterbahn is my favorite section of this park.)


This park is expensive; but, it makes me a happy girl.

The entrance fee is all the money you really need to spend. It is family friendly. All tubes are free and provided for by the park. And, you do not need to carry the tubes from ride to ride.

You can bring your own life jackets for your children. Life jackets are provided for free within the park; but, I would recommend bringing your own.

You can also take your own food to cut costs. Yes, you are allowed to bring your own food/coolers inside the park. I believe the only restriction is that no glass is allowed. Isn't this great? The prices of food and drinks inside the park is exorbitant. But, what do you expect? Most parks are overpriced. So, pack a picnic lunch, snacks and leave it somewhere within the park. There seems to be an enormous amount of respect for other people's property within the park itself.

If you take valuables inside, I would recommend you rent a locker to store those in. It's $9 for the whole day; but, you get $2 back when you return the key.