Mary and I got caught in the Loop 101 construction traffic yesterday 

on our way to Mesa.  

Because five lanes had to merge into just two <sigh> it was stop and go 

and thus took us over 20 minutes just to get to 7th street!  

(FYI - That short stretch should have only taken us a couple of minutes!)

Once we got past that mess and were moving again, I checked to see how it would be coming home in the afternoon in the other direction.  That was also horrendous, backed up almost to the curve at Frank Lloyd Wright!  So I (wisely!) opted to take a different route home in the late afternoon, choosing the I-10 to I-17 route instead.  

By the time we eventually arrived at the show it was no surprise that we needed to park in the satellite lot, but that just meant the show was being well-attended.  Marcie and Sharon (and Clare) were on door duty, so they were  our first "hellos".  Ran into lots of friends, during the day, of course.

First order of business was to drop off my charity Build-a-Quilt, which was well-received.  I loved that I only needed to write the number I was assigned (124) on each of the 25 tickets I received in exchange, instead of my name and phone number.  

Smart way to do it!  Obviously <g> I'm not the only one 

who has gotten tired of filling out raffle tickets...!

Later in the day when I bumped into Colleen and Stephanie in that room as we were shopping the vendors and showed my donation to them, the woman in charge thought it was adorable and wanted a picture of me with it.  She then asked my permission <LOL> to post it, with my name, on the Mulqueen's site. So I'll have to look and see if I can find that today. 

Next order of business was to locate my quilt in the second room, which meant a walk through the Challenge hallway.  As always, loved all that creativity! 

First challenge, from NIGHT OWLS, was to take a page from a (specified) magazine and create a wall-hanging inspired by it.  Here are the few I especially liked: (Considering that my camera was being squirrelly (with 3/4 of the screen not working so it was hard to tell what I was actually shooting) my photos came out amazing well, especially given the fact that I was unable to check and see what I actually captured!  

FYI - I know so many of these quilters, 

which made it all-the-more-fun to see the entries!

Next series hanging along that hallway were from NIMBLE THIMBLES, where the Fun Ugly challenge was to incorporate some ugly fabric (a piece of which hang below each entry.)

Happy placemat, with pocket for utensils!

Mary and I agreed that the brown mottled fabric was pretty ugly - 

and yet it turned out to be the perfect choice for the branches!

Another challenge I enjoyed was 

DELIGHTFUL QUILTERS' Through a Window: 

I usually find Molly watching out Wanda's front window 

whenever I go stop in for a visit.

MAVERICKS' challenge: Out of this World

Time for a break to soak, but more pictures "likely" after that!  My back (which I definitely tweaked big time yesterday morning when loading my new wire cart for scrap storage at the yard sale into the car) did 'okay' at the show yesterday, though I did needed help from Tom to get up off of the couch for dinner last night.  

"Maybe you shouldn't have walked around the show all day yesterday."

WHAT?! And miss the annual show?