I'm back!

I am so happy to be home! I thought I would never get off that horrid freeway. Four days of driving on I-10 and three of those days had complete shut downs where all traffic had to be re-routed.  UGH! Yesterday fortunately was clear sailing so no detours. YEAH.
Two weeks away from home and my husband makes me grumpy, so I decided, spur of the moment to come home a day early. I sort of felt bad since it was the day I was suppose to see my sister in law and her husband and daughter but she of all people understood. When family wears you down and you need your husband's strength you go home.

The retreat was great fun. I met two new ladies (Karen and Kim) who had as much fun as the rest of us and joined the guild so they could have fun with us again. :)
I worked on my Trail Mix quilt and got the top all together and then started the border 4patches. So far I am pretty pleased with how the top is coming out.
Pictures when Blogger behaves and lets me load them!
After the retreat ended I spent the night with my friend Nancy L and had a very nice visit. She is having a hip replacement in two weeks and just couldn't make the retreat this year.
Monday morning I headed to Houston to start the work of cleaning out and up of my parents home. My oldest sister, mother and I cleaned out closets, cabinets, dressers, window seat, and sewing room. Some of the places we cleaned had not seen the light of day in 25 years so you can imagine what we found when we opened them up. YUCK.

I brought home some goodies Moma has been wanting me to take. I got the first sewing machine I ever sewed on, a Singer 500 Slant-O-Matic (also known as a Rocketeer). I love this machine.
Pictures when Blogger lets me.
I also brought home Grandma's serger. I have never used a serger but will be happy to give it a try.
Mom sent some fabric and a block of the month she started in 2000. She has had issues with her eyes since a short time after that so she never got very far. I hope I can jump on it and get it made for her. It is a snowman quilt and she loves anything Christmasy.

I guess that is enough for now I have to go check the feedsacks I have soaking and the fabric I have in the washer.
It is so good to be home.

Later
Diane

Chocolat, oh yum!

Not chocolate, but Chocolat, by Three Sister's Designs, Moda. I have loved that line of fabric from the first time I saw it. I have used it in several projects and have cut carefully and scrounged every last piece to make it last. I am down to my last few fat quarters and wanted to make a quilt for my parents, but alas I am short a few fat quarters. I am trying to mix in other lines and I have managed to make three fabrics work, but I am having trouble with the lights. You see the lights in Chocolat weren't very light, they were more a dirty light I've sent out an SOS to my quilt guild friends (or is that SOQ save our quilt) so I hope I can gather a few more pieces that will work. I'm not really gonna fret over it since I need so few "mix in" pieces it really won't be a problem. I sure will be sad when these fabrics are gone.

These are the two fabrics I have mixed in so far. They aren't perfect, but they will work.

Cute puppy!

This is the quilt I want to make...out of the book I got yesterday. At this rate I will never complete anything I keep finding new and fantastic things I want to make!
 I guess it's my lot in life to be the Queen of Starts and only a Topper. Oh well it could be worse.

Back to packing! I really must stay on track or I will never get out of here...scratch that, I will definitely get out of here, I may have no clothes that are clean, but I will get out of here!

Diane

Love it!

Don't you just love seeing this smile?

Especially when it is for you?

Especially when it is a gift?

I just love it! My youngest ordered it for me the other day, as a gift! How sweet!

I'm getting ready to go to a retreat and leave him and my husband home...alone...to fend for themselves. They are acting pitiful! LOL What will I do without you here? I'm gonna be lonely.  Read: who will cook? How will I ever make it to bed each night since you wake me up in my chair and send me to bed?
Good grief! But it does make me smile.
Diane

Mighty Bright

I picked this up while on vacation and I LOVE it! It is very light weight. It has a pretty secure grip on what ever you clip it to and it has a great two level light, and it came with an AC power cord so I don't have to carry batteries all of the time. ( I have an inverter for my truck so I can plug it in.)

I am suppose to be getting ready for my retreat that is coming up but as you see I am playing on the computer. I need to do laundry since we just got back from two weeks away, but I am out of laundry detergent and it is raining and I don't want to get out in the mess. I should be in the kitchen cleaning it up, but it is just too gross so I am putting it off. Maybe Joseph will jump in there and do some...yeah right!
I left a mess of shoes in my closet yesterday that I was trying to go through but got distracted...don't really want to do that. Maybe I will just leaf through some quilt magazines while laying on the couch, yep that sounds like a plan.

Later
Diane

Home sweet home, foo foo hotels and shopping, lots of shopping!

Boy I sure miss home when I am away for while. I have been away but didn't mention here since Ray asked me not to. I always thought he was Mr. Overboard when it came to safety. I mean what are the chances someone I know would read my blog or Facebook page and see I was gone and break into my house. Well apparently Mr. Overboard was correct. I was ready to laugh at him and call him crazy until the day before we left to come home. We saw on the news where a lady posted she was going on a date and about 45 minutes after she posted, one of her "friends" on Facebook broke into her house. So now I will never get to post before a trip about being gone. Oh well one more thing to adjust to.

Anyway!

I went with Ray back to Utah. He had meetings in Park City and they booked us at the Waldorf Astoria. Now I am just a country girl at heart and try really hard to never "get above my raising" as my grandma would say. This place was FOO FOO! We couldn't even park our own car. We did manage to bring our own luggage up but only after Ray refused twice to let anyone help us. I am sure we looked like the Clampett's invading Beverly Hills to everyone there. I was in my denim capri pants, t-shirt and flip flops and everyone there was dressed well with lots of jewelry. Me? I don't wear jewelry. I just never really liked wearing it as a teen and when we dated and married and Ray bought it for me I never remembered to wear it so he stopped buying it. (differently subject...back to foo foo)

We arrived at the front desk and there was a message waiting for me. Me? No one even knows I am gonna be there, why me? Well apparently the company my husband works for gave all of the wives in attendance a gift card to the Golden Door Spa there at the hotel. How cool is that? I could choose from a couple of things and I chose a manicure/pedicure. I have never had a pedicure and only had my nails done a couple of times. Let me tell you I learned a manicure is WAY different than just getting your nails done. The gift card was for $150 and I thought that was extravagant (and it was) then I looked at the prices and discovered the only thing I could chose from and not have to pay over and above the gift card was a 30 minute massage or a manicure/pedicure. Can you believe that? I was shocked! I am not one to undress in front of anyone so I chose the mani/pedi and still had to pay them $4 on my credit card...they don't take cash. Can you believe it? And to top it off the manicure lasted one week! My toes still look good, but my nails are back to their normal state of horrid.

I did a little shopping too. Well more than a little. who knew there were so many quilt shops in the Salt Lake City area?  Park City is just over the mountain from SLC so I managed to get to seven quilt shops. They were all so close together it was usually less than fifteen minutes to the next shop. How cool is that?

Some of this will be gifts (the ones you see duplicates) See that pattern? How cute are those turtles? I want to make one of those for Linus. The bag in the back was from Whimsy Cottage in Salt Lake City. They have a very large selection of Kaffe Fassett fabrics. Wouldn't you know when I worked at the quilt shop in Mobile and Candy stocked tons of Kaffe fabrics and I could get them at a discount I hated them. Now I have decided I think I like them and want to try using them. 

I'm not sure if I mentioned seeing my friend Linda G.'s hexagon top she was working on when I was in Mobile. Well she got me wanting to make one so I printed off some hexagons and got busy going through my scrap bins (many many bins).  Before we left for Utah I pressed the freezer paper templates to the scraps and put them in a bag to work on during the trip.

Here are the results. Linda never told me how addictive they were. It was like eating Lay's Potato Chips I couldn't stop. I had them all basted the second night. I didn't start putting them together until we left for the second half of the trip  and it was too bumpy of a road to make my stitches not show so I put them away. I will get back to them! I have will be going to see my parents in a couple of weeks and I will need something to do while they sit and watch TV.

I did a lot of hand work while on this trip. I have been working on some Christmas ornaments and having lots of fun. These are from Chickadee Hollow Designs and I LOVE them. I want to make all of them! I know I won't, but I would love to decorate my tree with these.

Ok, this post is getting long and probably boring so I will go and try to find something to start for dinner...vacation is really over.

Diane