My week...

started last Sunday with a belated birthday cake for Grace. (I'm a bad mom, her cake was only 20 days late!) Aside from work, laundry, cleaning and all the usual stuff, it included practicing the guitar (a lot!), some applique, a new phone and a little light reading. (The book is total fluff...definitely a beach read!)
This week will be interesting...we'll be packing Ellen and sending her off to college, Grace will be starting high school and I'll be starting a few new projects around the house once it's quiet again. As much as I love summer, it's good to be getting back to the regular routine this week. If it can ever be regular again with two away at college!

New Friends...

I wish I'd taken pictures of Suzy's Quilting Room last night...I've never seen such an immaculate, perfectly organized quilting room! As a matter of fact, the whole house was that way and I hear that it's not just clean because it's on the market, but it's that way all the time. When I grow up I want to be just like Sue... We had a wonderful time getting to know each other while we sat and stitched. It turned out that I knew several of the women there from guild and I had even quilted for one a few years ago. I stopped going to guild because I couldn't get there when my children were younger, but I've been invited back and will be going in September...I'm looking forward to it!

No strip poker was played because only 3 of us showed up with the strips we needed, so we chatted and stitched and ate...lots of delicious food was there! I was the first to show up and the last to leave because I was treated to a private quilt show...Sue does beautiful machine applique and piecing and has a number of finished quilts, as well as some quilt tops waiting to be finished. We asked her husband to take our picture before I headed home...

Thanks for a wonderful time and I'm looking forward to getting together again!

Fun Friday...

I have a new applique project prepped and some strips cut...

I have snacks made, even though blogger keeps putting the picture in sideways...

And I have my camera ready to go for tonight when I head to Suzy's Quilting Room! I've never met a real, live, quilting blogger before and it turns out we live about 20 minutes from each other. Suzy has invited me to her quilting group tonight for some strip poker. I've always wanted a quilting group...I'm looking forward to meeting everyone!

Getting all domestic...

Yesterday was a long day. I worked a lunchtime Weight Watchers meeting, drove about 45 minutes to a doctor's appointment, stopped for a salad at Applebee's and then worked another Weight Watchers meeting (where one of my coworkers was a quilter!) and then ran home to meet the boss...which turned into going to the local pub to have a beer (or two) on their patio.

Today, I got to stay home all day, which had me feeling all domestic. That rarely happens. I don't do domestic. My house is comfortable, but nowhere near a designer showcase. Sometimes it's even clean, but usually it has a much more "lived in" feel. Since it was clean enough today, my domesticality (yeah, I made that up!) headed to the kitchen. Where I made these chocolate chip muffins from King Arthur's website. I used half chocolate chips and half cinnamon chips and oh my God, they are amazing!

Then I decided I needed some sourdough bread for dinner, so I made a loaf of whole wheat sourdough from which I will make paninis with rosemary chicken, roasted peppers, fresh mozzarella, and fresh tomatoes from the garden.
My family is going to love me tonight!

Did I ever leave the house?

I really don't think I did leave the house over the weekend, except to pick up dinner on Saturday night! I spent most of it quilting. I finished the top of this quilt and prepared the backing on Friday night...

I loaded it on the machine and quilted half on Saturday...

And finished the quilting, then sat up until almost midnight to finish the binding on Sunday night. Today it was washed, folded and beribboned and is now on its way to my son's girlfriend who is moving into her new house near the Drexel campus this afternoon. I hope she likes it! The colors are the most true in this picture, they were very hard to photograph because of the low contrast.

I just heard that she loves it and now plans to decorate her room in these colors...and that just made my day!

Now to figure out what to make next....

Friday Finish...

I've been very busy with customer quilts this summer, to the point I was even running behind on finishing. It felt good to finish a quilt today! I don't normally share customer quilts on the blog, but this one was too pretty not to share.

The fabrics were gorgeous and the quilt seemed to tell me how it wanted to be quilted, I love how it turned out.



A close up of the quilting....


And sometimes the back are just as pretty as the front!

Sunshine and Pink Flamingoes...

arrived in my mailbox today...and certainly brightened up this dreary Monday! Cheryl was my swap partner and she sent this adorable summer quilt, complete with embroidered flamingoes and a palm tree on a hand dyed background...it's beautiful, thanks Cheryl!







Last week I received this package in the mail from Little Quilts. After admiring the Jo Morton Little Women quilts on so many blogs, I decided to join myself. I'm looking forward to making these...

I did get to participate in Judy's Quiltathon this weekend and sewed up blocks for half of a quilt. The other half is in pieces on my sewing table. It's coming together nicely, but the colors just don't photograph well! This is for my son's girlfriend.

I'd hoped to have the whole thing finished last night, but storms rolled through and we lost power at 8pm. We spent a few hours sitting around the fireplace, talking, but eventually we went to bed. When the power came back on at 12:40am, it scared the daylights out of us...the lights came on, the TV was blaring...and we had been sound asleep. Talk about a rude awakening!

I did discover something last night...it's really hard to knit by candlelight!

Canoe Carnival 2008

Canoe Carnival is now a great memory and we had a wonderful time. We had amazing shirts this year....

An incredible background...


A great crew of people who worked on the float...(and their families during our annual pre-launch champagne toast!)


Some fabulous music...We had "Tommy can you hear me" by the Who redubbed as "Horton can you hear me"...wish I knew how to get music onto the blog!

And a fun float...from what we've been told it was a crowd favorite. I've had people stop me on the street to tell me how much they loved it!


The judges didn't like it quite as much though...we came in second in our division (sounds better than it is...there were only 3 in our division and one got Grand Prize, so that left 2!) But...it was probably the MOST fun we've had at Canoe Carnival ever!

Now it's time to get back to real life....I haven't picked up my guitar or done much of anything but build the float for the last 2 weeks!