Sunday, July 28, 2013

Where Have I Been?

Well, I can tell you where I haven't been. On here, keeping up with my blog!!!! It's the funniest thing, life just got in the way of blogging. Go figure!! It got in the way of a few other things as well, like cleaning, cooking, laundry....the list goes on. Oh, don't get me wrong, I did manage to squeeze a little of those in here and there, but not as much as I should. I've managed to keep the fam in clean clothes, a little nourishment, and the dust balls at bay.
But during all of this I have gone on a retreat, fabric shopped entirely too much, helped our daughter pick out a prom dress, get ready for prom, watched her graduate, done all the outside yard and garden work, prepare for a graduation party pig roast, shopped for more fabric, worked on numerous quilt projects, worked (had to get that in somewhere), baked, put up blueberries, and a bunch of other stuff that eludes me as I'm writing this.
I went on the retreat in May. I traveled to Rehoboth, DE along with a fellow quilter, Debbie. We also managed to drag our hubbies along for the trip. Of course, they have alterior motives. There was a weekend long car show in the neighboring town so they spent their days there, hanging out with buddies and drooling over cars. But that made it nice for us girls, as we could do what ever we wanted, and we did (did you doubt we would?). We did spend some time with them in the evenings, allowing them to buy us dinner and drinks, and letting them walk beside us as we strolled up the avenue. Weren't we nice (snicker). All-in-all we had an AWESOME time. Debbie got some projects finished and I took one class and got a good start on a great quilt. It's on my Longarm now, and I'm hoping to have it done sometime next week. I won't post a picture until October when we go back on retreat and I take it for Show-n-Tell. I will post a picture of the purse I made out of the leftover blocks from the quilt. Here it is:
I call it my "Goose Bag", since the pattern was paper pieced flying geese. I designed the bag myself, and I'm very proud of it. And look, you can see my "chubby charmer" bag in the background. To funny!!
Another quilt top I just finished was from a block swap. 12 ladies swapped 12, 12 1/2" blocks in patriotic colors. So we each got 12 different blocks back. We did this swap sometime last year and I just got on the stick and finished mine after helping a friend put hers together for a gift for her father-in-law for his 90th Birthday. It inspired me to do mine, which I now love love love. Definately staying at my house!! Here it is:
The backing is purchased and now it's just waiting for its turn on the Longarm and then binding. I'm thinking maybe a dark blue binding, not sure yet. Its got 2 quilts ahead of it though, so I have some time. And I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to  quilt it. Was going to do an all over, but now I may pay attention to detail in each  of the blocks. We'll see what happens once it's loaded on the  machine.
Well, that's it for this entry. Right now I'm taking the basting stitches out of a Grandmother's Flower Garden table mat I've been working on for Fall - but I'll post that later when it's done.