Weekend in Gatlinburg

No sewing at my house this weekend!! Joe and I decided we needed to get away for a couple of days. We went to Gatlinburg for the annual Wildflower Pilgrimage, this is the fourth year that we have been. If you are interested in wildflowers it is a great time. The festival actually started on Wednesday, but since we both had to work we didn't go up until Friday afternoon. On Saturday, we went on two hikes. Saturday morning we got up to very cloudy skies for our hike on the Chestnut Top Trail. The hike was led by Aaron, a graduate student from the University of TN, and Ily Hatter an expert on the medicinal uses for wildflowers. Luckily it only rained for about the first 10 minutes of the hike. We saw some beautiful flowers. The one above is called Indian Paintbrush.

The afternoon hike was at the Chimneys area, the Cove hardwood trail. Our leader on that hike was Leo, a botanist for TVA. He was wonderful at giving us the common name for the plant. I can't remember the Latin names. I do good to remember the common names. We also saw a few rare plants: cancer root, walking fern, and yellow wood.

The only drawback to the entire weekend, was the biker convention in Cherokee. I have nothing against bikers but they were every where, and very, very loud.

I did think about quilting, long enough to buy a sampler quilt pattern for the 75th Anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It is one that I will definitely do, sometime.

Pat Sloan Book of the Month Blocks

I have been a follower of Pat Sloan's blog for some time now. I was really excited when she started her Good Book of the Month club along with a Quilt block of the month. So far I have managed to keep up with the blocks and haven't' gotten behind. (That isn't true for some other blocks of the month that I have done.) I am even doing the blocks in two color ways. One is very traditional, with burgundy, blue, green, pink, and cream colors. The other color way is done in very bright batiks, turquoise, brigh pinks, and yellows. I think the batik quilt one will end up being a gift for my niece.

PIGS! PIGS! PIGS!

Today is Pigs in a Blanket day, I know this because I am a huge pig fan. Since I am an elementary media specialist, I know all about unusual holidays. I really get excited when the "unusual holiday" is about pigs, because I love pigs. My favorite character from children's book is Olivia. In case you didn't know Olivia is a pig, a very cute pig. But I don't that is what the creators of this holiday had in mind. I think this is more like it.


PIGS IN A BLANKET

1 pkg. little franks1 pkg. Pillsbury crescent rolls
Cut each section of roll dough into 4 pieces. Wrap one around each frank. Bake at 400 degrees for 6 to 10 minutes. Stick with a toothpick and serve.

First Post

I started reading craft and quilting blogs a little over a year ago, and thought WOW!! Those are really neat. The blogs I started reading were posted by designers and fabric companies. I didn't realize that "ordinary" people were creating blogs until several friends in one of my quilt groups started talking about their blogs. My friend Becky created one, The Quilting Book Lady, which I have really enjoyed reading. After checking out some of her favorite blogs, I decided I just had to have one of my own.

After many hours of hard work, (the hardest part was deciding what to call my blog) I have finally gotten around to creating my blog. The process has really been a lot of fun. One thing that I have found is that you can spend a lot of time on this. Hopefully, each posting will be a little easier. I don't know how some people can blog each day. Oh, well maybe this summer when I am not working. My goal is to post at least once a week, more would be great but, for now I don't know how realistic that would be.