Field Trip

On Monday, Kristie, Becky and I went to three different quilt shops in the south Atlanta area. Wow, did we have a great time. I haven't laughed that much in ages. We had a lot to talk about on the way to our first stop. We had just found out a few days ago that we were going to be furloughed for three days, which in today's economy isn't that unusual, except we all are media specialists for Gwinnett county. (I always thought my job was pretty safe, guess not anymore.) The three of us understand the reason for the furlough, but aren't really too happy about it. Well, by the time we had discussed school and tried to solve the financial problems of the state we had reached our first stop, A Scarlet Thread. Boy, was I impressed. The shop is huge, 7,000 bolts of fabric. They have a variety of lines and wonderful samples made up. Kristie even bought fabric for a quilt that the sample was just laying on the table. They were nice enough to help her with the fabric and the yardage. It was my first time at this shop and I will definitely go back, although considering the drive not too often. I did manage to buy a couple of patterns, fabric for boxers for my hubby for Christmas, and a kit. Becky added to her collection of black and white fabrics.
Out next stop was O'Charley's for lunch, who knew that lunch could be so entertaining. After lunch we went to another new shop, for us anyway., The Gardener's Quilts in Jackson. This was another great shop, lots of Moda. The three of us added to our stashes with fat quarters. From there it was on to Quilts and Fixins in Jonesboro This wasn't a new shop, but it was on the way home and we didn't want to overlook any shop. It was a great day!! I didn't go overboard on purchases, the kit was a splurge; that hopefully won't age in my sewing room too long.

And the Winner is!!

Sara, The Quilting Bookworm, from Ohio. Sorry I didn't make the announcement yesterday. Got a little off schedule. Please send me your address and I will get the package in the mail to you. It is all ready to go. Thanks so much for all of the wonderful comments that were left on my blog. I have truly enjoyed reading them and plan on responding to each and every one. I have discovered some great new blogs through your comments. Have a great day everyone.

Charming Girls

My project for the Charming
Girls Quilt Club was to the finish the quilt, Firecrackers, that I started over a year ago. I finally go the borders on it last week, and intended to take it to Lisa to get it quilted last Friday, however life got in the way and it is still with me. I am dropping it to her tomorrow, and I don't think I will get it back by the end of the month. (not the best photo, but you get the idea). I started to just do red borders, not like the ones on the pattern, but in the end decided to follow the directions. I am so glad that I did. I think this quilt will be a keeper.

Christmas in July

I love Christmas, it is my favorite holiday. I make many of the presents that I give, so I usually start on them right after Christmas for the following Christmas. That way I am always thinking Christmas. I also shop year around, whenever someone mentions something that they would like to have I make a note of it, or if it is something basic that I am positive that they won't go out and buy, I buy it then. At this point I have about half of my Christmas shopping done. I even think Christmas when we go on vacation, where ever we go I buy a Christmas ornament to remind me of that place. I love it when shops (either real or online) have Christmas in July Sales, so I decided to have a Christmas in July give away. I found one of my favorite easy patterns, Picture Play and fabric to make it from and put a kit together. This is all from my stash. I actually had put it together to make myself and decided I didn't know when I would do it. It needs a good home. I am also adding a Country Threads Wall hanging pattern and a Quick and Cozy Flannel Quilts book. Just think you could have a Christmas quilt together by Christmas. Leave a comment and you will be entered once, become a follower of my blog - get two entries. The random number generator will determine the winner on Saturday, July 25. Good Luck.

My Summer Reading List

I love to read, and try to read as much as I can during the summer. My taste in books is extremely varied. I will read almost anything, other than horror. (just can't get into that). This summer I have read some really good books, some just ok books, and as I posted earlier some books I really didn't care for. One of my favorites has been Summer on Blossom Street byDebbie Macomber. It is number five in the Blossom Street Series. I really enjoy this series, I like the characters and want to know what they are doing with their lives. Children, or lack of children played a part in this title, (I'm not going to spoil anything for those of you that haven't read it yet) Alix and her husband want to start a family, Lydia and her husband want to adopt, and Phoebe's adopted daughter starts asking questions about her real father. As with life there are problems along the way, but things generally work out in the end.

The Tea Shop Mystery series by Laura Childs is another one that I really enjoy. The latest title in this series is Oolong Dead, which I just finished. They are very light reads, great for the summer. The main character Theodosia, the owner of the Indigo Tea Shop in Charleston, SC, has a tendency to stumble across bodies, this time at a charity horse race. This time the body is of Abby, the sister of Theo's ex-boyfriend Jory. Theo always manages to solve the murder while serving up tea and scones at her tea shop. There are usually several recipes included in the book. Laura Childs also writes a scrapbooking series that is very good.

I do read books that aren't part of a series. I enjoy Clive Cussler's books, and read Arctic Drift a few weeks ago. This was your typical Cussler adventure novel. This time the Pitt family, Dirk and his twin children were trying to solve a crime/mystery involving global warming and what happened to one of the first expeditions that tried to find a Norhtwest passage.

Other books I have read this summer include: Being Elizabeth by Barbara Taylor Bradford. I usually enjoy her books but this one didn't do it for me. I did finish it, but not her best in my opinion. I also have discovered two new authors, or new to me: Susan Elizabeth Peters, and Suzanne Brockman. I just read What I Did for Love, by Susan Elizabeth Peters.This would be a great beach read. It was hilarious! Hope to find some of her other books at the library. The last time I went by my school one of the secretaries gave me Bodyguard by Suzanne Brockman. It was very good also.

Gardening time

Yesterday when I came home from my staff development, my husband had bought me a present: 10 pounds of bell peppers. Believe it or not, I was actually excited about it. We always plant a small garden behind our house, usually just tomatoes, and different kinds of peppers, sometimes cucumbers. This year we planted both bell peppers and cayenne peppers, the cayenne peppers have done well, but the others are just sitting there. I always freeze them to use later in the year. We had talked about going to the Farmers Market and getting some, we just hadn't gotten around to doing it yet. Joe and to go to Macon yesterday for work and just happened to come back by the Farmer's Market and decided to bring me some peppers. It didn't take too long but they are all in the freezer for later use. After freezing those, I decided to go out and check our garden. I picked our first tomatoes and some more cayenne peppers (boy are they hot). Both Joe and my brother love hot stuff, but I think these peppers were a little to hot for even them. I'm not sure what I will end up doing with them. Any suggestions?

After my kitchen chores were competed, I went into the sewing room and finished the binding on a wall hanging that my mom had hand quilted for me. It is the very first thing that I had ever appliqued, and if I do say so myself it turned out pretty good. I am so happy that my mom was able to hand quilt it for me. She does beautiful work and to her a quilt isn't a quilt unless it is quilted by hand. The pattern is All Things Christmas, by Bunny Hill. It was a BOM from Stitch n' Quilt. Tomorrow is Silver Thimble day, have to go get my sewing stuff together.

"Impossible is a word that is found only in the dictionary of fools." Napoleon

I can't believe that I am already thinking about heading back to school. Where has the summer gone? I actually have a couple of more weeks vacation, but I am spending this week taking two different staff development classes. The first one is two days, of which yesterday was the first day., and is on how to use our new editing equipment. (Our instructor started the day with the above quote, which I really, really liked.) I actually enjoyed the class and got a lot of useful and practical information. We learned how to download video, create a storyboard, do various transitions, and trim scenes. Today we will learn how to do titles, and add sound. This will be great for when school starts and I have to start working on our morning TV show. Tomorrow I have another staff development to work on our Reader Rally competition questions for next year. I love to read but I have to admit I was not excited about the books I was assigned to read. Since I work in an elementary school I couldn't read books for my level, I was assigned four high school books to read and write 20 questions on. Tomorrow I will work with a group organizing and refining the questions. I would have never picked these books on my own. They were: Deadline, Generation Dead, Unwind, and Little Brother. I did enjoy reading Deadline, it was about a boy entering his senior year in high school finding out that he has about a year to live. He decides to live life to the fullest and cram a lifetime into his remaining few months. It was funny and sad at the same time. I can't say the same about the other titles. I am just not into books about death, which was a predominant theme. I know this is what high school students read, but I am glad that I finished them, got my questions done, and don't have to think about them anymore.

Wow!! Another post!

I just discovered a wonderful new blog, Kati Cupcake. She has an absolutely wonderful give away. She is giving away the kit for the beautiful quilt shown to the left. I could definitely find time to make that kit.

Charming Girls Quilt Club

I stumbled upon this great idea when reading the latest blog post from A Quilting Life. The Charming Girls' Quilt Club will hopefully motivate me to finish some of my unfinished projects. I had made this a resolution this year to finish one project a month, and I got off to a great start but the last couple of months I have slacked off. You can find all of the information at Charming Girls' Quilt Club. You have to have the project you plan on completing posted on your blog by the 7th, I know I am late this month, but better late than never. I plan on completing the Firecrackers quilt that I have been working on for over a year. I finished all of the blocks last month up in the mountains on my mini retreat, but ran out of fabric for the borders. I finally found what I wanted to use and plan on finishing it next week. It shouldn't take too long. I had wanted to have it finished by the Fourth, but that didn't happen. Look for the completed top next week!

Thimbles Stitch-in

All this week my friends have been sewing their little fingers off at the Silver Thimble Stitch In. I was out of town the first part of the week and unable to attend. I went yesterday and had paid for today, but I can't believe I am saying this, I was toooo tired to go. After all of the driving I have been doing, I just couldn't sit all day. I managed to get some work done around the house today, and actually cleaned some in my sewing room. I organized the projects I worked on yesterday, if you could call it worked. I was so unorganized, I didn't have most of what I needed. I did manage to work on four projects, completing none of them. The first project I worked on was an BOM that I just started from Homestead Hearth, ( I love their BOM's). This one is an Elm Creek Project, Sylvia's unprepared, I had not copied the patterns for paper piecing. The next project I attempted was the Christmas lights from Bonnie Hunter. I didn't have everything for Bridal Quilt. I finished one block, you get more that one block per month, but as I was that either, but my friend Becky did give me some of her stash so I could work on it some. I put that aside at lunch time to work on a swap that I did with another Bonnie Hunter pattern, Bricks and Stepping Stones. I did manage to get all of the four patches done for that quilt. The pattern calls for 112 4 patches. I used the same black and white for all of those, now just to get the bricks attached to them and get it put together. Teresa in our group finished hers yesterday. I hope to get mine done soon.
After finishing the four patches I decided to work on some Christmas Stockings. I think they are so cute! Using one of the Moda Honey Bun packs you can get 6 little stockings. They will make great little gift card holders for Christmas. I finished one, now I have 5 more to go, but they go together very quickly.

I missed all of my friends sewing today, hope they had a great time. I will see all of them next week for our regular monthly sewing time.

There's no place like home

Wow! It seems like I have been gone forever. Just got back last night from trips to Mississippi to get my mom and take her to Savannah for a few days to see my brother. It was a tiring trip, but we had a great time. My brother has been living in Savannah for the last 18 months and we had intended to get down there before now, but for many reasons we never did. When he found out earlier this summer that he would be moving to Fishersville, VA at the end of July, we decided we better get down there. We had a really good trip. My mom and I got to my brother's house about 1:30 on Friday afternoon, he and his friend Peggy took us to lunch at the Whistle Stop Cafe, then on a trolley tour of the city. There are 24 squares in the city, which are absolutely beautiful. We even saw the one that was used for the filming of Forrest Gump. I am a history buff so I really enjoyed hearing all of the wonderful stories about the buildings and the cemeteries. I had actually forgotten how old the city of Savannah is. Many of the buildings date back to the mid 1700's. On Saturday we went down town to check things out. The first place we went was Paula Deen's store. We had no intentions of going to her restaurant, since the line was almost around the block just to make reservations. After leaving Paula Deen's, where I bought some wonderful coffee, we headed to the City Market, an area of really neat shops, and restaurants. There were also tons of street performers around. After shopping we went back to some of the squares from the tour on the previous day to get a better look at them. We also went to Forsyth Park, which is just gorgeous. The fountain there is out of this world, there are only three like it in the world. The city of Savannah paid over $3,000.00 for it back in the 1800's. Luckily while we were doing all of this walking around the weather was not too hot.

After our morning tour we rested before heading out to dinner that evening. We had a delicious dinner at Vic's on the River. After dinner we headed down to the Riverwalk to get prime spots for the Fourth of July fireworks. My mom had never seen a fireworks show. It was extremely impressive. On Sunday we headed out to Tybee Island to walk on the beach. Tybee is where they are filming the new Hannah Montann movie, so it was a little crowded. (No we didn't see any movie stars). We ate lunch on the Island, then my mom and I headed back to Atlanta. I took her home to Mississippi on Monday and came back here yesterday. She was exhausted. She is also very worried about a doctor's appointment next week, there is some concern as to if her cancer has spread to her lungs. (I'm worried to). We should find that out next Friday. Now it is back to the grind of cleaning and going to the grocery store. I am looking forward to going quilting the next couple of days with my friends the Thimbles.