Ahhhhhhhhhh

This is the first weekend in a month that I’ve slept in my own bed and it feels great.  I don’t have any plans for the weekend and I intend to keep it that way.
Last weekend at Retreat I made this bag.

While the finished product isn’t bad, the pattern was awful.  Here’s a link which I provide only so you WON’T buy it.  I’ve made quite a few bags, but the instructions for this one have so much waste and the way they get you to put it together is not easy and could be done so much better.
I also got all these strips cut out to make a miniature log cabin wallhanging.

I read in one of Judy Martin’s books that an organizer like this one is a good idea to keep all your strips of the same size together.  Now that this is all cut, I think I’ll just put it away and I’ll have my next Retreat project all ready to go!
I’ve made one of these before, so I' know what I’m in for.  The blocks finish at 4”.

Our Guild does a secret Santa exchange and each year we pick a letter and the gift must start with that letter.  This year it was D, so I stitched out these little fingertip towels yesterday:

The meeting isn’t until December 14th, so I’m actually ahead of the game for once!  Now if I could only get my act together and get some Christmas shopping done…

The Merry Go Round Still Hasn’t Stopped

I had a great time in Houston and showed amazing restraint with my purchases. To be honest, I really didn’t see anything I ‘had’ to have.   My friends, however, did more than their part to boost the Houston economy.  The quilts were amazing and I got to meet Debra who lives just north of Houston.  We had a lot of fun critiquing the quilts and were on the same wave length about most of the techniques.

One thing we just didn’t understand was the abundance of thread painting.  You take a coloured photograph, then thread paint over it.  I can appreciate the time it takes, but the hardest part, as one of the artists explained, was finding the right colour of thread.  What’s the point?  Yes the finished product looks nice, but so did the picture and I just don’t understand the need to do it.

We also visited the fourth largest mall in the U.S. – The Galleria.  It is a beautiful mall with 3 levels and I managed to do some damage there. 

I didn’t take any pictures when I was away.  I didn’t want to lug my heavy camera around and there were a lot of areas where pictures weren’t allowed anyway, so I don’t regret my decision.

My baby had a benign tumor on his back paw and had to have surgery.  He wore this lampshade for almost 2 weeks, but he got his stitches out yesterday and the vet is really pleased with the surgery.

Doesn’t he look pathetic.  It really didn’t seem to bother him other than he couldn’t scratch his ears, so we obliged.

Sandra & I went to Buffalo last weekend for our annual Christmas shopping trip.  She got almost all her Christmas shopping done – I didn’t!

Tomorrow morning I leave for Retreat.  I don’t have a clue what I’m going to take to work on, so I took a vacation day today to try and figure it out.  If you don’t go prepared you aren’t productive. 

I swear I am not making any more plans to go anywhere for a while.  I’m all ‘showed’ out and I’m totally exhausted.  Today is the first day in over a month that I don’t have some kind of commitment – it feels great!

Ian must have been playing around with my camera while I was gone and here is a picture he took of Molly – can’t show one baby without the other!