Monday, July 25, 2011

Who has time to sew?

All my good intentions have gone down the tubes! First, we brought Rosabelle home on Thursday. She is a sweetheart, but will definitely need some time to acclimate to living in a house with people. Adam calls her my fourth shadow - between the two dogs and the two kids, I can't turn around without bumping into something or someone. But it is understandable; she's been through a lot lately. I'm just glad she seems to like and trust me.

Thursday night, after spending a couple of hours with Rosabelle, the kids and I went to the county fair. The boys' Cub Scout quilt won 2nd place in the Youth category:


This year's quilt show had a lot of variety, from a crazy quilt to a scrappy Double Wedding Ring to baby quilts to a whole cloth quilt to a quilt made with watercolored baby wipes (no joke! it was pretty incredible!) and everything in between. I took very few photos because my kiddos were anxious to get to the rides on the midway, but I was duly impressed by this paper-pieced quilt by Judy Glick:


And my vote for Viewer's Choice went to this quilt called Count Your Blessings by Marcia Vehrs.

I just love the concept, the sentiment, and I love the use of applique plus embroidery.


Doesn't that family look cute? And I adore the sign with the name on it!



In addition to the usual midway rides, there was a "ride" that looked like a human sized hamster ball that you get inside and then you can walk on water. Well, if you can walk, that is. I let my kids do it and they were falling every which way and had a ball! (while I had funnel cake - YUM!)


On Friday, I headed up to Washington DC after work to spend the weekend with my two college roommates. This September, we'll have been friends for 22 years and we all turn 40 this year.(how is that possible? I don't feel a day over 27!?!) We ate (Vietnamese, Middle Eastern and Ethiopian), we swam in the hotel pool, we went to a yoga class (pure hilarity! I'm surprised we weren't ejected - our instructor was a nutcase and some of our contortions were not very well executed, but we managed to do the silent, tears-streaming-down-the-face, pinch-your-lips-together-so-no-sound-escapes laughs), did a bit of shopping, and spent a lot of time talking about the things that matter (being a wife, mother, career woman; getting older; reminiscing about being younger; plans for retirement; book recommendations; losing parents and mortality; old friends; staying -or not staying- fit; should we go out for ice cream for a second day in a row? - YES!). Some friends are just meant to be friends for life. My college roommates are that kind of friends.


(there are 3 of us, but only 2 in this photo, obviously)


So, while I got a little bit of hand quilting done during some of the talks, I've not made nearly the progress I should have at this point. I foresee lots of quilting in the next few weeks. I must go to the library to get a playaway to listen to while I stitch and stitch and stitch.