Road Trip

Road Trip! Thursday morning, Allen dropped me off at Shannon's office over in Hampton Cove, and we piled in the company Sequoia to head to the Country Living Fair in Columbus, Ohio. We'd been waiting all year for this after having such a good time last September. We had a fun, happy ride north with lots of laughs. Lunch was a silly meal at Cracker Barrel, and then we headed on to the outlet malls just this side of Columbus. Shannon and I got shoes, but we drooled over plenty at the Pottery Barn Outlet. If only we lived closer. Then it was on to Columbus. With "Samantha" the Garmin's help, we navigated our way to the hotel without getting lost like last year. Friday morning, all five of us were anxious to get to the fair. The weather could not have been more perfect, and the sunny skies just highlighted the fall festival decorations everywhere.
I enjoyed browsing and wandering around with Shannon. We did our share of buying, but neither of us went overboard. My big splurge was, surprise of all surprises, quilting supplies (several kits from Country Threads) and a couple of small pieces of pottery from a Cincinnati area potter. The biggest thing we all brought home was a healthy dose of inspiration. I am ready to get out the fall quilts I've made and the rest of my autumn decorations.I think that one of my favorite parts of the trip was Saturday night. We went out for pizza and a quick trip to JoAnn's (why we don't have one here in Huntsville, I do not understand), and then we went back to the hotel and had a craft night. Leighann settled in with a pile of craft magazines, while Vicki showed us her stash of wool from the fiber fair she attended Saturday, and she demonstrated her spinning. Fascinating! Christa opened her paper making kit and fired up the new blender to make a few sheets of paper. Shannon made a good start on her punch-needle project -
and I started on one of the quilt kits I bought. This project has 128, no, make that 256 of these squares, and it will be my television watching project to hand piece them. I wished that I had cut enough pieces so that I could try sewing on the ride back, but oh well, I just watched out the window while it rained, and rained, and rained, and rained. What a ride back. I don't think we drove more than thirty or forty mph all the way home from about Nashville. Driving in driving rain for hours is not fun. We've heard that maybe the Country Living Fair will not be in the same place next year, but if it is within a reasonable driving distance, we'll surely want to go again.

The big news since then is that our new puppy was born Monday. I guess it will be two or three months before we have him here, but we're excited. We miss Louie terribly. The house is not the same without a dog. I didn't say I missed walking the dog in the rain or early, early in the morning, or late at night, but I guess that's a price I won't mind paying too much.

I'm looking forward to Allen coming home and Saturday football. Roll Tide.

Mid Sepember Already?

The last few times we've been to the Farmer's Market, I've picked up flowers from one of the vendors. These were just so bright and happy for the end of August that I had to share them here. I didn't do much (or more accurately anything) with outdoor gardening or flower beds this summer. In years past, we had a whole deckful of plants and a big bed of impatiens. Now I seem to spend my time and "for fun" money on quilting stuff, but I still love flowers. Next summer?Shannon and I took a Sunday drive on Labor Day weekend to the Scottsboro Trade Day. We had lunch at a funny little diner, and we had a good time wandering around and looking. I got a treasure-trove of miniature elephants, but my favorite is probably this funny guy who will live up in my sewing room with me. He will help me out with ironing. I've had him a week, and he holds about three times what my previous little elephant held, and his trunk is the perfect pouring spout. I guess he might have had a lid at some point in his life, but now he will be loved and used while I sew.
I just love my sewing table and room. When I'm in the middle of a project, I can just leave everything spread out and make whatever mess I need to make. What fun!This week's project was to make the last four of the Block of the Month big stars. I have eight little ones for September and eight more little ones for October, but next month I get to put the twenty-four big ones together into a border. I was excited to use two pieces of fabric from our summer Denver trip that I just love.
And here it is - the batik quilt I worked on all summer, all finished. I started hand piecing the blocks in our hotel room back in June, and I added some fabrics from my shop hopping in Denver. I had fantastic help from someone at The Great American Quilt Factory picking out the border, backing, and binding. I guess this picture doesn't do justice to the bright colors and how well the borders bring it all together. I quilted it on my own the last two weeks. I had such fun with this, and I love having it hung on the railing now. Time for a new project. I'm thinking something in blue batiks, all triangles. This week? Only a few days until I head to Ohio with Shannon for the Country Living Fair. Woohoo! And the best news? We have heard that our breeder's pug is about to have a litter. I hope that means a puppy before too long. Of course, it will be good to have our kitchen work done before a puppy moves in. The cabinets and counters are ordered, but we figure it will be a minimum of a five or six weeks until everything is installed.