Category: Sew Far From Home

Two weeks ago I was in Sioux Falls SD and there was still snow, I am wondering if Spring is ever going to arrive in the north east. Not the prettiest city in the world but one bright spot was the quilt on the wall of the office I was working in, lovely isn’t it.

It’s designed to represent the Native Americans that lived in the area. I was there for a few days working then flew from Souix Falls to Atlanta and spent a few days being spoilt by our good friends Paul and Robyn, plenty of food, martini’s and shopping – it was a lot of FUN. One of the many things I bought were some of those mini wooden pegs. I had a moment of inspiration and thought of a good way to solve the problem of sewing blocks together either in the wrong order or upside down. I wrote numbers on them and then I can use them to identify which blocks I can sew to which, the pegs also identify which way around the blocks should be. As they are so small they don’t pull at the fabric and so not leave pin holes like safety pins can.

From Atlanta I flew to LA spent a day visiting clients and eating at a very interesting seafood restaurant after which I went to the airport and took a red eye to Detroit there was a 4 hour wait at the airport for a connection to Stewart, of the joys of traveling in the US.That weekend I focussed on finishing the top of my blue and white quilt – hurrah that’s an awful lot of squares that I had to match up there were so many squares!

To celebrate I decided to start a wall hanging, I used some batik scraps that I had and took a stitch in the hoop design from my Piece in the Hoop book. The designs from this book always stitch out very nicely. Can’t make up my mind how to quilt it yet? Nice bright spring colors though, which reminds me, it has finally arrived. Daffodils should be flowering by the end of the week.

We had Sunday brunch at the Brotherhood Winery with live Jazz music, it is the oldest winery in US, very nice atmosphere but not as much fun as the other one we went to in Goshen. Wayne and Kathy came with us and we rounded off the afternoon with a trip to another of the local wineries that they are members of. We had a free wine tasting and they bought a box of the wine that they like we all headed back to our place for Pizza.

Wednesday I started running again after a 8 week lay off, man it was hard and my legs ached like crazy for days. First mile was fine it was the next 2 that really burnt. Saturday we went to the local pub for Pizza with Gil and Sara very nice to see them again, hope Gil feels better soon. I spent hours on Sunday cutting fabric for two classes I am doing with Bonnie Hunt and the quilt guild on Friday and Saturday. 72 8.5 X 8.5 squares for one quilt and 180 3.5 X 3.5 squares 72 9.5 X 2, 6.5 X 2 and 3.5 X 2 rectangles for the other. looking forward to the classes – these are stash and scrap quilts. I was able to take a lot of the leg work out of with by using my Accuquilt Go, I used by 3.5 square and the 2 inch strip cutter

I ran 3.5 miles Sunday evening much easier than the Wednesday run, it was good to be out in the fresh air and at lease I was able to keep running this time, I need to keep it up. I am flying to Florida this evening back on Wednesday and also my niece Caitlin arrives, she will be staying with us for just over 2 weeks. Her mum arrives on the 23rd. DH is planning lots of excursions with her and a home made photography course. We are both looking forward to it.

Crappy start to the week again. Newburgh to Detroit and then a 3 hour delay meant getting to Tampa at 2am on Tuesday, yawn! At least the weather that greeted me the next morning was warm and sunny. The hotel was 5 minute walk to the office and there was a small lake outside that had some wading birds looking for fish.

On Wednesday i was on the way into the office and nearly jumped out of my skin when I was greeted by this duck sitting in the planter.

After I spent a full day training two groups of 25 people I left Tampa and drove to Jacksonville over 220 miles and I got to hotel at 10pm. Passed through some interesting towns that may be worth a visit when I have time. Thursday was another two training sessions and then fly home on Friday via Atlanta. At least this went without any delays so I got home at 6, just in time to get ready to go to the dance at the Vets club in town. We had a live band and we were there with kathy and Wayne. A really fun night. I cant believe how much of a social life we have these days.

Up early Saturday morning to go to quilt guild, sat next to a very nice lady called Elaine and we had fun chatting. The block that I did last week got added to the others and then was raffled.

Its going to make a very interesting quilt. As usual all of the show and tell quilts were excellent but one really stood out. It is also going to be raffled on behalf of the Catskill hall of fame quilters.

We were supposed to be going to the Hoot Owl Saturday night with Gil and Sarah but they had a dog issue and had to take Cooper to the Vets for a few stitches. We watched Burlesque on TV instead, very good movie.

Sunday I put Sarah’s quilt on the frame. This is my daughters first attempt at quilting and she hand stitched the whole thing, I think she did a great job. I quilted it freehand and tried to give it a real sense of movement. I hope she likes it.

Just need to get it bound now. Made a pillow case with some of the backing fabric, it’s really cute it depicts fish fishing for cats 🙂

I felt I was on a roll so I used one to the embroideries that I downloaded from sewforless.com. They had them on sale with all of the proceeds going to aid Japan so I feel I have contributed something. its a T shirt for Alana ( granddaughter ) it stitched out very well.

Rounded the evening off with homemade pizza – I feel as if I have really had a break this weekend despite all of the activity.

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Arrived home at a decent time on Friday, so was able to catch up normal household stuff so that I could sew Saturday. I thought I would catch up on my BOM’s. First up was the February PB & J blocks – they wanted two wonky squares and the fabrics were great all very bright.

Next I worked on the block for the Wiltwyck quilt guild

Then my PB & J March block – this one was freeform and great fabric again

Then my February Patriot in Petticoats blocks

last but not least — more work on my blue and white quilt but that is not ready to be shown yet.

Sunday we went to a birthday party with friends – great afternoon with good food, wine and lots of great conversation.

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Today I was due to fly back to Jacksonville, my first flight is delayed 2 1/2 hours which means I will miss my next flight and have to stay overnight in Atlanta. Also means that I will have to change my car rental and will actually end up paying more for it.

Deep joy — can’t wait to see what the return journey has to bring.

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Can’t believe this cough and cold is still hanging around, 3 weeks and counting. It is very tiring. Friday I had a meeting up in the city (New York) the first 85 miles took an hour and a half and the last 5 miles took 45 minutes, don’t you just love city traffic. I made my meeting with 5 minutes to spare.

On the way home I decided to go via Somerset NJ as there was a quilt show there. I am not sure if it was because I had a dose of the miseries or if it really was a bad show. I was not inspired at all. All the quilts were just bunched together in the middle of the room with 2 rows of vendors either side. I was there less than an hour and all I bought was a book on converting sweatshirts to jackets (for my granddaughter) and a chenille brush. Hope my mojo comes back soon.

Saturday started with my annual pilgrimage to the tax accountant, I left with a long list of follow up tasks and a job offer! hope I get a rebate this year. Later we met up with 4 very good friends and went for dinner at John’s Harvest Inn (very delicious). We then went on to the Paramount in Middletown for a tribute concert, Sam and Dave, Jackie Wilson, Righteous Brothers, Temptations, Gladys Knight and the Pips and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. They were all excellent singers if I had any complaints at all it was that they tried to pack too many acts into the evening so it went on too long.

Sunday we were thrilled to have a visit from Johan and his wife(Johan worked with me in EMEA some years ago) they were visiting New York for the week from Finland and came out to see us. The only downer to the day was the non stop rain and dense fog everywhere. First stop was Orange County Choppers for a look at the custom motorbikes, then off to Huegenot Street in New Paltz ( original stone built houses from the 1700’s). Lunch was at the Gilded Otter a micro brewery in New Platz. We then drove up to Mountain House in Mohonk. The fog was so dense that even though the photos below were in colour they look like black and white!

Even the outdoor ice skating had fog swirling around it !

We brought them back to the house for a quick coffee and a relax before they went back up to the city — Thanks Both we REALLY appreciated you making the effort, hope you enjoyed the trip

From a sewing point of view this week has been a complete bust !

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Saturday was spent at the local quilt shop sewing block 2 & 3 of the Patriots quilt. Photos will follow when they are completed. I spent the afternoon making a nice cover for my Ipad, I got a Zagg Mate keyboard for it this week and I wanted to protect the silver cover from scratches.

Sunday morning we went to the Warwick Winery for lunch with friends of ours, it is such a great place, we had not been there before. Great food, wine and local made hard ciders ( for the Brits that means it has alcohol in them) live music between 2 and 5. This weeks group was playing rock music from the 60’s and 70’s

On the way home we were invited in for home made brownies and ice cream yum!

We got home about 7 just in time to make a fire and settle in to watch the Oscars. What a great weekend.

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On Thursday afternoon at 4.45 I walked outside of the office in Jacksonville Florida where I am working and counted down the last but one shuttle launch (last for Discovery)

Two mins after the launch I could see it curving across the sky, I could see the flames in the smoke trail and also see the actual shuttle. Amazing! I only had my iphone so the picture does not do it justice.

Friday i was due to fly back from Jacksonville. My first flight was delayed and I had 20 minutes to get across the airport to make my connection. I just made it and we took off all be it 40 minutes late. 45 minutes later the pilot announced we were returning to Atlanta, no explanation why, just told us we would need to circle for 25 minutes burning off fuel before we could land back in Atlanta. When we landed the lady next to me spoke to family members in Newburgh who actually work for Delta and found out one of our engines had packed in.

By some sheer miracle they had another plane for us and at 6.30 we left Atlanta again, getting back to Newburgh at 8.45. What an adventure!

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I thought I was doing well, despite the snow at home and a flight that was overbooked. I was able to get a seat and start my journey back to Jacksonville. Little did I think that my problems would be at Atlanta, how naive is that?

So now I have a 2 hours to kill and I am likely not going to get to my hotel till about half past midnight. Although there are some benefits to being a frequent traveller. I am at least seated in the Delta lounge drinking coffee,eating caramel popcorn and listening to a great audio book, Killing the Shadows by Val McDermid.

I was also able to get some more of my block by block knitted cardigan done. A cable leaf and half of a plain block. It pays to be prepared and try and find the silver lining in every cloud.

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Oh the power of facebook, my dh passed some comment about cynical commercialism and our friends reminded him of how lucky he is. Twenty minutes later a box of heart shaped doughnuts were brought up to my office to go with my mid morning cappuccino.

-That evening we had already planned to go to a dinner dance at Anthony pier 9 in Newburgh, there were 6 of us on the table and it was a really good night. The entrance fee included a 3 course dinner and an open bar, plus plenty of dancing. The evening was rounded off with each lady been given a dozen red roses, ah! Great fun, we must go there again in the future.

This Saturday was the monthly guild meeting, one of the things they do every month is a block for a dollar, the dollar gives you some of the fabric, and the pattern and instructions of what other color fabric to add. You can buy and make as many blocks as you want, each completed and returned block gives you a raffle ticket and the winner gets all the blocks.

I would have loved to have won this one, they called it an almost Irish chain and it will look great when all the blocks are put together.

Sunday was my birthday and after a super breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs prepared by my DH I decided that sewing my blocks for my BOM Patriots in Petticoats was the order of the day, they are quite intricate and you really need to cut carefully. This is going to be good practice for me

I also did some more work on my UFO from January, still not completed but I have kept at it, that the main thing.

It is Monday now, another 3 inches of snow here in Pine Bush, I am leaving this evening to go back to Florida till Friday. At least the temperatures there will be a lot warmer, the forecast says mid seventies. Much better than below freezing.

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