What a lovely vacation

I'm having such a wonderful break from work!

First thing on Wednesday I headed to Portland to E.E.Schenck's, a fabric and sewing essentials wholesale warehouse where I get my batting, much of my longarm thread and other stuff. They open at 7:30 so I left early - totally forgetting I'd hit rush hour on the freeway. I think I could have slept in another hour and gotten there at the same time I did! I needed to pick up a 30 yard roll of batting for the military quilts my Tangled Threads group is working on. The son of one of our members is currently in Iraq as part of a tank company, so we are making quilts for the men in his platoon. I needed to buy more than that to meet my minimum so I HAD to browse a bit - of course! I found three new quilt books, four new patterns, several cones of longarm thread plus some new threads to try for piecing. I don't know why I worry about meeting the minimum - I was easily $75 over!

Wednesday was pouring rain and Fred couldn't golf, so we went shopping after I returned from Schenck's. We decided to spend the money that was piling up in our entertainment savings - we hardly ever go out anymore it seems - on an Ipod. We'd both been thinking about getting one - and neither of us realized the other had been thinking about it until Fred said he might ask for one for Christmas. This is better - this way it belongs to both of us. So we started at Best Buy and came home with an 80 GB Ipod. He's been totally occupied transferring our music CD's ever since - he's completed the classical and now is working on Christmas music. From there we went to Barnes and Noble so he could spend the gift card I got him for his birthday, then on to Costco for food and more. It was nice spending the morning with him like that - we've not done that for a long time!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. A relaxing morning with Fred on the computer and me piecing. We headed to my friend Kim's house for dinner about 2:30 or so. (Kim is the Tangled Thread whose son is in Iraq.) There were eight of us - three Threads and our husbands, the sister of one Thread and her friend that we'd not met before. Kim is an incredible cook and worked for two days on the gourmet dinner she served us. Good company, good conversation, wonderful food - what more could one ask for!

Yesterday was our Thanksgiving with our kids - they all spent Thursday with their spouses' families. I did an easy meal - lasagna, green salad and garlic French bread so I was able to do most of the prep before they arrived. They all got here about 1:00 or so, and we had a marvelous time playing with the dogs, chatting and playing lots of games. I've learned that the date of a holiday isn't all that important - if I can't have them all here on the holiday itself it's not a problem as long as we pick another day to celebrate. The important thing is doing it - the date really isn't important.

I've also been getting in some quilting - of course! I finished piecing the blocks for the current installment of my Jan Patek mystery quilt, so I'm all caught up with that. I also pieced blocks from the current installment of Heirloom Stitches and started prepping the appliqué. Ran into a bit of a snag with that. One block is a basket with a pieced bottom anand appliquéd handle and flowers - and the piece of fabric included for the handle was WAY too small. I can do some of the stitching, but since the handle must go on before two of the flowers I'll be stalled part way through. The kit for the other block, which is all appliqué, is missing all the green fabrics for the leaves and stems - which must be done before anything else on that block. So I'm at a standstill with that one too until the online shop sends me the missing fabrics and a replacement for the handle fabric.

While I was pinning the Heirloom Stitches blocks back up onto the design wall I discovered a mistake in a block I pieced several months ago. I can't believe I've not noticed it until now! It's definitely staying the way it is - if it took me this long to notice it then I don't think it matters. I wondered how many of you spotted it when I posted the block the first time, and were just too polite to say anything? How many of you can spot the mistake now? It's the blue, red, gold and green block.

I'm heading out for a haircut soon, then need to spend the rest of the day upstairs with Gandalf. I have a customer quilt to deliver on Tuesday, and another one needing special custom quilting that is due by the second week of December. So my own quilting will be taking a backseat the rest of this weekend. At least I did make a little progress on my November goals - though it's evident now that many of them will move on to being December goals. That's OK - I finished other things I didn't plan on working on, and that is a good thing!

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Gratitudes:

1. Family holiday gatherings
2. Chelsea's pregnancy progressing nicely
3. Tangled Threads friends
4. A relaxing vacation
5. A break in the rain so my hubby can play the golf he so loves

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