Wine and Music

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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Space shuttle and interesting flight home

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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The joys of traveling

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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Quilt guild and birthdays

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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Valentines day

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.

Nuno Felting

Saturday was busy catching up with the normal girly things in life, nails haircut etc. There were a few light snow flurries but nothing that will stick thank goodness.

Sunday I went over to White Barn Farm for a Nuno felting class, it was very different to my normal hobbies. There were nine of us in the class and we each picked a piece of silk and some wool roving (Merino sheep) you lay pieces of the wool on the silk, some people covered their silk with the wool and others, like me, went for a more waterfall effect. You then cover the whole thing with a net curtain, wet it with warm soapy water and roll it up and then agitate it by rolling your package back and forth



We were checking it in-between rollings to see if the wool fibre had migrated through to the backside of the silk. Once this was established we used really hot water and agitated the wool to create the felting effect, and at the same time it shrinks. It is an amazing process and you get lots of surprises in the way your colors blend.



Even the back looks pretty with all the gathers. This is definitely something that I want to do again and I have a really pretty scarf.




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St Augustine Florida

As DH is over in the UK this week, I decided to stay down in Florida ( the frozen temperatures and bucket loads of snow at home may also have come into play)

I spent a lazy Friday evening catching up on some knitting and rest. Up early on Saturday morning to find the weather forecast had changed, not quite the scorcher I was expecting ! Anyway undeterred by this minor setback, I set off to find a yarn shop that i had seen advertised on Ravelry. I will not tell you the name as I have to say I was not overly impressed, nothing I could put my finger on but just lacking in that wow factor. So off to the premium outlets just outside St Augustine, they were nothing like the Atlanta or Woodbury Common locations very run down and all a bit seedy. Never mind at least that meant that I did not buy anything.

Next stop Margreetas Quilt shop in King Street St Augustine, Wow, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. there were at least 5 separate rooms all filled with bolts of fabric, patterns and other quilting related items. It was a great selection and they left me alone to just wander from room to room multiple times. I settled on some lovely Moda dark blue with a turquoise and brown spot and 3 fat quarters plus a Moda Jelly roll. I then added some cute handmade buttons and the sweetest little snips they are about an inch long with a spring to help use them. They will be perfect for travelling.

I don’t even want to imagine how long I was in there! There was the perfect pick me up just opposite, a chocolate factory with a cafe attached so that you could sample the products Yum.

I spent a leisurely Sunday shopping at Jo-Anns and having lunch at Panera. Before the Super bowl I took a 4 mile run and then settled down to watch the match and some more of my knitting.

Stash report - The weekend update to follow

Stash report week 6

1 yard used to date
9 yards added this week
Added year to date 29
Net used year to date -28

Phew! back in work to enjoy the rest

Last week I took some knitting to Florida with me and I was able to finish 3 more squares for the charity knit.

  

Saturday morning I was up early to go get Shellac put on my nails. For the first time in over 10 years I am back to my own nails, minus the gel. Shellac is a toughened nail polish which I hope will protect them long enough for them to strengthen. Off to the quilt shop for a BOM called patriots in petticoats. No pictures of the finished blocks yet as they are still a work in progress, you get 2 blocks a month but they are all very small pieces so great practice cutting and sewing accurately…. I hope. Off to lunch at the local diner with my very good friend Dolores. Lots of chatting and laughing, just as it should be.

DH and I then drove over to the White Barn Wool shop to drop off the squares and while I was there I bought some fabulous wool its by Berroca and it has Alpaca in it… so so soft ! The colors are great as well

The top skein is a little more grey than it looks in the picture and that is the main color. I am knitting the jacket in Nicky Epstein's Block By Block book. Its a fantastic book there are instructions there for loads of 8 X 8 blocks using all sorts of knitting techniques, cable, intarsia, 3D blocks etc. and then the instructions for a number of completed designs. The idea is that you can make the design your own by switching out the blocks you use. I will show you as it comes along.

Back to the house a quick spruce up then off to collect our friends Kathy and Wayne so that we could go and meet up with Anita and Carmine, early dinner in Middletown then off to the theatre to see a Beatles Tribute band. They were excellent and really took the whole thing very seriously including the faux Liverpool accents and general appearance and manners of the band.

The evening was rounded off nicely with dessert and the sweet cafe and then off home to bed after a very full day.

Sunday was PJ’s and sewing day – I made a home spun style door stop 

And also completed my January block for the quilting B that I belong to. It was called a broken wedding ring I think – lovely fabric and very interesting way of making it – I enjoyed it a lot.

Sunday night was spent knitting a little but mostly packing to come back to Florida. i am here for 2 weeks this time so no sewing. I am sure I will get withdrawal symptoms