Another Bag

In the recent McCalls Quilting magazine, there was a pattern for another tote bag using charm squares. Since my stash runnith over with charm squares I thought I would make this. Lo and behold the ones I wanted to use were from Sunshine by Moda and I didn't have enough. Fortunately, my friend April lent me some and I was able to finish this bag. I didn't realize how big it was going to turn out, but it is still pretty cute. I need to find some cardboard to stabilize the bottom, but other than that, I have a huge bag!

Another week another quilt

Over the weeknd I finished another quilt that I had started at the Quilt Retreat in Monterey. It's called Sand Dollars and the photo is not a good representation of it's beautiful, yet subtle colors. I'm going to take it easy this week as I have to work every day except today so I'll be working on some small projects that I can stop and start easily enough, including a great bag I saw in the latest McCalls Quilting magazine. I'm a tote bag fan!

The Mystery is no longer a mystery

Well, the kids have been home for the last two days so I haven't been able to get too much done. I have finished my year-end scrapbooking though so it's now back to quilting. At our quilting retreat, I had the opportunity to make a mystery quilt which is basically you are given cutting instructions and then step by step instruction without seeing what the final quilt will look like until the end. I decided to make mine using Japanese fabric and here is the final quilt. It's definitely not something that is "me," but I like it nonetheless. I now have to find some time to quilt it.

Quilt Retreat in Monterey

Hi everyone! Just got back from a wonderful weekend in Monterey for quilt retreat with my quilting store. The weather was fantastic and even though I didn't get as much done as I had hoped, I went on a long walk with my friend and co-worker April and we chatted about everything and had a hilarious time with my other friends Phyllis and Sue. The food was great, my room was terrific (it looked out on the water) and the time away was needed. I'm inspired to quilt again and just need to finish some year-end scrapbooking so I can work on quilts again. Here is a photo of the moon setting over the water from my room on Sunday. The moon was full and it was a beautiful morning.

The DaVinci Exhibit at the Tech Museum

Well Happy New Year everyone! We celebrated the event with a New York evening which consisited of New York steaks for dinner, fantastic dessert and then we watched the ball drop in New York (9:00 PM), had party blowers, confetti and lots of running round!

Over the weekend we went to The Tech Museum to see the held-over DaVinci exhibit. It was really fantastic. What they had was his original manuscripts blown up with the drawings and then a full size replica made up. Also in some cases they had another smaller version which people could use to see how all the parts moved. Its amazing how all these items worked. The exhibit then led up to the giant horse that he made and they also brought in two of his paintings from the Uffuzi Museum in Florence. I highly recommend this exhibit. We then had popcorn and went to the Imax theater. The kids had never been to one. We saw Seamonsters. Maybe not the best choice for the first experience but nevertheless no nightmares!