Vacation is Over

I've been gone the last 2 weeks on vacation. I had fun while it lasted, but it's good to be home.

We left on a Tuesday headed down to Arizona to visit with my brothers. Of course we had to stay a night at Sam's Town in Las Vegas.

Then it was on to Cottonwood, AZ. to visit. While I was there I talked to my brothers about our parents ashes that I had. I thought it would be a good idea to spread them where we had some good memories of childhood. We all agreed and took them up to Oak Creek. This is where they are.

I had a good visit with my brothers and really hated to leave. I think I will not wait so long next time to visit. It had been too long.

From there we went through New Mexico, Colorado, S. Dakota, Wyoming, Montana. Idaho and back home.

We stopped at Mt. Rushmore.

I must say, I never thought I would see this in person. It was truly awe inspiring to see this. Something I will always remember.

From there we went to Devil's Tower. I think my favorite part on this was seeing the prairie dogs. I don't know if you can see them in the pic.

From there it was on to Yellowstone Park. We were lucky enough to get a room in the park for one night. This whole trip did not have a set itinerary. We just sort of flew by the seat of our pants for reservations on rooms. Yellowstone was a treat, but you could still see the devastation of the fires from a few years ago. On the way into the park I got a pic of a momma moose with her baby.

In the park we were stopped by a herd of buffalo that was on each side of the road. People had stopped on the side of the road and in the middle of the road. While we waited to start moving again a buffalo crossed the road in front of the car in front of us. On the other side of the road a biker had stopped to get pics. The buffalo got really, really close to his bike, and the biker was making his way behind the car in front of us :-). I was just waiting for the buffalo to decide to knock the bike over, but he just moved on.

Of course we had to wait around for Old Faithful to make a showing.

From there we really wanted to hit Glacier Park but that was not to be as the fires had everything closed down. Next trip maybe.

I must admit that I did get to hit 22 Quilt Shops on this trip. I had A LOT marked down that were participating in the Row by Row. Got a lot of nice rows (and a bit of fabric :-) ). A lot of new patterns and gifties for the girls in my sewing group.

I even got to visit with my friend that lives in Soap Lake and help her get a new vintage machine (Singer 404).

Life is good.

That's it for now.
Til later,
Hugs & Stitches,
Mary

P.S. I have to post this pic. When I caught my first glimpse I thought it looked like The Burrow in Harry Potter.

New Piggy Bank Challenge

Today starts the New Piggy Bank Challenge



My goal this year is to double the amount that I managed to save last year.
This is a pic of my jar before counting what I had last year.

 

You can find my total here.

 

I did manage to get it spent. I went with a friend yesterday for our own little shop hop for the Row by Row Experience. We bought the kits for the rows, so we managed to lighten our wallets some.

 

Next year I will probably do the same if the Row by Row is going on at this time. It's that or buy a vintage machine.

 

You can read all about this challenge HERE.

 

 

Til later,

Hugs & Stitches,

Mary

Piggy Bank Challenge Final

                                                              

Well a year has come and gone and it's time to fess up about how much I managed to save up in my piggy bank jar.

After counting everything, I ended up with $79.00 in bills and $83.37 in coins for a grand total of $162.37. So I guess I'm not a millionaire yet :-(. But that's okay. This is what I call my "found" money, which means I can spend it any way I want. When I first joined at the beginning of this, I thought I would maybe use the money for a vintage machine to add to the collection. Actually, I'm not going to do that now. I will be doing a little traveling shortly and I think I will use this to add to the Row by Row Hop that is going on right now. I already have Quilt Shops marked on my travels.

To see everyone else's reports, stop by Val's Quilting Studio. Why not sign up for this next year's challenge while you're at it. You can sign up for it starting Sunday, July 12th. I know I will be doing it again. I'm going to try to better my goal next year and see if I can get closer to that million mark :-).

Til later.
Hugs & Stitches,
Mary

P.S. If you want to learn more or get info on the Row by Row click HERE.

Retreat Report and Progress

Well, I survived going to Retreat at the Summit. I have gone to this for the last 8 years give or take.
We had a wonderful time spent with great friends (although, sometime you could call it a family).
There was much laughter and craziness going on. I think my favorite laugh was when one of the ladies  was asking a question on how to tie off her stitches and someone said to just backtack with her reverse, to which she replied, "I don't have a reverse on my machine."  (She had a Featherweight.) We all just sort of stopped and looked at her and then someone told her she did indeed have a reverse. In her defense, I believe she hadn't owned it for very long and wasn't familiar with it. But, we all had a good laugh.
The food was fabulous as usual, but I think that's true of any meal you don't have to cook :-). The weather was pretty warm, but we did have AC so it wasn't so bad.
I took a lot of stuff to work on for inventory for shows seeing as how the last 2 shows sort of cleaned us out. I did get a chance to work on 2 tops.

I didn't get the last border on this one. I'll take care of that in the next week.

This one I did get finished as far as the top. Just need to quilt it now.

One of the UFO's that I have been working on is now completely done.

Once a week my BQB (Best Quilting Buddy) comes over and we work on UFO"s. Right after I finished the top, Bonnie Hunter put out a call for quilts. This is one of her blocks from Quiltmaker's Addicted to Scraps column and she is going to be making some videos for Quiltmaker and needs quilts for the filming. I wrote her and said I could have this ready if she need it and she wrote back that she could indeed use it. So it will be going to the Quiltmaker's offices shortly.

This week BQB came over and I worked on a new UFO.

I had 8 blocks made and then it got put aside.  Time to finish this. It has aged enough! I finished the last 4 blocks, made the sashings and got the top put together and add the borders. Now it goes in the quilting pile. I also got the backing pieced and binding made and ready to be put on. I think I did pretty good.

I also got 3 client quilts done. Yay!!

Guess that's it for now.
Til later
Hugs & Stitches,
Mary