It's been a busy week

This has been a pretty busy week. Not a bad week, just busy. I had to go to Myrtle Beach for a night for the state library association conference. I tried to get out of spending the night but Sheraton has a 3 day cancellation policy. 3 days? Mom went with me so we could hit the quilt stores. There are 3 in the Myrtle Beach area and we hit all of them plus one knitting store.

Folks in all the stores were very nice, especially the knitting store. Didn't get pics of the travel hedgie on Wed, I was way too tired. Did get pics of him in the two stores we hit on Thurs. Sooo, hedgie store pics

Saturday was a fun beading class. It was sponsored by the Devine Quilters guild Mom and I belong too. Dee and Joann did a great job. We were learning beading on fabric techniques. The following is picture of the sampler we did. We were supposed to write down the name of the technique next to the sample. As you can see, I didn't follow directions on that one. Travel hedgie did show up to supervise and keep us out of trouble.

The headless dude in the bottom right is actually a limb with buds on it.

More travel hedgie pics can be found here:

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/578862219zLZczp

It's sad when one's facebook game addictions interfere with one's blogging and crafting. My evening craft, should I shut off the laptop, is cross stitch. I'd love to get good at applique, but I'm first and foremost a cross-stitcher. I finally finished the small cats project I was working on for ages (darn farmville), have the backstitch on a small Margaret Sherry hedgehog to do (darn frontierville), and have finally started on a big project again! I want to enter something in the Fair next year and decided on this cool blackwork pattern I bought last year.

I love blackwork. My favorite part of the Church Street cross stitch I did years ago was the iron gates. Yes, it's just backstitch but I love the backstitching and how it makes things pop.

To keep the images down a bit, here's the link to the cats I just finished. The pattern was in one of my British xstitching magazines. I loved the colors.

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2703544240053831593gYNXpD?vhost=home-and-garden

The start of the blackwork pattern:

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2490803320053831593Aixoer?vhost=home-and-garden

fear the goat

Off to a beading class today (how to bead on your quilts class). I'll try to blog when I get back, have a few pics and stuff from Myrtle Beach.

Anyhoo, I have to get this out

GO NAVY!!! BEAT NOTRE DAME!!!!!

Back from the SC state fair

Mom and I went to the State Fair today. We usually end up going on a Sunday. No pictures for you this year, usually I try to take a pic of something: the mushrooms, the fried candy bar of the year... Nothing today.

Of course we started with the usual fried mushrooms and gyro.The fair fried mushrooms are what got me started eating mushrooms at the age of 33. We brought in our own drinks and split an order of each. Saved much moolah that way. The crafts building is always selling cookies and milk (cheapest food there) so that was dessert.

Once again, no pics. They tend to fold the quilts when they hang them so you only see about 1/4-1/3 of the quilt. It's really rather disappointing in a way. I did take a look at the cross stitch. My goal this year is to do another project to enter for next year.

This year's fried food adventure was the fried butter, stolen from the Texas State Fair of course. Lets just say I should've found out where the fried pickles were and gone for that. I usually get the bad stuff as we leave. No picture this year b/c I stuffed it in the trash when we hit the car. It honestly made me want to hurl. Their fried butter is a pat/blob of butter dunked in cinnamon/sugar (or just the cin), dipped in batter and then deep fried. You get 4 for $4. I ate one (dribbling on my Denver Bronco shirt). I wasn't too impressed, but gamely tried the second. I didn't even finish that one when I stuffed them all into the trash. I'm still recovering.

Liquid butter should only be enjoyed with crab legs, not at the fair!

It's October and it actually feels like fall!

Fall is my favorite time of year. The weather starts getting cool and pumpkin spice lattes start appearing at your local Starbucks :-) I could do without the joint aches of the weather change, but at least I can cuddle up in a quilt or on top of the space heater at work.

QSC retreat is over! Yay, my 2 year tour of duty as retreat co-chair is over. Next year we can attend and just have fun without worrying about things and running around. That's Anita's job *evil grin*

I did, crazily, volunteer to be membership chair after we got home. The current chair needs to step down and I decided I could do that job. I can't even blame the idea on drinking since it was mid afternoon on a Sunday and we were coming from a Baptist retreat center.

I did get some sewing done. I finished the top of my 4patch swirl quilt. It's been sitting around for some weird reason. Not sure why I put it aside, but I finished it and added a border. I also got a few small pumpkins done from the pumpking pattern.

This weekend I look forward to sleeping in and loafing all weekend.