Home Sweet Home

 We arrived home last night about 10 pm.  It was a good vacation, but it's time to get back to a normal routine again - for both of us. 

* 15 days
* 3905 miles round trip
* 8 states

**** AND . . . 5 quilt shops!

Today's tasks involve going grocery shopping this morning to restock our empty fridge, while my husband restocks all of the bird feeders.  Then I'll unpack and start the laundry.

And maybe I'll start cutting the "friendship squares" from some of the fabric I purchased, for sharing at the next guild meeting.  I also have a binding to work on while watching the Super Bowl game tonight.  I'm probably not going to actually sit down at my sewing machine again until tomorrow.  

Vacation hiccup

 On Thursday, we spent over 3 hours sitting still on the highway in New Mexico, just east of Albuquerque, as I-40 was closed both eastbound and west due to multiple accidents.  Once traffic began moving again we passed dozens and dozens and dozens of vehicles - mostly semi trucks - in the ditches and also crashed.  Mile after mile of accidents on both sides of the interstate, and mile after mile of vehicles backed up with no way to go anywhere.

We feel VERY fortunate not to have been involved in any accident.  

That major delay meant we didn’t get nearly as far toward home as we had wanted.  So today (Friday) we spent 10 hours driving 690 miles - from Amarillo Texas to Omaha Nebraska.  Hopefully we’ll have no more issues and will be home tomorrow.  It’s been a really good trip, except for the past couple of days.

Road Trip Shopping - part 2

This will be short due to limited Internet connection. 

This cactus panel is something I saw in New Mexico and in Arizona. I did buy the panel along with some yardage to go with it at the Kokopelli Quilting Company in Albuquerque.  Each of the shops had different quilts made with the panel, so it was fun to see the variety of ideas. 

I have no clue what this will all become, but it was too cute to pass up.

Road trip shopping - part 1

 The first 2 quilt shops I visited on this road trip to Tucson were in Dodge City Kansas and Albuquerque New Mexico.  Both shops had been recommended to me; both were fun stops. The owner of the shop in Dodge City is so charming and helpful. And the shop was small but had such a great selection.

I always look for something unique that reflects the location to take back home and cut into 6” friendship squares to share at guild. The cowboy hat fabric fits the bill.  The pink fat quarters just had to come home with me - because pink is the RSC color for this month.

Birds of a Feather shop also carries quite a selection of panels.  I bought one to use for a Quilt of Valor, and one that just was for fun. The eagle/flag panel will make a stunning QOV center.  And that hummingbird - it just spoke to me.  Ironically we’ve seen a lot of hummingbirds in Arizona on this trip.

More to come on Albuquerque and Tucson shopping in future posts. 

Relaxation

 No sewing … but there has been golf, wine tasting, sight seeing and time relaxing with family.  We’re really enjoying this little road trip. 

There is a quilt shop or 2 planned for next week, as my cousin’s wife is also a quilter. It’s been fun to see what she is working on.

Road trip check-in

We’ve driven about 2500 miles on our little road trip so far.  And we’ve discovered a host of places we could have visited - if only we had been there a different day of the week.  LOL 

My husband doesn’t “do” vacation, just for the sake of being on vacation.  There has always been a work meeting, or a family wedding or reunion involved in any trips we’ve taken.  

But we are actually ON VACATION.  The picture is from the Gila National Forest (New Mexico), a view of Emory Pass.  Beautiful, but the curvy road was a challenge.  

More adventures await . . .

February goals

I've been a list maker my whole life.  But I've reached that stage in life where if I don't write it down, it isn't likely to happen.  So it's a good thing I'm accustomed to writing things down.  My list for January was long, but my list for February is going to be shorter, with an emphasis on catching up and making progress.  Finishes would just a bonus.  

There are 3 quilts currently in the hands of a quilter, 2 of them are pictured above.  Hopefully there will be some binding accomplished this month.

• Bind 1 quilt from this list
• Bricks
• Nanci's Stars
• Blue & White RBD Challenge from 2022
• Progress on 1 (or more) current WIPs
• Add borders to Country Bunnies
• Cats Sew Together bag
• Valentine pillow cover
• Framed 9-patch
• Catch up with Block of Week/Block of Month projects
• Saturday Sampler
• Sewcialites 2
• Scrappiness Is Happiness
• Rainbow Scrap Challenge - February color is PINK
• Pyramid blocks
• Scrappy Irish Chain blocks
• Small Hearts
• Rainbow Connection (strings) blocks
• Stashbuster blocks
• other misc RSC blocks