roses, Pat's dessert

Michael picked a few more roses from our (literally) 7 foot tall rose bush:  

before he left for golf here at SCCL Saturday morning (8/6).  I had a quick breakfast and headed to the studio to finish loading up the quilt.  At 8 AM I started to work on the program for my first new quilt…..and went through 3-1/2 hours of sheer H_LL!!!  I don’t know what was going on with my quilting program, but it was moving SLOWER THAN A SNAIL!!  Now please realize….I’ve just picked up 2 quilts from a brand new customer….they have to be turned around by next Thursday, and I have to finish them with a hand stitched binding….I was stressing out to the max as my program kept cr_pping out!!!  I finally got it set up and started stitching at 11:30 AM!!!  Little did I know that my troubles were only beginning.  One of my encoders is acting up…this means that my machine stitches along as normal…then suddenly doesn’t stitch for an inch to 1-1/2 inches, then starts stitching again.  I accidently found THREE places on the first row…right as the row was finishing.  This meant that by 5 PM when we left for Pat & George’s for dinner, I had only completed 5 rows  :~(.  Yes, I considered cancelling out on the dinner, but I decided I needed a break.  I had been working from 8 – 4:40 with only a small piece of peanut butter toast for breakfast.  We had a delightful time at P&G’s…the guys played cribbage while the ladies talked and talked and talked.  Pat promised it would be a simple meal….and we had hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, a tomato/cucumber/red onion salad and luscious watermelon.  The guys played one more game after dinner while the ladies took the dogs for a short walk, then we settled down to Pat’s OUTSTANDING dessert:  

It was called a Truffle Trifle and it was yummy!  After that we headed home and I got 2 more rows done on the quilt before collapsing into bed, all the while dreading facing it again in the morning :~(.