flowers, breakfast on lanair, bread, sleeping

It was 67 degrees outside when we woke up on Sunday (7/30)…WHOO HOO!!  Michael & Cookie went for a walk first thing, while I got laundry started and did some bills.  I have 3 hydrangea plants that have grown to be huge and beautiful and lush...with absolutely NO blooms on them....but I finally got TWO blooms that Michael picked and arranged (with one long stemmed rose from our bushes), 

along with trimming down my birthday flowers and throwing out the dead ones:  

Then it was breakfast on the lanair (and everyone got to enjoy the great outdoors): 

before putting together bread dough and heading to my studio to work on a customer quilt.  I got a few rows done, then came upstairs to read while the bread rose and baked.  We ran the extra 1/2 loaf over to Candyce & Ralph....as a thank you to Ralph for organizing the Pinehurst trip every year.  

When I first came upstairs, everyone was down for their afternoon nap  :~):  

I finally made it back downstairs again around 4:30 PM and proceeded to spend TWO HOURS completing one row of quilting  :~(.  I don’t know what happened, but between the pattern on my machine somehow becoming corrupted, and my thread continuing to break, I was VERY frustrated by the time that row was complete and just shut down my machine and headed upstairs.  Long arms are a lot like computers….you love them and don’t even think about it when they are working correctly, but when they mess up it brings your world crashing down!!!  I heated up leftover pizza for dinner and finally at 8 PM sat down to watch TV with my honey and knit. 

sewing day for MESIG

Michael was up at 6 AM on Saturday (7/29) and I followed shortly afterwards with lots to do.  The Machine Embroidery Club (MESIG) was having a sew-in to make donations for the Lancaster Children’s Home, and I also volunteered to teach a rope basket.  I had to pull together all of my supplies and disconnect my regular Pfaff machine (always a nightmare....that's why I have a portable, but wasn't sure it could handle the rope basket) to haul everything up to the Lake House.  My honey left at 7:30 for golf here at SCCL, and I left at 8:30 with all of my supplies.

the back of my car....almost looks like FF retreat.....right??


We had a really nice day making rope baskets and working on quilted bags for the Lancaster Children's Home:

Pat P and Sue hiding

Sue S

Joyce & Pat W

Pat S & Jeanette (see Jeanette's bowl on machine?  almost finished

I was just beat when I got home at 2:30 (I’m sure mostly because of the pain my foot), so after I heard about Michael’s 84 on the golf course, I just propped my foot up on an ice bag and read the rest of the afternoon away  :~).  Michael grilled hot dogs for dinner, and I spent an hour after that cutting strips for binding on the 2 Valor quilts and getting them sewn together 

before heading upstairs to knit and watch TV with my honey.  The temperature dropped off at the end of the evening, so we spent some time out on the lanair, holding hands and enjoying the night.

Corinne & Dennis, tomatoes

Michael took Cookie for a walk first thing Friday morning (7/28), while I got my blog out, emails read, and wound 7 bobbins for my latest quilt.  We left at 10 AM for the Lodge, to watch a short skit that our friends Dennis & Corinne were in, 

the star relaxing before performing

then did a few errands (library, bank, grocery store) before heading back home.  I continued quilting and while that was going on I got the bobbin ends woven in, the basting ripped out and the trimming done on the 2 latest Valor quilts.  Michael harvested from the garden (it’s been over 90 for quite awhile now and I think our garden is about done):   

before settling down to watch LONGMIRE on NETFLIX.  We lost our power for 45 minutes in the afternoon…right in the middle of my quilting….so of course when it came back on it took another 45 minutes for me to get my machine back to the exact spot it belonged.  I got almost 1/2 way through quilting it by dinnertime.  We had leftover lasagna for dinner and decided to have a date night.  Michael made popcorn around 7 PM and we watched 3 cooking shows together before bed.

new quilt loaded, some birthday cards

We were both up before 6:30 AM on Thursday (7/27), Michael to get ready for golf and me to make him a grab-and-go egg and bacon sandwich (since he didn’t have time to eat breakfast at home).  I worked all day on loading up a customer quilt, getting it basted and getting the program set up (this quilt has 15 inch borders that were not measured before being added, they were just sewn straight down the side...it will be a challenge to quilt without pleats):  

you can already see a bit of rippling starting

Michael was home by 12:30 and he said it was CERTAINLY a let down from Monday’s score  :~(.  Oh well….if he could be consistent, he’d be on the pro tour….right?  We had leftovers for dinner and I knit while watching TV with my honey in the evening.

I wanted to share some of my b-day cards with you….they were too special.

I have 2 friends who are artists, so they drew their cards:

Inez

Ginny

Then there were 2 friends who definitely picked things I am interested in:

Sue (sis-in-law) & Charlie

yes, those are all donuts from my neighbor Susan

Reg & Loree thought about getting me a "purebred" cat, but decided to bring a picture first to make sure I was interested:

The next card was from Pat and George, and made me laugh right out loud:

the inside said "how much do you weigh?"!

And some of them were just silly and made me smile (and had lovely notes in them):

from Ann Mary & Jim

from Debbie & Claude

I had a terrific birthday and consider myself so very fortunate to have good friends!

pieced out totally done!, Candyce & Ralph, Gale & Phil, Sue & Dennis

I was in a lot of intestinal distress late Tuesday evening and all through the night, so I got very little sleep and when I got up on Wednesday morning (7/26) I was moving very slowly.  Michael left for errands around 9 AM (Best Buy, library, bank, CVS) and I sat down to SKYPE with Janice….we ended up talking on the phone because SKYPE didn’t work  :~(…but we got to talk until close to 10:30.  After that I settled in to pay some bills and get my blog entry out, so I didn’t get back to sewing until NOON.  I spent the afternoon working on finishing the binding on the Clinton quilt:  

And that included a long nap in the middle of it  :~).  Michael and I left at 5 PM to pick up Candyce & Ralph, 

and we met Gale & Phil 

and Sue & Dennis 

at the Pump House for the Queen’s Feast.  We had a lovely time with the other couples and were all stuffed by the time we left:  

the menu

yummy cornbread

gazpacho

salmon

hanger steak with risotto

pork chop with peach grits

We also had cheesecake, chocolate cake and homemade peach ice cream for dessert.  The only bad thing?  It took an INCREDIBLY long time to get our food….a 3 hour dinner was not something that any of us were excited about.  Once we dropped off Candyce & Ralph and got home, we watched just a bit of TV before bed.

quilting done, 2 Valor quilts given out

We headed out early for a routine eye doctor appointment with our glaucoma specialist on Tuesday morning (7/25).  After stops at BEST BUY (ROKU for Michael’s TV), Pizza Hut (a rare treat…I adore the crust on their individual pan pizzas), the liquor store (for pecan/praline liquor for a cake I hope to make with BG when she comes in ELEVEN DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and Aldi’s (for crackers and almond milk), we were finally home just before 1 PM.  Michael took Cookie for a golf cart ride, then blew up my new bike tire (that he bought last Friday) before settling in to try to hook up his ROKU.  After over 2 hours of set up, talking to the ROKU people, talking to the Comporium people (our TV connection company) and talking to Best Buy, Best Buy finally said “yep, sounds like something is wrong with the ROKU you bought!”  Why can’t anything ever go the way it’s supposed to???  Joanne stopped by for some chocolate cake and peach crisp and Robin stopped by to pick up our gravity chairs (she said she was really glad to get them as she and Wayne use them all of the time and theirs wore out!!)  After that I immediately headed downstairs to fire up Miss Scarlett.  By dinnertime the quilting was finally finished on the second quilt, 

and I had made a good start on getting the binding on the backside of a Clinton quilt.  

Michael and I had leftovers for dinner, the he left to pick up Larry and Jim N to see DUNKIRK (which all 3 of them found strangely unsatisfying...not up to the hype the movie got at all) while I knit and watched TV.

You may remember a couple of months back I donated another 4 Quilts of Valor to our local VFW group, and 2 of them have now been handed out.  Pete S (my contact at the VFW) and his wife Andi (she of the recent martini fame) did the presentation and sent me pictures and a note:

“Cleophus and Aaron couldn't stop thanking us for the valor quilts. Both veterans made sure we would thank you for all the work you did to make this gift possible.  Can't say enough of how rewarding today was. It lights up the Veterans day, and makes myself and Post 12136 so proud.”

You know....that just makes me want to make a hundred more  :~).