selfie!, mile-a-minute squares, snow a duex, Gordon's quilt

Michael and I got up at o'dark hundred on Thursday (1/29) to make it to the airport by 6 AM.  He went to breakfast on the way home, while I flew to Providence RI where BG was supposed to pick me up.  I say supposed to because we did have a delay taking off (mechanical problem) and she was watching the status on her phone.  She knew there was a delay, but by the time the airline indicated that I was actually in the air.....BG was an hour away and I was by then landing in 1/2 an hour.  We eventually connected

our first selfie

and she made it up to me by buying paczki's on the way home!!!!!  We sat at her dining room table, having lunch and solving all of the problems of the world until 2:30, when we finally settled down to sew.  We basically sewed until 10 PM, with a break for a fabulous dinner of roast pork.  I got a bunch of mile-a-minute quilt blocks done

 

 

while she sewed rows together on a quilt..

 

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We were up at 7 on Friday (1/30)  and sat and talked at the dining room table until 10 when we finally roused ourselves to take showers and head out to QUILTING BY THE YARD....a fabulous quilt shop in my old stomping grounds (Vernon).  I got a bunch of new quilt patterns....and scored some beautiful fabric as well, then it was off to REINS for FABULOUS Rueben sandwiches and oh so yummy fries :~).  We stopped at a local sewing store and I got a 1/4 inch foot without a flange for my sewing machine, then headed for home.  I asked BG to stop and let me get a few shots my South Carolina readers could appreciate. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was back to sewing until 10 PM again, with a stop at 7 for chicken for dinner.  By the end of the night, BG had completed this

 

a quilt for her grandson Gordon

 

 and I had completed 70  3-1/2 inch mile-a-minute squares.

 

cookies, Elsie a duex, soup, daffodils

Michael had a very late tee off time on Wednesday (1/28) because it was so cold.  I stayed out of the kitchen in the morning until he was done eating, which wasn’t a hard thing to do at all as I was on the phone to GRACE (the long arm company) for most of the time, trying to load in some free quilting designs I had scored on the internet.  I finally got that completed (and hopefully also transcribed my very detailed notes so that I might be able to do it again!) when I finally headed upstairs to stock up my honey for my trip to Connecticut (the probability is that there will be no more blog posts until late next week).  His cookie jar was empty, so I used the last of my chocolate to dip double stuffed oreos for him.   

 Then I proceeded to make 3 different kinds of cookies.  As I mentioned, Michael is now on the board of the Fort Mill Playhouse.  Their season kickoff party is this coming Saturday, and we need to help provide refreshments for it….so I made cookies  

 

these are Baklava Cups

at the top I have chocolate sugar cookies...bottom are cake cookies

 

 

  

I had company in the living room while I was working in the kitchen....I think Elsie has usurped Cookie's favorite new napping place:

By the time Michael came home from golf at 5 PM, I had also finished making chicken/cheese/chowder and he ran a quart over to our neighbors Anne & Bryce (Anne is still fighting a cold and sounded even worse than she did a couple of days ago), before we settled in to eat it ourselves.  

Michael cleaned up the kitchen after dinner while I threw in a load of laundry and finally started to pack for my trip.  We both collapsed around 8 PM and watched TV until bedtime.

By the way....contrary to the gardening "rules" our daffodils are always up before our crocuses:

Elsie & Cookie

Tuesday morning (1/27) Michael left to run a bunch of errands shortly after breakfast (BJ’s, Best Buy, Pet Smart, chiro, Golfsmith…I thought I’d never see him!), while I headed to the studio.  Nancy H came by at 9:30 for our Tuesday morning get together.  I finished trimming my quilt while we talked and solved the problems of the world!  Nancy left at NOON, and I spent 1/2 an hour on the phone with a woman who wanted to tell me every detail of her accident which occurred on January 13…and all of the details of her care since then….just so that she could ask me about getting rides to the doctor, and about contacting a retired nurse to help her!  By then Michael was home and we unloaded the car and I changed clothes in time to be picked up by Joanne at 1 PM.  We had a lovely time at Stitch & Chat, but left early to hit WENDY”S for free junior frosties :~).  I was home before 4 and called Jan to take a quick trip to the library with me (I had stuff on hold).  When I got home, Michael and I were both downstairs and there was some snuggling going on.   

We had FIGAROS pizza for dinner, then Michael took off to see some scifi film with Larry, while Joanne, Barb, Jeannie, Sally, Brenda and I solved the problems of the world while enjoying creamsicle drinks!  It was a delightful evening :~)

beautiful sunset, golden pull apart butter buns

Michael left early on Monday (1/26) for golfing at Tega Cay and I sewed in the morning on my potato chip quilt before leaving at 10 AM to pick up Jeannie for Cooking Club.  Jeannie and I got “free” admission, since we were table captains at the Christmas Tea (but actually, it turned out everyone got free admission because the treasury is full…YAY!)  Paula demo’ed pimento cheese sandwiches, along with her easy-peasy corn muffins.  Two other people made lentil stew and coconut cream pie.  Needless to say, everything tasted great and we were both stuffed by the time we got home at 1 PM and I went back to sewing on my newest quilt.  Jan came over for a visit in the afternoon and I sent her home with soup and rolls for dinner for the 3 of them (Jan, Walt & Mark).  Michael got home around 3 PM and seemed pleased with his score of 85.  We talked for a bit downstairs and I got one of my quilts OFF of Miss Scarlett before I went upstairs to form another set of rolls for our dinner.  When Michael came in from taking the dog out, he said “go out onto the deck RIGHT NOW”.  Oh my goodness…isn’t it beautiful:

the view from our deck

 We had another pan of rolls….don’t they look yummy?   

And the last quart of Elephant Chicken soup for dinner.  I headed downstairs for just an hour…until 8 PM…starting to trim my quilt, then headed upstairs to watch MURDER BY DEATH…an old, but good and funny movie.

tumbling blocks proposed layout

Jan and I were out and about early on Saturday (1/24) getting errands done and getting home by 9:30 in time to kiss my honey good-bye before he left for golf here at SCCL.  A very short while later I got up from reading the paper, deciding to make myself an egg for breakfast when Cookie ran to the garage door.  I said “I don’t know why you’re running…your dad isn’t home” only to open the door and find out he was!  He said it started to rain before he even got all the way to the golf course…and the foursome decided to call it off and try to golf Sunday.  So…..he made me a smurfy grilled ham & cheese sandwich for breakfast…yum!  I got the pork chops brining and dough made for my second attempt at King’s Hawaiian Rolls and then headed downstairs to spend several hours arranging and re-arranging the tumbling blocks….they’re stalled here for the moment.  

so far using only 2 of the 4 sizes I made...  :-(

I got the rest of dinner in the oven and Candyce & Ralph came at 6 PM for breaded  porkchops, quinoa with cheese and broccoli and rolls.  I threw in a pan of Mocha Truffle cookies for dessert.  We played several rounds of SHEIST (and Candyce recorded the highest score EVER…..82) before switching over to SCREWED…which she didn’t like nearly as much as she lost  :~( .  It was a delightful evening, but by the time they left, I could barely keep my eyes open and I headed to bed while Michael stayed up reading.

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After a nice 1/2 of an Asiago bagel for breakfast, I decided to try out Miss Scarlett again.  I thought I would try different combinations of the USB cord versus the circuit board.  The first row did not go so well, but I wedged some fabric behind my tablet and the second row was much better  :~).  I also put fabric on the bottom of the tablet where it rests against the holder.  I’m going to get some of those cushions that you put on the bottom of chairs so that they don’t scratch the floor and affix them to the tablet holder.  This was with the NEW USB cable, but the OLD circuit board.  I essentially had the tablet padded “6 ways to Sunday” and managed to finish quilting another single bed quilt …..YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!  At the same time I was working on a potato chip quilt…increasing the number of blocks and trying to figure out how much fabric I needed to make it a single bed quilt size.  At 3 PM I headed upstairs to start rolls and soup for dinner.  Michael did not care AT ALL for the Hawaiian Rolls…the recipe definitely needs more work…so I dropped back to my regular golden pull apart butter buns…a never fail recipe.  We had Elephant Chicken soup with the rolls and that soup is always better than I remember (Jan had given me a chicken carcass a couple of days ago so I made stock for the soup with the carcass)….Michael doubled up on servings of soup…while I doubled up on servings of rolls :~) (thank you Dad for that genetic disposition :~).  I was kind of tired after dinner, so we just watched TV (I didn’t even knit) until bedtime.