Sandy's quilt finished, Disappearing 4 patch finished, amaryllis

I was lucky enough to spend most of the day in my studio once again on Saturday (1/30).  I got all of the bobbin ends sewn in on Sandy’s quilt, 

 and also got the binding totally finished on the disappearing 4 patch and stitched down the label….so it is ready to go.   

 Sandy stopped by to pick up her quilt and seemed as thrilled with the barn red as I was.  We had leftover ribs for dinner and vegged and watched TV in the evening.

Our amaryllis is ALMoST here...

Susan's dinner, Susan & Jim, Evelyn & Phil, amaryllis

I spent the entire day in my studio on Friday (1/29), determined to get Sandy D’s second quilt done….and it is (pics tomorrow hopefully!)  I also got to spend a bit of time starting the binding on the disappearing 4 patch I quilted 2 weeks ago.  At 5:30 PM we got cleaned up and headed over to Susan’s for dinner.  She made a yummy pork roast with wild rice and lima beans.   

 She also served rolls and cranberry sauce.   

After dinner the 6 of us: Susan & Jim 

 and Evelyn & Phil 

 

 played Mexican Train for several hours before stopping for a dessert of pears and fontina cheese and little Italian cookies.  We played MT for another hour before heading for home.

Our amaryllis is going to burst into bloom when we are in Iceland :~(…here’s what it looks like right now:

Twix bar cookies

I hopped up early to try to get my twix bar cookies done for quilting on Thursday (1/28).  I got the caramel layer on them and it set up in the fridge for an hour, and I got the chocolate layered on top of that, but by then it was time to go, so I left them in the fridge setting up.  As usual, I had a blast at quilting…we had lots of people doing lots of fun things.  By the time I got home I had about 10 minutes to make a couple of phone calls before heading up to get my hair done.  And by the time I got home from that, it was time to cut up the cookies into batches 

for Gale & Phil, Jan & Walt and Pat & George before heading over to pick up Gale & Phil and head out to 521 BBQ for dinner.  We just beat the rush, so that was very nice, and we got 4 plates of ribs and one pork chop plate.  Jan asked us to pick up 2 rib trays for take out, and we dropped them off (along with the cookies) on our way home.  We had a few of the twix cookies when we got home and we both agreed that they needed a thicker caramel layer...but they tasted great!  After that we just relaxed and watched a bit of TV before bed.  Good thing I got some sewing done at quilting because I feel like I’m not getting ANY done at home  :~(.

Twix cookie base, pizza!

I’ve really fallen behind in my emails and it took me several hours on Wednesday morning to get caught up…and I finally got back to quilting around 11 AM.  Michael took Cookie for a walk in the morning, and then spent a good bit of time trying to learn to use our new camera.  After that I got 2 rows of stitching done on the quilt before heading upstairs for a lunch of sausage soup. By then it was time to change into my bathing suit and head to the pool for water walking with Pat.  We walked for a little over an hour, then I stayed at the Lake House for another hour to clean up a few things.  By the time I got home, it was time to get started on our pizza for dinner.  I had leftover dough from the rolls on Saturday, so I used that for our base.  While I was waiting for it to rise, I put together the bottom crust for some “twix like” cookies I wanted to bake.  I got that baked, 

then put in the pizza (spinach and mushroom on one side, onions on the other :~).   

 It was TOTALLY yummy!  By then it was time to SKYPE with Janice, which of course turned into a phone call ‘cause we couldn’t get SKYPE to cooperate.  After that, I ran out of steam to finish the cookies and  I just plopped on the couch and watched TV with my honey until bedtime.

new card from Michael

I don’t know what happened to Tuesday (1/26), but it just FLEW by !!  Jan picked me up in the morning, and after a quick stop at the chiro (for her) we settled into IHOP for breakfast and catching up.  After that we headed to KOHL’s and I actually found a few things for Iceland before we headed home.  I got home just in time to change shirts (yes…I slopped my breakfast on myself  :~( before Joanne picked me up for Stitch and Chat.  I am stuck on my sweater, but the woman who wrote the pattern wasn’t there…so I just sat and chatted.  I have no idea what I did between then and when Larry picked up Michael at 6:30 to go and see “13 hours”.  Paula, Joanne and Jan all came over for the evening and we had a good time talking.  Michael got home at 10:30 and we watched just a bit of TV before heading to bed. 

 

Michael drew a new card last week and sent it out as a thank you card….since I know it has now been delivered, I can post the picture:

 

Monday (1/25) was a whirlwind day.  I finished packing up everything I needed for the Cooking Fingers demo and headed to the Lake House.  Although it is a lot of work the day before (making all of the servings), it makes it all worthwhile when people come up to you afterwards to say how much they enjoyed your food and that they really think they could make it.  Also, several of my bread students (from last year) were there and all told me they were still baking bread and really enjoying it!  One said that I had created a monster and that she hadn’t bought any store bought bread since my class :~).  I stayed afterwards to talk with Paula for a bit, and got home in time to change into my bathing suit and head back up to the Lake House to walk in the pool with Pat.  We spent a very enjoyable hour walking and talking, and when I got home at 3:30, my honey was finally home from all of his errands.  He found some hiking shoes for Iceland, and also picked up a new pair of cushy slippers.  I talked for a bit with Ginny (friend in VA who has now moved to NC), then Michael and I talked for a bit, read our books for a bit and by then it was time to get dressed and pick up Pat and Kathi for our SNS Martini Club for January.  I’ve been coughing a lot lately (aftermath of the flu I guess), so I took along something hot to drink, since that seems to help.  The food was terrific (as always) and the company was great.  I did have 2 small samples of the martinis and they were yummy!  One was called a WOO WOO martini and for dessert we had chocolate martinis.  By the time I got home (just after 10:30), Michael had just gotten into bed, and I hurried in as well.

Cookie & Elsie a trois, Sandy D's quilt #2, Joan's quilt

It hasn’t been sunny for 2 days, so Cookie & Elise really enjoyed the front foyer on Sunday morning (1/24):  

After breakfast I headed downstairs and put away everything I had dragged out to make the luggage tags.  After that I got another customer quilt loaded up and worked on the program to quilt it.  

 Joan called me then to say that her quilt was finished and I could come over and take a picture.  I quilted this quilt for Joan several weeks ago, but never remembered to take a picture.  She wanted really sparse quilting and I think I accomplished that:   

Michael took a walk in the afternoon and dropped off a quart of sausage soup with Jan & Walt, while I spent a couple of hours baking up 60 breadsticks and pulling together my supplies for the second Cooking Fingers demo I need to do on Monday.  After that I went back downstairs and started to quilt.  I was really excited because in my new stash of quilting thread, I think I found the perfect color for the new quilt called Barn Red.  I finally headed upstairs to watch TV and snuggle with my honey around 8 PM.