The Weekend

The temperature did take that big drop of  thirty-some degrees last Thursday night, knocking out our neighbor's beautiful "Knock-Out" roses and leaving our Hollyhock limp on the sidewalk.  But it quickly bounced back up and this week we're again having mostly lovely sunny days of fifty and sixty degrees.  Looks like both Thanksgiving and Black Friday will be wonderful days to be outside. 

Have you heard that REI is closing its stores on Friday for the second year in a row?  They are urging everyone to go outside and play instead of going shopping, including their own employees who are paid for the day off.  It's fabulous!  

If you have some time, have fun exploring REI's Opt Outside web page; there's some cool photos and a nice video there that may inspire you to join the movement. 

I was at a quilting retreat the past three days in Longmont, which is about thirty minutes from Boulder.  It was an "in town" retreat, meaning it wasn't up in the mountains.  Since it's closer to home you don't spend the night and you're more able to come and go.  You can get back home in time for dinner or you can stay and sew until the hall closes down at 10:00 PM; it's up to you.   I had a lot of fun and made a lot of progress on my current projects.

I sewed the November block for my Machine Quilting Block Party quilt.   This on-line class uses sun-themed blocks to teach machine quilting, but I gave up the suns after the first month and changed them to seasonal and holiday themes.  My 16" square Thanksgiving block was great fun to make.  I had bought the theme fabrics a few months ago and found a couple more in my stash and really enjoyed seeing them all come together.   Can you tell that the green is turkey feathers? So clever.  I also made a table runner, but I'm going to post that on Thanksgiving.

My big goal for the weekend was to put borders on a "camp quilt" that I'm making using cat fabrics.  One of my guilds makes twin-size bed quilts for foster kids who go to a week-long summer camp at the church where the guild meets.  The kids enjoy them during camp and then take them home with them in a matching pillowcase.  Last year the guild made quilts for more than forty campers, which is pretty cool.   If I'm going to quilt mine by the May due date, I had to get the borders on, make the back, and get the whole thing basted together at the retreat.  Which I did!

Here's a closeup of those silly cats.

Speaking of silly......

Yes, that is Spikey asleep on top of Paul's head!  We gave Spikey a nice warm soak in a tub in the kitchen sink while we played cards last night, then put him on Paul's shoulder to watch the game. Instead, he crawled up Paul's head and peacefully zonked out for a snooze!  Paul was a real trouper, playing two games until we finally woke Spikey up and put him in his cage, oops, I meant habitat; he's a very sensitive lizard!