a quick check in

I know it has been forever since I have posted, but I just wanted to touch base here and let you know that I am still alive and quilting. School has become busy, busy, busy.  We are in labs 2 or 3 times a week and that means trips to the grocery store.  The good thing is, last week we made focaccia bread for the first time and it turned out pretty good.  They had never made a yeast bread before.   I had never made that recipe and it was good, but needs some tweeking before we make it again. 

The good news is volleyball is over for me for the year, unless there are playoff games they call and ask me to work.  One of the basketball coaches wants me to keep his books, but I haven't told him yes yet.  I keep putting it off and thank goodness he didn't ask on Friday. 

This week we were in the lab today - didn't go great, burned cookies, yucky brownies - just not a good day to bake I guess.  Tomorrow we are serving lunch for 24.  Then on Wednesday we are serving finger food for a series of meetings held here at our school.  We made some mini muffins for that today.  Tomorrow will be extremely busy!! 

I have been working on quilts.  I even have the pictures to post, but I killed my computer.  Thank goodness our tech person here was able to save everything to one of her computers and I am hoping our computer class can find the problem and fix my machine.  I am going to have to make the trip to Best Buy in Midland to look at getting a laptop.  Too bad our Best Buy here isn't open yet.  Well, gotta go put the cooled muffins and cookies that made it up for the night.  I may work some more on my hexagon quilt top this evening since I can't play games on my computer!  (by the way, I am writing this at school which is why I don't have any pictures)

Whisper and Retreat

Last posting I talked about my whisper quilt.  Even though I have to top completed, I still haven't had the time to quilt it.  I really need to get on that since I have to have it finished in 13 days.  I will share with you a little bit of the quilt I got from Kathy. 

Then I will share part of my quilt. 

Sorry, that is all you get to see at this time.  I shouldn't even be showing that much, but I couldn't keep it all a secret, now could I?  Last weekend was the Ogallala Ceta Canyon Retreat and my friends Kathy and Gerri and I headed out on Friday making the long trek to our getaway.  Of course I planned on getting away much, much earlier than we did, but I really overslept and then I wasn't completely packed and the car wasn't clean and well, let's just say about 2 hours later than planned, Kathy and I were on our way.  Which, it turned out was not a bad thing since Gerri was leaving about the same time we were and we got to meet up in Lamesa.  However, the quilt store there was closed.  Neither one of them have ever been to that store since she has been closed every single time they are with me and we stop there.  I, on the other hand, have stopped there quite a bit.  She has great prices on her fabric and some wonderful  new and clearance items.  I seem to always find a few things to purchase.  Next time we will have to call ahead of our trip and make sure she will be open when we get there.  Too bad we didn't do it this time. 

Since that quit store was closed, we headed on up to Lubbock to the Bernina store - yes, we purchased a few things - and then Sugarbaker's for an early lunch - okay, since I was running late, yada yada yada, it was about lunchtime.  Gerri went to Sugarbaker's and ate first.  When we called to find out where she was, she had already ordered and we were already purchasing so we both stayed where we were.  Then we swapped.  Lunch was good as always, but the Italian Cream Cake was exceptional!!  Since we were already in Lubbock and not going to make it to Ceta by 10 - hah - we decided to schlep on over to Rachel's.  yes, we all found goodies and whatnots there, too.  We enjoyed sitting at the counter getting our fabric cut and chatting with the employees. Then off to Plainview for a Sonic drink and a stop at the Wal-mart.  I know, we have a Wal-mart here, but you know how you have those last minute items you forgot and this is the last stop along the way to pick up any of those items.  We shopped and found some wonderful things that we just had to have - S'MORE GOLDFISH!!!  Have you tried them.  YUM!! 

Now a few more hours and we are at Ceta Canyon.  It looks like we are some of the last to arrive.  There is a table for two and Kathy and I grab that one.  Gerrie had already put her stuff down on a table with another friend, Pam.  It wasn't right next to us, but we don't usually sit really close together anyway.  We need an excuse every once in a while to get up and move and not sitting close is our excuse.  Here is a picture of Kathy with her winning challenge quilt.  The Challenge was to make a small quilt with a "Calendar Holiday".  She chose Johnny Appleseed's birthday.  Yes, it's on her calendar.  Maxine doesn't celebrate it on my calendar, though.  I loved her use of a pair of jeans with a hole it that she used to make Johnny's jeans with a knee hole.  It was very clever and I was so proud of her when her quilt won. 

This is one of the quilts I worked on while there.  Like I have said before, I have been wanting to make one of these interlocking crosses quilts for quite some time.  I have read about them on the blogs for over a year now and I finally decided to just draw one up and make it.  This is some of the fabric that I was cutting and cutting the last couple of weeks.  This quilt is made up of 4 1/2 inch squares.  196 squares to be exact!!  I can't believe there are that many squares, but there are.  It went together really fast.  Much faster than I thought it would.  It would have been faster if toward the end I hadn't sewn some of the rows together wrong and then had to take then out and  sew them back together correctly.  I really like this quilt and plan on making one or two more.  I thought I was giving it for a baby gift, but I think I might just keep this one all to myself.  At least for now.  Anyway, it's not quited and may not be for a few years the way things go around here.