Blue

Way last spring, a friend and I had penciled in a plan for a quilt shop road trip in mid-August. As the date came closer,we realized that our trip would be during the first annual warehouse sale at Primitive Gatherings in Menasha, Wisconsin, one of the best destination quilt shops in the state.

That's what I call synchronicity.

We headed north to Menasha on the last morning of the sale, but that was fine with both of us--what we had in mind were quilt backing fabrics. And shop owner Lisa Bonjean had sent out an email blast saying that fabric would be $2 a yard on Saturday. Wow!

Even in the last hours of the sale, we found plenty to love.


Between the two of us, we cleaned off nine bolts of fabric. I'm ready with backings for a couple year's worth of quilts.


OK, true confession time... Was it me who was whining a few weeks back about kitted quilts? Well, I got sucked into my first quilt kit. So yes, I'm eating crow.

But what a beauty...


The finished quilt was on display, looking much as it does in the photo here, and I simply could not resist those antique-y blues and shirtings. I also couldn't resist the price.




All in all, pretty darned pleasing.

But when I got home--the classic slap to the forehead. This quilt is going to require 864 one inch half-square triangles. What do I ALREADY HAVE left over from the strippy quilt I finished in the spring???


We all have our comfort zones and apparently tiny blue and white half- square triangles are mine.

You can all go ahead and snicker now.

Greetings! It's been an eventful couple weeks. Some of that time was spent in the wilds of Michigan's Upper Peninsula where four other people and I people enjoyed six days of concentrated family togetherness in a cottage with a five gallon hot water heater. That was an adventure we'll surely talk about for years...

We spent a day on Madeline Island in Lake Superior


and made sure to pig out on regional guilty pleasure foods such as (*shudder*) Deep Fried Cheese Curds.



Yum.

But I can say with great enthusiasm that I was very glad to get home.

I also had my kids under roof at home for some concentrated family time here too. That resulted in some throwback scenes like this:


Lucy slept through this madness as you can see.

And because the Legos are usually stored in the depths of a closet in my sewing room, my sewing room currently looks like this:



And yes, that is a Dude action figure laying to the rear, on my work table. Don't ask.

But the kids are gone now and life has gone back to quiet normal. It was a great visit with everyone, despite the five gallon hot water tank.

Now to get the sewing room re-organized and re-energized.