Oh, Puerto Rico, te echo de menos ya!

Oh, Puerto Rico, I miss you already!! We are back from our trip, well rested and relaxed. This tower is in old San Juan near the governor's mansion. We spent an evening there wandering around the streets and shops and having dinner in our favorite restaurant, Toro Saleo. We even had our favorite waiter who was there last year.

The weather was gorgeous, 80-85 degrees every day. The Marriott was beautiful and the staff was super friendly and helpful. This is the view from our balcony.


We spent most of our time on the beach doing this.

and in the evenings, doing this! Oh, and we spent some time in the casino. My DH played a little

blackjack and I learned how to play roulette. Even won a few dollars!

Meet our favorite bartender, Jonathan. He worked at the restaurant, Miro, across the street from the Marriott. They had a 2 for 1 Happy Hour every day from 4-7. Needless to say, we got to know him very well! The restaurant also had fabulous food. Our favorite dish was Arroz Negro (black rice) which was rice with a combo of seafood (shrimp, squid, scallops and mussels). What made it black and delicious was the addition of squid's ink which has a buttery taste to it.

This last picture was taken at Condondo Beach next to the Conrad Hotel. We have already decided that we will be returning again to Puerto Rico maybe in February. It's a quick getaway spot for some fun in the sun and many mojitos!

Well, back to reality and the old grind! Hasta luego!

Fall projects

Despite a heavy work schedule, I have been able to finish one fall project and do some decorating for the season. The first picture is the space above our closets in our den. This arrangement was actually done by my DH. There are different sized wicker and ceramic pumpkins up there with an old wooden tool chest filled with fall colored leaves. He adds the twinkle lights which look so nice at night. He is surprisingly talented in doing this sort of thing! This will stay up til Thanksgiving.

The little wall hanging is made with hand dyed felted wool and stash fabric. I finished binding it last night while watching the World Series. This project comes from a great fall/halloween book I won from our guild's monthly raffle.

The pumpkins are a nifty idea I picked up at our guild's Annual Gathering. The inside is a roll of toilet paper, wrapped with a little leftover batting to make it look round and covered with a seasonal FQ that is stuffed into the top of the tube. The stems are a stick I found outside and I added a few artificial leaves on top. Took all of 15 minutes to make and when the season is over, I'll take them apart and use the paper! LOL!

The purses are part of a new drop in program we are doing with our guild. We have a drop in meeting on the last Monday nite of the month which is meant to be more social. You can bring a project you want to finish or do the project of the month. This year we are focusing on making bags. Since it was my idea for Bag of the Month, I was the first instructor and chose the Buttercup bag which I found on Rae Hoekstra's blog. She is super talented and this bag is the first of several that have appeared on her blog. She is so generous with providing the pattern and the bag was easy as pie to make. The size in the pattern actually uses a FQ. I made one in the original size using a wool skirt I had felted which I call Baby Buttercup. The other bag which is the same pattern enlarged to 120% which I call Mama Buttercup is made from Michael Miller fabric I've had forever. I used a magnetic snap for the wool bag but decided on a loop closure for Mama. The handmade glass button on the front is one I bought in Houston a couple of years ago. I really like Mama best. She is a perfect size and I added additional pockets inside.

We had 7 or 8 gals there making bags. I will have pictures in November to show. It's amazing how different they look depending on the fabric chosen.!

Sorry the pictures are so dark but we haven't had much sunshine of late!

Speaking of sunshine, I am headed for sunny Puerto Rico next week for some needed R&R with my hubby. My bag is just about packed and I just need to choose a book or two for reading on the beach! I'll be back in November hopefully fully recharged and ready to do more blogging than I have of late. BTW, if you haven't turned your clocks back go do it now! Daylight savings time started last night Boo hoo! Now I'll go to work in the dark and drive home in the dark! Did I ever mention I HATE WINTER!!!

What I did on my Summer Vacation 2009

Yes, I know that it is now October 16th and I haven't been around since August. But I have been living in denial that the seasons had changed. I wanted summer to last forever. I even made a trip to Florida two weeks ago as an extension of my favorite season. But this morning when I got up there was white stuff on the lawn and I could no longer live in my fantasy world. SIGH! So I am back! The pictures above show what I did this summer. As you can see there are NO quilts. We spent our summer traveling to Maryland, Colorado, Florida and New Jersey as well as visiting with family and friends,working in the garden and doing lots of reading on the beach. I did go to the Jacksonville Quilt show with my sister and will show some of those quilts in my next post. The little cutie in pink is my greatniece, Bella, with my sister, Kathy, who turned 50 today! Welcome to the top of the hill sis!! You would never know she was old if I hadn't told you. She looks great and works hard at staying that way!

I have gotten back into the groove of quilting. I am working on some fall quilts now. I hope to have pictures of both of these by the end of October.

My next goal is to get caught up with all of you. I was doing some visiting over the summer but not much. Now that fall is here I will be around to see what's new! Hope all of your summers were as enjoyable as mine was!

Lazy Days of Summer

This is my one and only quilting finish this summer. There are so many other distractions when the weather turns sunny and warm that quilting takes a back seat for me. I did get this one quilted and bound. I pieced the top back in January, 2007 at our guild's RI retreat as well as another more autumny( is that a word?) top which I am ready to load on my frame when we get a rainy day. Until then, I am doing some hand quilting while I watch TV or reading. I just finished "Little Bee" which was recommended on someone's blog and really enjoyed it.

We just got back from our weekend in Baltimore where we watched our Red Sox beat the stuffing out of the Orioles. Camden Yards is a great ballpark and we had fabulous seats for both of the games.

While I was in Baltimore, I finally got to meet The Calico Cat (Amy) as well as her hubby and of course, the Calico Kitten, Jacob. He is sooo cute and was very good during our sushi lunch. Amy is one of the lucky gals whose hubby is fabulous with the baby. It was fun to spend a couple of hours together talking about babies, the pros and cons of family vacations, and of course, quilting. I hope my next trip Amy and I will get to fondle some fabric!

This weekend has been spent cleaning and doing some needed maintenance work in the garden. I did receive our guild's newsletter which had details about our Annual Gathering in October. Carol Doak will be teaching classes and there was news of a retreat in March. On Tuesday, some of our members are getting together for dinner and an evening of shopping at a local quilt shop. I see more fabric in my future!

Lastly, for those who have emailed me about my son, thanks for your concern. He is getting back into the swing of things. The ringing in his ear is gone, he had the stitches removed and he is pretty much back to normal. Oh and he bought himself a nice new helmet to wear!

Hope everyone is enjoying these lazy days of summer!

My visit to the Mile Hile City

I don't have any quiltiness to show but we have had some excitement around here lately. We were planning on going to visit my DS in Vail in September but last Friday as I was wandering the supermarket aisles, I got a call from my son, or so I thought. When I answered it was a doctor from Vail Medical Center informing me that Alex had been involved in an accident while riding his longboard ( for those of you unfamiliar, it is a skateboard but longer and used primarily for cruising around). Apparently, he had time between jobs and was returning a video to the library. He was on the paved bike trail that goes through Vail and as he turned a corner, there were bikers ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE PATH. Alex tried to swerve around them and lost his balance. He fell hard and was knocked unconscious. The bikers who were in the way took off but thankfully, a woman saw him fall and called 911. She stayed with him til the ambulance arrived and tried to visit him at Vail but was not allowed since she wasn't family. However, she did write him a note and left her number. We have been in touch with her to thank her for stopping and helping Alex.

When I got the call Friday morning, he had spent the night at Vail and they were transporting him to Denver as he had a small brain bleed on the CT scan and Vail doesn't have a neurologist on staff. After talking to the neurologist in Denver Friday night, Bob and I decided to fly out there. We left at 5:3o am EST from Hartford and got into Denver around 2:00 pm.

Alex spent a couple of days in ICU for observation but thankfully, he is going to be fine. He has a few stitches in his head and some ringing in his ear which should go away over the next month.

We took him back to Vail on Monday afternoon and got a brief tour of the area, which is absolutely gorgeous. This picture is of Alex at Vail Ski Resort with some of the rails that are being built and will be installed in the terrain park where he works this coming winter.



Here is me and Alex and the longboard. The ambulance crew left it at Vail Medical. Vail has a special holding area for skis, snowboards and apparently skateboards that come into the ER. We picked his board up on Monday.

Here's Alex and Dad. This river/stream runs behind Alex's condo in Vail. During the rafting season, he took rafters down the river as a guide while working for the river rafting company.

We headed back to Denver Monday afternoon and decided to stay an extra day to take a look around the city. We absolutely LOVED Denver. The people are super friendly and helpful, the city is nicely laid out with lots of public transportation so it's easy to get around. There are lots of fabulous restaurants and some good local beer. We went to the Botanical Gardens which were gorgeous and even got to take in a Rockies game on Tuesday night. The tickets ranged from $4 to $50! If you are a Red Sox or Yankees fan, you know what a bargain that is. We got tickets the day of the game, 10 rows from the field on the first base line. Coors Field is really nice and although the Rockies lost ( they need some help in the bullpen) we had a great time and met some really nice people.

All in all, what started out as a nightmare ended on a good note. We stayed at the Sheraton Downtown in Denver and I can't say enough good things about the staff there. They were sooo accomodating during this crazy time, from sending up a basket so we had some snacky stuff in the room, extending our check out time with no additional charges or hassles, letting us keep Alex in the room for no additional charge and having the van take us to and from the hospital whenever we wanted. Mr. Bonilla, the front desk supervisor, was an angel and made this part of our trip easy.

Don't know how much quilting I'll be getting done in the next few weeks. We are headed to Baltimore on Friday for our Red Sox weekend. Dandylion, I'll be getting in touch with you by email so we can hopefully meet on Saturday!

Til then, Quilt til you Wilt!~