A Great Saturday!

Good morning!
I had a great Saturday! I had my hair cut and colored - finally! My hairdresser canceled my appointment last weekend due to her son's graduation from Greek School. I totally understood but my hair didn't! It just kept on turning gray! Now I'm happy!

Afterwards, I gave myself a girls afternoon! (Even though it was by myself!) I took a trip to another quilt shop, Quilter's Heaven in Northbrook. This was the second shop on my Quilt Shop Hop. It's nice to go to these shops because they all give you a 15% discount and you get to see different shops! It was a nice ride on Waukegan Road on a beautiful day. The shop is an old house on Shermer Road. I walked in and was pleasantly surprised. They had SOOO much fabric. It was a typical old house with little rooms, etc., and an upstairs with little rooms. They even had a long arm quilting machine on the premises! I couldn't believe all the fabric they had. Everyone one was more beautiful than the next. They had tons of samples, patterns, books, etc. It was a feast for the quilter's eyes! The problem I had was that there were several sample quilt tops and table runners that I fell in love with and wanted to buy either a kit or the same material. Several times I mentioned how much I loved that pattern and would like to buy the material. One of the sales people told me I should go upstairs and look for the fabric. Another looked for the book with a pattern I liked and they didn't have it. I felt that they should have taken the time to help me find the material or similar material. The shop wasn't that busy and there were two salespeople. Oh well, I did find a few patterns that I liked and some Valentines material for a quilt I'm thinking of making - at some point. The photo above is one of patterns I bought at the shop. It's supposed to be very easy. We'll see....

This is the table runner I fell in love with. I almost bought the pattern but the fabric colors in the picture on the cover were terrible. I wanted these fabrics but they didn't really help me find them. I did take the pic for fabric colors in case I bought the pattern. This pic doesn't do the fabric justice. It was very vivid and beautiful. The name of the pattern was "Tuscany."

However, one good thing; I think I've found the perfect pattern for my special quilt. It's a bit difficult to see but I really like this pattern. Once I purchase the fabric, I'll put some pics on the blog.





I also stopped at a knit shop, Three Bags Full, while I was in Northbrook. It was just around the corner from the quilt shop so I had to stop there. (Didn't I?) This store was nice with a big selection of yarn (what else?) Unfortunately most of the yarn was very expensive. I did purchase some 40% off sock yarn - of course! and a pattern and yarn for a baby hat and socks pictured below:

Sock yarn - 40% off!





I'm going to take another trip to one of my favorite quilt shops on Saturday. It's the first quilt shop I ever visited and where I took my first class in quilt making; The Quilt Basket in Downer's Grove. I love that shop and one of the owners, Denise, is a great teacher and a nice person. The only minus is that they are not open on Sundays. : ( I plan to buy fabric for both of these quilts there. The shop is beautiful and located in quaint downtown Downer's Grove. If you have never been there, you should take a ride and see what I mean. There's even a knit shop across the street; Kniche. What more could you want! You also have to stop at the Barkery and buy some treats for your favorite doggie!

Well, so much for my adventurous Saturday. Sometimes you just need to venture out of your neighborhood comfort zone!

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Happy March - My Birthday Month!!!!!

Good morning,
Today started out cold and windy. Not as bad as it could be - at least there was no rain - yet. Don't they say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb? Yesterday I left work downtown and the temperature was wonderful. It felt like Spring. I got home and the wind was howling and it was freezing cold! I couldn't believe the temperature difference. Oh well, that's Chicago for you!

Couldn't do much knitting last night as my back was hurting. Still hurts a bit today and the aspirin I took aren't helping yet! Hopefully they will kick in or I will take some more at 10:30 a.m.! Hate when my back hurts!

I just bought Season 1 of The Game of Thrones on Blu-ray from Amazon.com. I am almost through Book 3 and can't wait to read Book 4. It is a very good read and I'm looking forward to watching the show.

Unfortunately there was a lot of damage and deaths with yesterday's tornadoes. I think they reported that there were 80 tornadoes across the Midwest! Luckily my family in southern Illinois were all spared any tornadoes!

Well, off to work I go now. One more day of this week. Tonight is knitting and we're going to be talking about getting together on Sunday's, when Woolly Lamb is closed, to learn how to quilt! Of course, we have to take a shopping trip to buy all the tools!! : )  That will be fun! I hope we all follow through with this plan as I'm looking forward to getting back to quilting again!

Have a great day and look forward to the coming of Spring later this month!

January 25, 2012 - I Return!

Back to the Blog! I am going to try to post in my blog every day this year - and include some pictures. I may bore myself to death (no one else reads my blog) but at least I can have a record of my year!

Knitting will always be my craft of choice so I will start with that. Brigitte, the owner of my LYS - Woolly Lamb Yarn Studio has a new website - http://www.woollylambyarn.com/ with tons of items to purchase even if you don't live in the Chicago area! She has started a new monthly project event. Each month we will have a new project of her choosing to work on. Whomever makes each project for each month will be entered into a drawing for a Woolly Lamb gift certificate at the end of the year! Sounds like a fun idea. Our first project, for January, is a pair of fingerless gloves using 2 skeins of Cascade 220 Sport Yarn. These are the Cables and Leaves Fingerless Mitts from the Cascade book "60 More Quick Knits" - Page 48. I am using a very beautiful shade of red for mine. There isn't much to look at now - picture to follow as soon as I get more completed!

My other love is quilting. I have one quilt that was professionally quilted but still needs to have the border attached. This is the Soduko quilt. It was so much fun putting it together. I really enjoyed this one.

I also have a baby quilt that needs the quilting completed and then the border done. Unfortunately time is fleeting and I just don't have enough of it! I hope to get these two completed this year - yes, I said this year! (Let's see how I do on this deadline!)

Scrapbooking has been put aside for the winter since it's very cold in the basement where my stuff is located. I'll be picking that up again this Spring - I still have to scrap Gregory's pictures from his semester abroad - don't we sound rich!!!

Life is good for all of us. I started my new job on January 3 and my son graduated from law school on January 15. It was a wonderful and very meaningful ceremony. Everyone else is well.

Until tomorrow.