Happy Holidays!

I hope all is well with others in the world. Life is pretty good here, even though I still don't have a job. Last week I was scheduled to have an interview with the local university for an Administrative Clerk position but it was canceled due to the weather (the university closed). The following day, the university made an announcement that they were instituting a hiring freeze effective immediately. Got the dreaded call, "Sorry, we've decided not to hire at this time." Well, I hope I can hold out for this hiring freeze because I would LOVE to have this job. Of all the jobs I've applied for, this is the one that interests me the most, the hours are great (7a to 3 p), it's not far from home, the benefits (drool...), also the department sounds very interesting.

Well, in the mean time, I have been able to get my sewing room back in order and do a few small projects. Halloween came around and my daughter and I decided that she would make a great Alice In Wonderland. I love sewing under pressure so I finished her dress about 1/2 hour before we went out. She looked so cute.



My daughter loves to color. Every time we went out to eat we end up bringing a tote bag with her big pencil box full of crayons with coloring books. Needless to say, the table is over-run by her "stuff". I found a pattern on Electric Quilt's website called the "Ellie's on-the-go Art Tote" and thought it would be perfect for her. After a few adjustments, here's the end result.




I can't wait till she opens it for Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Memory Makers Retreat, 2009

At the beginning of April, one of my quilt groups went on a retreat to Amish country. We met for lunch at The Amish Door restaurant in Wilmot, OH. Later, we traveled to Gramma Fannie's Quilt Barn in Berlin, as well as Helping Hands.

I've been wanting to do a 30's quilt for a while and found a really cute bundle at Helping Hands Quilt Shop. Originally I didn't know what I wanted to make with the bundle. I picked up a Turning Twenty booklet and thought about making my 30's quilt with that. Then I really started thinking. The last quilt my great grandmother was working on before she died was a Dresden Plate. Since in May I will be going on a long trip, that would be a perfect hand quilting project. Now I have a plan! Back to shopping!

We also went to Miller's Dry Goods in Charm. Finally, we made it to our retreat location, the Charm Country View Inn. What a beautiful location. Set in the rolling hills of Amish country. We all unloaded our vehicles and set up shop. I think we had the max of people (about 23) that could go because we were packed in like sardines, but we all had enough space to get our projects completed. Since this was my first retreat, I made the newbie mistake of being hopeful about how many projects to bring. I brought a large tub of about 5 projects, with some smaller knick knack type projects too. Way too advanturous. I did get one top completed.


The only thing that I didn't like about the whole trip was that I didn't have cell phone reception. I had to borrow someone else's phone. On my way back home, about 1/2 hour into the ride, I finally got into cell phone range. I could tell because my voicemail and texts were coming in like crazy. LOL! I wish I could keep a couple of the voicemails that my daughter left me, so sweet! All in all, for my first retreat, it was great! I hope that I will be able to make future retreats.