A little more done

Accomplishments! After a few boring days and no sewing progress, I got some more done. I've finished all the donation blocks for the 2013 guild quilt.

I finished the last set of blocks for the design-your-own quilt  double 9-patches.

Now all the blocks are made for this one and I can get to the designing part. Here are all the blocks:

The idea is to make a bunch of each, then have fun arranging until you have something you like. Keeping similar (but varied) backgrounds adds more interest to the quilt.

I finished all the little blocks for Safari ...

...and made one big block to show you what they'll look like.

(No, the seams don't match - they're not suppose to.) Can't wait to see what this one will look like when it's all pieced. I think it will need something else - maybe a little applique or embellishment (or both). We'll see! It's really fun to make things that have no predetermination of what they'll look like when they're finished.

Today was sew-in day at the local quilt shop: I was able to finish the borders on the rest of the jelly-roll-race/1600 charity quilts. I'm glad to have them done!

I made it to a Triple D (Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives) restaurant last week - Metro Diner here in Jacksonville.  Then there was a show yesterday featuring Zia, in Santa Fe, NM - another one to add to my list! I was there this spring. I'm heading to the Mancuso World Quilt Show in West Palm Beach this weekend and will hopefully hit Havana Hideout and can add that one to my list. It'll be fun to see how many of the places I can add to my list over the next few years.

I tried a new recipe, too - Ann Burrell's Asian pork tenderloin. It's really good. And easy. I recommend giving it a try.

That's it for the non-boring parts. Thanks for stopping by!

Day 7 - Still in Santa Fe, NM

Fun day! It's nice to have a day off from driving. I walked all over the place today! Another GORGEOUS day here!

If in Santa Fe, one must go here:

So I did (senior discount - yes!!!). I got sad, though, after watching the movie about her. She wanted to paint abstracts, but was criticized for it, so she started painting real things - even though it wasn't her passion. It made me sad to look at the pears knowing that she didn't love painting them.

I managed to immerse myself in art today, though - it was wonderful!!!! All kinds of art! What a nice way treat for a day!

Guess what else I stumbled upon?

Woo Hoo! More "Route 66" credits!

At the end of the day I even managed to get in a little quality time with my sewing machine. Pretty good day, huh?

And .... the pottery won! I was too weak to resist. Welcome to my home, lovelies!!!

Tomorrow it's farewell to New Mexico and off to the next stop! Where will it be???? Tune in tomorrow!

Thanks for stopping by!

FMF Day 6 - Santa Fe, NM

Ahhhh ..... nothing like a nice "nap" - that lasted about 6 hours. Let's see if I sleep tonight. Anyway here I am in Santa Fe!

The trip so far:
the journey
About 260 miles today (again I didn't write it down - oops), so a little over 1700 so far.

Here was the start of my day while still in Amarillo:

Walking out to the cars (Where does one buy cadillac seeds, anyway?) 

The pile of empty spray paint cans. I'm sure this is just a day or two's worth

Well SOMEBODY got creative! (yes, that's a bra)

A close-up. The date there is 3/12/12. I'm surprised it's still visible

The gate to the field

By the way, the Ranch is on .........

.... so I get Route 66 credit, too!

The start of my ride was like this - flat ....

  ... until about 15 miles from the NM border, when it turned into this

I arrived in Santa Fe around 1:30, met a lovely woman in the hotel lobby who dropped me off at Zia's (for lunch).

Then I did a small walking tour, doing lots of shopping, lusting on the pottery, and seeing my surroundings. This picture isn't very good, but I wanted to show you the mountains.

It was a beautiful day - around 60 (and you can see how clear!), but it had snowed last week. I found this small patch during my walk, and I hope this (and the mountain caps) is all the snow I see during my trip!

I just had to take a pic of the fencing. So interesting!

Tomorrow I'll head up to the Plaza for some more wandering and shopping and of course a visit to the Georgia O'Keeffe museum. It is Spring Break here (who knew? and I still got a great deal on a hotel!) so apparently there are lots more people than usual. Who cares? I'll talk to them all!  I'm so glad I've been walking "every" day (at home); it makes for easy visiting around town.  Alas I am having to cut my stay short by one day to avoid some unpleasant weather forecast for Sunday at my next stop. That means I'll be spending an extra day in Las Vegas. Oh darn the luck!!

Random thoughts of the day:

Outside of Amarillo I passed a big windmill farm, then a cattle ranch and if you though skunks were bad ..... ewwwwwwww ..... I've never smelled anything that awful! If I had smellavision, I wouldn't subject you to that. Uck!

The altitude at Amarillo is 3600 and change - enough for octane to have dropped a point. Altitude here in Santa Fe is 7000. I'm only feeling the dry, not the altitude.

Knowing that I'm going to write this blog each evening makes me look at my surroundings differently. I want to tell you what I see even though I can't always stop and take pictures.  Today I'm in vast, wide-open spaces that a camera couldn't capture, anyway. Just gorgeous!

I love it that semis are not boring colors anymore. I passed a blue-green one, bright purple and dark purple ones, bright blue and bright yellow. So fun!

I saw lots of signs that said some version of "engine braking not allowed". Well ... I didn't know what that was, so I looked it up! Here's the wiki.

And that was my day on the road! Thanks for stopping by.