A full, but enjoyable, Saturday

I figured the best place to start is at the beginnig of the day today....

Today was the 5K race in Baldwin, WI and was the first race for my co-worker, Jan (pictured middle). I could make an entire post just on the race itself, and how SILLY Jan was talking. "I may just be having the 'big-one' (heart-attack) here......" "I'll be fine just as long as I beat that wiener-dog to the finish line......" "HOW far away is that finish line yet? I don't think I'm gonna make it--you and Julie are going to have to carry me to the finish line, or at least roll me!"..... Oh ----she was a hoot! I won't say this too loudly (in case she's listening), but the race for me was very fun, nice and RELAXING! The pace was at a much slower-than-normal-pace for me; my only goal of the day was get Jan to the finish. So, at 34:14, she crossed the line! Yeah :0) AND, we met her goal of NO walking (outside of the teeeeny-tiny .1 mile up-hill portion).

After a little relaxing and watching the awards ceremony, we hit the road to head back home. However, I took a slight detour to get to Rice Lake to test-drive the Janome6600. I sadly didn't have much time (only about 30 minutes), and that was BARELY enough for me to get out all my questions to Angie, the sales lady. But, I at least have a bit of an idea about the 6600 BEFORE travelling THREE HOURS to Rhinelander tomorrow to try out the Bernina440QE. (Yeah---I only thought it was TWO hours away, but good 'ol Mapquest.com quoted me just shy of 3 hours!!! UGH!) BUT---I have a baby-sitter lined up for the day, so I should be able to relax and just ENJOY! My game plan is to head out around 8:30 am, arrive just before noon, and "play" until WHENEVER (most likely 2-3 hours---they close at 3:00 pm).

Anyway....more about that when I get back home tomorrow....back to today.

Once I got home and after a quick lunch, I headed downstairs with one goal in mind......clean up the mess of scraps under the ironing board. I was off to a great start---a good hour and a half! Ironing, cutting using the Scrap-Users-System. Sadly, I BARELY made a dent! So, I took a break, had a snack, and checked into the Quiltville chat for half an hour.

Then.....Cassie asked if she could have some Wafer cookies that were in the cupboard. Not a problem......... A few minutes later, she said...."Hey mom--look! Isn't this neat?" And I'll tell ya, inspiration strikes at the most ackward times! I HAD to grab the camera and snap a pic


---because I didn't see cookies. I saw a BLOCK!
So.................You can probably WELL imagine what I did then!!!.........
And these are only a start. I have a pile behind the machine right now of LOADS of pieced strips, ready to be cut. I don't have a layout completely in mind, yet. However, this at least gave me the opportunity to tackle that pile of scraps a bit more. I'm using all scraps of pink, orange and brown---simply because I don't have enough of any one fabric of orange or brown. GOLLY---as if we haven't had enough orange already!!!

Oh yes....and last night (once I finally stepped away from the computer for an hour), I came across my left over CC rail blocks. So, I was in the mood to putz.....and I pieced them into these blocks. I have 16 complete blocks from my left-overs; so I'll just make a simple wall quilt for my sewing space (or I'll gift it to my mom, since she has the CC quilt.)

Railfence background choices...
Flowered brown











Green













More Railfence background choices.
Light yellow












BRIGHT Pink










And here is a shot of all 16 blocks on the green, which I'm leaning toward. However, seeing that pink in a photo is having me reconsider. If you feel like sharing, please leave a "vote" of your choice as a comment. THANKS!



So, it's been a NICE, relaxing "playing" day. AND.....I'm still trying to contain my excitement of my day ahead tomorrow. ALSO, because of my latest "push" for a new machine, the OC quilt and wall-hanging have been folded up and will wait for quilting until I am comfortable with my new machine (WHICHEVER it may be.)
This is another quilt that might get ripped out and re-quilted. I do not like how it turned out. I adore the top, but the quilting just is "blah." I think PART of the reason is the batting is too thick and "poofy."

Anyway.....I think that's enough to read for now. You can count on me bloggin tomorrow evening about how the test-run went. *sigh*......tomorrow is so far away!