My own personal Quilting Retreat day

As a thank you to my parents (mostly Mom) for helping out with the girls this week, I am making a quilt to go with their newly painted Guest Bedroom. Short version: in June when they were on their first "vacation" in YEARS, the weather was quite rainy, and their sub-pump decided to give out. It had rained on a Tuesday; they arrived home on Saturday, but hadn't needed to go downstairs until Sunday night----so.....by the time they finally realized the "problem?", the ENTIRE (finished) basement was ruined; carpet needed to be torn up, drywall needed to be replaced. This meant (and still means), a new basement (huge "living" area, 2 guest rooms, and one bathroom.)

I had seen the room last week when I picked Mom up before heading to my sister's house. So, I had some of my blues and grays on hand to "try them out" in the room. After perusing Quiltville.com for the perfect scrappy pattern, I (we) decided on Chunky Churndash, which I had already printed off sometime last year with hopes of making it someday.
Now---here's the extremely amazing part!...
With paint samples in hand, I headed out to Hancock Fabrics yesterday to find the perfect gray for the hour-glass blocks. Besides, Hancock was having a HUGE 50% off sale---perfect timing!
*shaking head, taking pulse, thermometer in mouth*
Nope....not sick! No temperature! Steady 60 beats per minute pulse....
so....HOW on earth could I have come home completely empty handed?!?!?! Seriously! I was on a mission, and the mission failed. I must have walked the aisles three times before throwing my hands up in the air. Not only did the perfect fabric elude me, I wasn't in the mood to find any "great deals" either! So, back in the car and off to Walmart to see if they had the perfect gray. NOPE! Then, off the the LQS (of my mom's town)--NOTHING EITHER! I simply am flabergasted! It seems that when I'm NOT looking for fabrics, it jumps into my hands and cart, but when I NEED the perfect fabric, it is simply no where to be found. That dang MURPHY!


However, I will not lose hope. I plan to head to my LQS tomorrow to see if I can find the perfect gray. Until then, I will make up the 61 "churndash" blocks that are needed for the quilt. I am childless AND husbandless today! I have been downstairs cutting and sewing since 9:00 and am taking a small lunch break at the moment; nothing fancy; just some spaghetti noodles with sauce. All the pieces have been stripped and cut for the churchdashes and should go together rather smoothly.

Hopefully your day is as enjoyable as mine is :0)

Happy Sunday

2:28 break
Needed to take a small break, so came up for a PB&J (peanut butter and jelly sandwich, for those of you non-mommies out there) :0). I'm also relaxing with a cup of tea; something I haven't had in a while. Not being an Englander, I rarely drink tea, but do like the lemon green tea varieties.

All 61 blocks are prepped, having sewn all the square segments into "rows" of the block. I now need to press the rows in order to piece the complete block together. Then, multiply that by 61.

My background noise of choice today started with Maid of Honor, then The Hulk, and I am almost finished with Aliens. Yeah, not quite the norm, relaxing background shows that I usually have playing, but I was getting tired of the same ol', same ol'. :0)

OH! AND! I almost forgot! I did have about a 10 minute break around 1:00 when I saw a MOUSE dart across the carpeted area downstairs. **Shudder** So, I grabbed my box of Freezer paper and stalked around for a bit (on my tiptoes!!) trying to fight the little bugger! Nice visual, huh????? Amidst my search, I did notice that one container of mouse/rat poisoning had been emptied! Gosh---how long has that (those?) little monster been mooching off of us??? I haven't seen any mice since winter ended. Ugh!