What I didn't buy!

As much as it was nice to be away, it's always nice to come home. And last night, I unpacked the car. Well, I had no choice, at least the back of the car.  Miss Lexi NEEDED to go to the dog park and there was no room for her. I decided while I was on a roll to unpack the entire car. It's now sitting in my hallway and every time I go downstairs, I take another bag of stuff.

Unloaded from the car and in the hallway

I had to laugh because the number of days on the retreat had to be cut short and I knew that about 2 days before I left. No actually ONE day before I left. The reaction of the other ladies?  They took out a bag or two of stuff. Me?  Nope - didn't change a thing. In fact, I may have winged one or two more projects in the bag!  But I did catch myself and I had a couple more projects in my hands and I decided to leave those at home!

You all know I have this thing with tractor fabric. I'm not even sure how it all happened, but it did.  If you don't know the story, check out this link to see some more tractor foolishness. Actually, if you scroll down the right side of my blog, you'll see some tags for John Deere (11) and tractors (15).  I know - I have a problem.

I was at a quilt show in August. The International Plowing Match. The preview of the quilts for the big event in September and there were vendors.  How could I walk away from an event like that without buying something with tractors on it?

Tractors!!!!

The retreat house we stayed at was on a farm. We also visited two quilt shops, one of which was on a farm. Needless to say, we were smack in the middle of farm country. And look what I saw in the shops.

John Deere fabric

This shop had a TRACTOR section

I've never seen these fabrics!

And more John Deere from the other shop

There was John Deere, New Holland, CASE and International Harvester.  Ask me how much I bought?  NONE!!!!  Nope - I came with ZERO tractor fabric.

I noticed that my roomie had a John Deere pink fleece blankie that she brought with her!  Hey - why don't I have one???  She had it because they have a John Deere riding mower at home (and we had to bring our own bedding). Her husband has John Deere stuff, so she decided to get something for herself as well.  Shoot - I never got a picture of it!!!!


Then when I got home, I had this waiting for me.  A TELEPHONE BOOK.  I know, it's hard to get excited about a telephone book, except if you're into string piecing. Then telephone books are good.

Telephone book for string piecing

 I was down to my last book a couple of months ago and put out a call and well - I think I'm good for a while.

A stack of phone books ready for string piecing!

 Time to get back into the routine. I have loads of work to get done this weekend on stuff that is not mine. I thought I would play hooky this morning and do some prep work for myself before the "work" day began.

I was cutting blocks for the Gravity quilt and getting that organized. I was also cutting scraps for another project which I'll share at some point with you.

Cutting scraps

Actually this pile of "scraps" above was culled from the bags of scraps that people had given me for the pet mats.  Some good stuff in there and it will all get a good home.

On that note, I'd better get to work.  Much to be done and the day is going to fly past.  Now to find the project that needs to be done today in that mess of bags.  And I'd really like to find the bottle of anti-inflammatories for my knee.  I did some walking at the retreat and my knee is not happy!  It might be faster to hit the drug store!

Have an awesome day!!!

Ciao!!!!

Oh yes, don't forget the last two posts for QUILTsocial. I think I forgot to include the link for them.

QUILTsocial - Day Four


QUILTsocial - Day Five


PS - it was wonderful to write the blog with NO distractions this morning!!!   Oh, one more thing.  I mentioned it before, that Louise Penny (a Canadian author) - her husband passed away in the middle of September.  Read this beautiful tribute to him.  I don't know if I could have done what Louise did, but there was much love between her and Micheal and it's a beautiful tribute.