Well I have just been having such a fun week! It was like I took a couple of mini vacations -- without actually going too far from home!  Well, you saw in Ritzy's blog that we took a field trip to Chicago this week to a quilt shop called Quiltology. And, yes, I got a short video of Ritzy and Kathy shopping too! It was such a fun day. Ritzy and her friend Kathy drove from Indiana out to my house and off we went to Chicago. I learned that Kathy and I have something in common -- we both belong to the I.H.D.I.C.C. That would stand for the "I Hate Driving In Chicago Club." Anyone can join. You don't need a membership card or anything! But Ritzy on the other hand, well, she's actually from Chicago (the quilt shop was very near to her childhood home!) and let me tell you -- the girl's got skills. She navigated the Dan Ryan Expressway like a pro (I'm afraid of the Dan Ryan!), she found us a fabulous parking spot right across from the shop, and was completely unfazed by the semi that blew out a tire right in front of us on the Stevenson! She found some great applique design ideas on one of the buildings and stayed at the stop sign long enough for me to snap a picture of it! (Roll over the photo to see a close-up view!)
Well, I had been saving my pennies for this trip and I went a little overboard with the shopping. I got a couple of fat quarter packs, an extra fat quarter that I just had to have, and some bobbins that I just kept forgetting to pick up for some reason. I do have ideas for the fabrics, but they'll wait until I'm done with the BOM and my pond quilt.  I saw some fabric that I thought would be perfect for my BOM border and I decided that if I didn't just pick it up while I saw it, I'd regret it when I got home. I had been looking online at different fabrics just to see what was out there and everything was either too cutesy or too Christmas-y. I wanted a large floral with a lot of red in it -- to go with my living room -- but a lot of the florals looked like Christmas fabric to me. The one I ended up with is just what I was looking for with the red and the beige on a dark background. Hooray! (And look -- it has berries on it that I don't have to make! Hee hee!) So I think I got enough yardage for the whole border. You can roll over this photo to see how the border fabric looks next to a couple of my blocks. (I love this roll over thing -- now I have so much more room for pictures!) I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out with the red sashing! But right now I have to concentrate on July's block. I have my pieces prepared, but I've been on the go this week and haven't stitched any of them down yet. And yesterday my mom and I went on a local pond tour. It's self-guided. You just buy a book with all the participating peoples' addresses in it and then drive around and look at their ponds! We've been going for a few years and we just love it.  There is a certain house that we just adore and we were so happy it was on the tour again this year. I could live in their back yard. It's just spectacular. This is a picture of that pond. And one of the other houses on the tour was owned by a lady who is also a master gardener. She was happy to share some of her plants and seeds with us! I got a new hollyhock and some rose campion plants, and some "Love-in-a-Mist" seeds to plant! Happy day for me! I have all of the photos I took yesterday in my webshots album. There is a short video of this pond in there too. The tour runs next weekend as well so my mom and I will have another fun road trip! The only problem with these tours is that you come home and see everything that's "wrong" with your garden and pond. Actually, the reason I don't take Dave along is that he would want to expand our pond and I like the size that it is now. After all, I'm the one that cleans the filter and takes care of the fish and everything!  But I must say that I do like the way my garden bench is looking now. Thank you all for your advice! I went with the purple paint. I picked up the darkest purple I could find in Rustoleum, taped off the green and sprayed all the metal parts purple. My mom originally said, "Purple?" when I told her of my painting plans, but then added, "Oh, but you like all that bright stuff, don't you." The green was a bit of a stretch for her when she used it on her garden bench! Hee hee! But I like it and even Dave mentioned he liked the color combination without me asking for his opinion so at least it's noticable! And yep -- more roll over photos. This one will show how it looked before the purple paint.
Well, I'm off to hopefully get most of my BOM pieces stitched down! Have a great week everyone! | 
