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Hi all. We're baaaccckkkk. No sickness and no disasters - just a week of fun in the sun. The worst thing that happened turned out to be one of the best. We rented bikes on one of our final days and had to ride home in a downpour. I haven't had that much fun in years! Riding through these huge puddles...soaking wet! It was wonderful!

We stayed at Casa las Tortugas on Isla Holbox, Quintana Roo, Mexico.  Here are a few picts from our trip.

The view from the second floor of our hotel restaurant.

We are dog people...even on vacation. I snapped this photo of Matt and a friend, Cocoa, on the beach on one of our last days.

Outside our hotel the morning we left.

And something familiar! Loved this simple white stippled quilt that was on our bed! Something familiar to me in an unfamiliar place! I know it was probably  produced in mass somewhere else, but I loved it!

I did take a few hand sewing project with me, but didn't make a lot of progress. Our days were like this: Walk or bike in the morning, got to breakfast at the hotel or someplace else, head to the beach or pool, enjoy some quacamole and chips around lunch time, lunch at the hotel or elsewhere on the island, back to the pool or beach, in for a shower and dinner followed by reading and then sleepytime!

The sand was perfect - white, soft and in most places hard packed and perfect for walking on or biking on. The mosquitos were the worst. Bug spray was often the perfume of choice. I am still scratching some bites.

The water was warm and clear. I have already created a quilt in my mind that will serve as a remembrance with pictures and t-shirts from our trip coupled with solid fabrics that reflect the color of the gulf waters. Plus some Frida Kahlo fabric for the backing!  (It should arrive this week!)

Saw a purse made with this fabric and wanted it soooo bad...but not $580 pesos bad. So, as soon as I got to a good Internet connection (Cancun) I searched for Frida Kahlo fabric and found it! Decided it would be the perfect fabric for the back of my vacation quilt.

It was a wonderful trip and we can't wait to go back again.  Very relaxing. No TV, no phone and a hit and miss Internet connection made for some great days away from our reality. There's the link to the rest of my photos on Facebook.

Sarah 

July FWSQ Classes

Attention Farmer's Wife quilters - Classes for July will be Fri. July 1 at 6 p.m. or Saturday, July 2, at 1 p.m.

Only two sessions this month.

For class, please bring your completed blocks and let's have us a show 'n' tell! We'll review our July directions and enjoy some fellowship before the busy 4th of July weekend gets into swing. No need to bring your machines.

See you there!

Sarah

I love it when a donation finds a home

Remember that donation quilt from a few posts back? Well, it has been delivered and an article appeared in today's newspaper about it!
Take a look!

The Neoga Booster Club quilt was delivered last week and raffled at our annual Neoga Days over the weekend. Congratulations to Randy and Karen Mayhall of Sigel. I hear they are both graduates of NHS, so this prize will really mean something to them!
P.S. I'm glad my Mom didn't win it! She won my Neoga Booster Club donation quilt last year. Just a little embarassing.

And those t-shirt pillows - I also hear they were well received at the auction. I've since bought a shirt I'd like to use as an outdoor pillow and I also have a vacation shirt from Mexico that will make a perfect pillow.

My graduating class of 2011

Whew! It's been a busy last few months for me. Over the past few weeks, I've completed 6 quilts for local graduates...I call this my Class of 2011.

I really enjoy making these quilts alnd earning more about the recipient as I cut the shirts, iron on the interfacing (or when I watch my husband iron on the interfacing for me!)  and then piece it all back together. I always wonder how the quilt will be used - on a bed in their new college dorm or back home in their old room? I hope my quilts are USED...they are made to be used.

I think these quilts are also great conversation starters and a way to get a glimpse into someone's history by seeing where they've been, what concerts they've been to, what teams they played on, what pro athletes they are fans of and what performances they've been in.

I also enjoy seeing the person I've made a quilt for. Our local newspaper runs a graduation tabloid each May and shows pictures of the graduating seniors. It is always fun to see a photo of the person you're making a keepsake for.

I've found that for the most part, the kids who have a quilt made for them are top students, great athletes, super actors, homecoming queens and all around great kids.

Congratulations!

Where does time go?

Do you ever just want time to stop?  HALT! Just give me some time to catch up without the clock tick, ticking away…and then it can start moving again.

I have so many things that I want to do, that I need to do, but don’t seem to have the time. I know some people will say, you have to make the time…. Yes, that’s true. But it seems like time is moving so fast, in my mind it should still be 2003, but the calendar says it is 2011!

And, how did it get to be June 13 already? We are practically half way through the month and half way through the YEAR.. I think one cause is I’m always workin’ for the weekend. You know, like hurry up 5 o’clock. Before you know it, five days later the week is gone and then you breeze through the weekend only to start all over again on Monday. Seven days can go by pretty fast when you live like that.

I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know that I am almost 40 (gasp! I remember thinking my parents were old in their 40s…when I was 10!) and it needs to stop.

I am thankful that Sunday seemed to have more than 24 hours in the day. It was a beautiful day in central Illinois, and it seemed more like spring than the 90% humidity-filled days we have had. The temp was in the 70s, the sun was shining and there was a nice breeze. I was up relatively early, made some AWESOME basil spread for snacking and some iced tea for the husband. Over the weekend I also taught the Saturday Farmer’s Wife Sampler Quilt class, quilted a small quilt, bound and labeled two quilts and made three pillows. Everything was for donations. 

Donation quilts: Neoga Booster Club and Charleston Red, White and Blue Days.

Pillows I made for the Charleston Booster Club auction.

Here’s some interesting things I’d like to share:

I love the Pioneer Woman Cooks blog. Here’s something I’m going to try soon. I am a once-a-day Starbuckser. This would be a lot less expensive. 

If this making-your-own-iced-coffee thing works out, I may need to get one of these.

And something else from The Pioneer Woman – this is what we’ll be having for dinner tonight after I harvest some basil from our plants.

What I’ll be doing this weekend – Neoga Days 2011. I’m on the committee, and will be there most of the weekend. Quilty friends – there is a quilt show at the Methodist Church on Friday and Saturday from 10 to 5. Unfortunately I have nothing super special to enter. I may enter a mini quilt I made recently and Taylor Rich’s t-shirt quilt I made a few years ago.