Thursday, 22 November 2007

Meeting with Claire in Washington DC


It was just great when Claire called last week and told me she was scheduled to fly to Washington DC (its about 40 min from Frederick). I was very happy because I haven't seen her since our graduation in 2004. All of us from Uni still keep in touch but everyone just seems to be caring on with their lives and most of us moved to other countries. Claire was one, she went back home (Ireland). I haven't had a chance to go visit her yet so you can imagine how thrilled I was she was coming to the USA! So we planned that we would meet up in Washington, down town. Her Hotel was on the same street as the Brazilian Grill House. We needed to head off to Washington any way because Rob's Dad was arriving from Australia that night at 12:00 am. It was almost like everything was arranged for us to meet! So we met at the Brazilian restaurant at 19:30 pm. I was very happy in seeing her and she hasn't changed a bit, she is more fit than when we were at Uni. We had a lovely dinner with all the Brazilian goodness to make any gathering a special one. We had also some great wine and wonderful deserts. By the end of the meal I was in pain because, I of course, over did it! We went down to her hotel and had some more drinks. We talked about how is everything in Dublin and I updated her on how everyone else was doing. She talked about her wedding arrangments (for those who don't know , Claire is engaged too). We laughed about Uni times in Walsall and before we knew it I had to go because we still had to pick up Rob's dad. It was a sad goodbye but we promised to do this again and I told her I would go to Dublin for her wedding! Ohh I really missed her and I miss the crazy days at Walsall campus. Well enjoy the slide show!


Project from Hell: Bitch Bag


My GOD when I subscribed for the class to make this bag in my local quilt shop I had no idea what hell I was getting myself into. Everything went wrong! First the pattern was not available, it only became available two days before the class. So Tiu and I had one night to cut all the fabric and the iron on interface. We stayed till 2:00 am cutting everything and than we found out we needed to iron all the interfacing too for the class puffffff!!!!! So we went to bed and decided to do the ironing in the morning before our 10:00 am class. We woke up at 7:00 am to start ironing all the fabric parts with the interfacing. We managed to do it all in the nick of time and hopped in a cab to the quilt shop. After an hour of waiting in the class we were told that the tutor was ill and had cancelled. So one of the shop assistants was going to give the class she had made this bag before but some time ago. You can imagine what a mess. She forgot some parts, so my front pocket is missing a lining. Than we went home with loads of homework because, of course its a hard bag to put together and the assistant could not really give a lesson from someone else. So off we went and not looking forward to all the work we had awaiting us. The next lesson I had two doctors appointments and was only in class for an hour. When I got there everyone seemed in a gloom and I could see we would have much work again to do at home. Tiu invited Linda to meet us at home and work on the bag before our next class. So we met at my house and worked like labour workers in a Chinese sweatshop. Lisa was very upset because her Singer machine was giving her problems through out the whole project (I was secretly thinking to myself "thanks god I have my bernina!" I felt very sorry for her.) and she thought the tutor didn't like her very much. So on the third lesson we worked very hard but the tutor had to go see the doctor and left 2 hours early. So finally I manged to finish the damn bag. It looks ok but there is some mistakes but for someone who just started sewing 5 months ago I think I did well. I did have help; if it wasn't for Tiu I think I would never have finished it. After so much grief and bitching I don't think I am trying to make this bitch oppps I mean bag again! But please feel free to leave me any comments and have a look at the end result. Well hope you all enjoy the slide show. Take care.


Saturday, 10 November 2007

Quilt Show Houston 2007

Wow....it was truly a humbling experience. All those great quilts made me see how much I still need to learn. I got to Houston Texas on Friday with a terrible cold. My ears popped when the plane was descending. It was really painful I felt like my eyes were going to pop out of their sockets and that my brain was turning to puree hahaha. I got to the Hilton to meet up with Tiiu (Robs mom)and than go and see some of the quilt show before they closed at 19:00. These quilts are truly works of art. There was some amazing stuff that you would think it needed a special place in a museum. The convention center was huge, really, we needed to high light which sections we already walked to be sure we didn't do the same section twice. It was good that the quilt show was for three days but even so Tiiu and I did not see all the quilts and only managed to go through half of the vendors. They had more than 1000 vendor stands at the convention, seriously! The fun of it all was how many people came from all over the world for this event, I didn't know that there are so many quilters. You could see Japanese, Brazilian, Dutch, Australians, Italians...well you get the picture. Of course most of them are older but you could still spot some blue or green haired youngsters (hahaha). But even though the crowed was a little older it was so fun because quilters can be really funny when your not taking the fat quarter that they want. But you could get some cat fights in there too. This woman who was with one of these motorised wheel chairs was shoving it on peoples' feet, till one woman turned around and told her to stop being such a bitch....well the two women were really bitching at each other and than I passed by them and made like cat fight sounds...all the women around us were laughing like crazy. The woman on the wheel chair left really fast gruffing hahahaha. But the best one was when I was buying some fabric (fat quarters) in one of the stands and I commented that I had lost my mother in law yet again, this woman past behind me and said, " Gezzz, I wish I would lose my mother in law!".I was amazed by the mood in there, if you were eating something or just getting some coffee you always stopped and talked for hours with complete strangers. But its like this sisterhood that you never thought existed anymore, like a secret society. I am not kidding it really felt great to be connected with so many women from different countries and ages. The three days really flied by and before we knew it Tiiu and I were running through the quilts to try to see everything before they closed the show on Sunday. I learned loads, got great tips and bought great notions, my wallet was much lighter by the end of it. But as always good things must end and that was good too cause I dont think my wallet would manage another day! The next day we spent the day going on a tour through the underground connection between all the big building in town. My feet were killing me after so much walking all those days. But the tour was great, the guide was a retired man who new so much history of Houston and the architecture of all the buildings, it really was impressive. Than on the end of the day we went to the butterfly center in the Natural Science Museum. It was beautiful to see them all flying around you. On Tuesday we left to come back to Frederick. It was really warm in Texas so we had a shock by the cold over here in Maryland. Well that was my trip to Houston. Hope you guys like the pictures. I added also the link to the butterfly museum. Enjoy!

http://www.hmns.org/see_do/butterfly_center.asp

Thursday, 1 November 2007

Happy Halloween!!!!

Wow how I had fun, its great to be here for the Halloween season! I went to Erica to trick or treat with the kids. I dressed up and all the kids of course were dressed too... I am with the cold at the moment but that did not stop me hahahah. I arrived and brought a pumpkin to carve. Emilia helped me carve it (its the first picture on the slide). It was not that hard as I imagined. With the tools that you can get at any shop it sure made it easy. It was great fun too. We went trick or treating at 6:30 pm with Luca, Leo, Emilia and Jessica. Adults: ME, Uta and Erica. Some of the houses were so elaborately decorated...the Americana's take this holiday very seriously. Jessica and Emilia were scared off there witts with some houses...refusing to go ring the door for some candy hahahah....it was great! With all the gools and goblins walking around it really was surreal. All kids had great costumes and most adults walking the kids also were dressed up. Really fun and really sweet...check out the pictures to have a look how much candy the kids managed to collect. I got some candy too of course, the kids had to pay me for the protection that I provided while they were too scared to get candy...hahah I wish life worked like that! Well I leave all of you with happy wishes for the Halloween. I am off to Houston Texas tomorrow afternoon for 6 days. I will update blog with pictures of the International quilt show, so you all can see what I have been up too in Texas. Have a good one!




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