Confessions of a Bad Blogger...

You know you've been a bad blogger when your own Mother complains. FYI, I talk to my Mom on the phone every day, so she has a first-hand narrative version of what appears on the blog, but apparently she also likes the written version... so Mom, this one's especially for you.

There has been no apparent reason for my absence from Blog-land. Ironically, I have been on vacation since 5:00 p.m., on December 12th. I return to work this upcoming Monday, December 29th, and I'm sure that within 15 minutes of my arrival, it will seem like I have never left. Every day my Mom asks me if I'm tired of being on vacation, and the answer is still "no."

So what have I been doing with myself for two weeks? Time has flown by and I don't have much to show you. I had grandiose plans of sewing and blogging every day as well as cleaning my house from top to bottom as well as getting back in shape and losing 50 lbs. Okay, my plans may have been a little extreme...

Ski and Sew
Mike and I went to Vermont for a few days during week one of vacation for what we like to call "Ski and Sew." We rented a condo at Okemo and Mike skied for two days, while I sewed (actually shopped). The Vermont quilting economy took a sharp uptick since there were two fabulous quilt shops within 20 minutes of our lodging, as well as a third fabulous shop on the way home.

My first stop was Waterwheel House Quilt Shop in Londonderry, Vermont.

The view from the front porch at Waterwheel House Quilt Shop.

More Kaffe-alicious goodness at Waterwheel House Quilt Shop.

This was only my second visit to Waterwheel House Quilt Shop, but it did confirm its status as one of my favorite quilt shops. This is a shop catering to quilters who love modern fabric and bright colors. They have a huge selection of Kaffe Fassett fabrics and a ton of gorgeous samples, plus lots and lots of kits! Just revisiting my own pictures is tempting me to call the shop this morning when it opens to see if there is a kit for that gorgeous yellow and red Trip Around the World quilt in the top left...

Next, I visited Country Treasures in Chester, Vermont. This shop is deceptively small from the front. Once you go inside, it is an Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit warren of rooms, and it is two floors! I asked one of the clerks if they do a head count before they close to prevent locking customers in the store. She laughed and said, "yes!" Apparently they've had a couple of close calls. The fabrics are in groupings by theme in each room. Despite their "country" name, they have an entire room full of batik.

I had so much fun in Country Treasures that I visited it twice. There is also a great little sandwich shop in the same plaza. Sue, the owner of the quilt shop, was really nice and spent about an hour helping me choose 20 batiks for a future bargello quilt.

I bought this cute little kit to make for my husband, Mike.
They are ukuleles, but I may modify them to make them guitars instead.

On the way home, Mike and I also stopped at Quilt-a-way Fabrics in Westminster, Vermont. I didn't take any photos, but this shop is also FABULOUS! They had even more batik than Country Treasures! Plus a huge selection of everything else.

I did do a little sewing during our Ski and Sew.

I finished a few more panels for my blue and purple scrap wave.
This isn't sewn together yet, so don't be fooled into thinking it is close to being finished...

Pug Time
When we returned from Vermont, I spent a lot of time with the Pug Boys. Although they were well cared for in our absence, nothing beats a little (a lot) of Mommy time.

The view from my lap. From right to left: Elvis, LarryPug and Romeo.

Romeo, upper left, Elvis, upper right, and LarryPug, front and center (as usual).

Holiday Celebrations
I had a festive pancake breakfast with my friend Eleanor. She rarely appears in my blog because she isn't a quilter, but she is one of my dearest friends.

Eleanor is also a dog mommy. She has a Scottish Terrier named Cole Haan.

Mike and I celebrated Chanukah, which started December 16th. We even brought our Menorah to our Ski and Sew trip. This Menorah is very special to me. My Mom gave it to me. She bought it when she was in college.

This was Night Seven!

I got a wonderful surprise gift from my friend LeeAnna who blogs at Not Afraid of Color. Don't you just love my Chanukah Pug Snow Globe? I think he looks just like Romeo. To see more of LeeAnna's snow globes, click here, here and here.

Our Chanukah Pug Snow Globe is hanging on our refrigerator. I may leave it up all year.

This guy had a birthday! Romeo turned 13 on December 23rd.

Romeo grudgingly let me pick him up for the photo.

Studio Time
Joannie and I did a little sewing. I finished the top of Flourish, an original pattern by my friend Karen Pratt from QuiltLily Designs. If you want to make exactly the same one as shown below, you can buy a kit on Etsy. Tell Karen that I sent you.

LeeAnna's gift, shown above, has inspired me.
I'm planning to add some pugs and baubles to my tree.

Joannie actually ran out of projects on Monday evening, so we had an impromptu "staple night" and used my new staple gun to recover the ironing board in the Studio and create a second design wall panel. Joannie's husband, Dan, is going to come over one night and screw the design wall panels into the wall.

Here is Joannie preparing the fabric before we attached it to the ironing board.

Here is the newly recovered ironing board!

The ironing board is wood so we could staple right into it. We left the old yucky cover on, and added a layer of heat resistant fabric with upholstery weight zebra print on top of it.

I also did 87 loads of laundry, went to two fabulous holiday parties (thank you Thursday Girls and Sue), watched my own private mini marathon of DVR'ed episodes of Love It or List It and Property Brothers, and cleaned the garage.

Two days remaining of vacation, I must stop blogging and take the puggies for a morning walk so I can come back and SEW!

Ok, I guess that I had a little more to show you than I thought. If you're still reading, thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy