You may recall from my last post that I'd just returned from being out-of-town for 12 days. It was a terrific vacation. My hubby had a 3-day conference in DC which is the vicinity of both our children. The first part of our trip we stayed near my daughter's home in Alexandria VA and she picked up Fred in the mornings because they work in the same place. This left me the car. On one of the days I plugged in my phone and navigated to Great Falls to Jinny Beyer's Studio. It was a much anticipated visit on my end and it did not disappoint. I'll visit again, to be sure.
On Saturday Sarah, Fred, and I had to take a little walk around Old Town Alexandria after a terrific brunch at Chadwicks. The picture to the right is my daughter and me taken after brunch. Chadwicks is a favorite restaurant of mine and we went on my request. Sarah & I started with an appetizer of Fried Green Tomatoes with Bacon Jam & Jalapeno Cream Drizzle. Oh my! Was that ever delicious!
I went knowing what I was going to order -- Eggs Chesapeake. That is an Eggs Benedict with a crab cake substitution for the Canadian bacon. Sarah spied something new, Eggs Nova Scotia. Eggs Benedict with salmon instead of the Canadian bacon? Let's try that too! We swapped out with each other and we both agreed that the Nova Scotia was the very best Benedict we had ever tasted. If you find yourself in the area on a Saturday or Sunday morning, Chadwicks is a must restaurant to visit for brunch. I'm pretty sure that whenever you find yourself there, it will be delicious. Check out their website HERE. You'll find the Brunch Menu and the Lunch/Dinner Menu here.
We also spent a couple of days in Waldorf MD with my son and daughter-in-law. While the two of them and Fred went to a gun range to shoot and play with their toys, I meandered about 20 minutes south to LaPlata to check out a favorite quilt store, Material Girls. I spent almost three hours there because they have so many wonderful samples and because they have so much to offer. Again another fun day and I'd recommend both Material Girls and Jinny Beyer's Studios if you're ever in the DC area and need a fabric fix!
When I got home, it took me a couple of days to get my act together after being gone for so long. When I finally made it through my mail, I found my beautiful prize from Mary-Ann Lammers. These five beautiful stitch markers, handmade by Mary-Ann herself, are almost too pretty to use but use them I will! As a matter of fact you can see the seahorse in use on my Colorful Wedges Baby Blanket. It makes for very easy knitting of short rows because they practically eliminate counting -- just move the markers accordingly.
As an aside, I'm on the very last wedge to this blanket and will post a picture very soon! Yippee! Looks like I'm going to make that August 31st deadline after all!!! Woot! Woot!
As for my Anthology Socks by Very Busy Monkey, here's a picture of my socks through Step 1. Unfortunately I was halfway through Step 2 and discovered I'd drop a stitch. Tossed that project aside until after I finish the Wedge Blanket. The socks don't need to be done until September 30. Thank goodness I've got some time on that!
In the meantime, my daughter has a couple of friends that have had babies very recently. She asked me to knit up a couple of pumpkin beanies for them. I'll have some beautiful orange yarn leftover from the blanket project but I'll have to scrounge around for some appropriate green. Wasabi green is NOT the color of pumpkin stems & leaves!
I did manage to get a little quilt-making in. These are the last four blocks given in Marvelous Mini Monday by Temecula Quilts. This past Monday was the layout post. While I'm not all that thrilled with the final design, I'm in it enough to figure out how I want to do mine. First of all, let me say that I thought the one week where we were to cut out 180 1-1/8" squares to make five 36-patch blocks was ridiculous (for me anyway)! I figured I'd take my time and use up my charm squares at the end to be sure I'd have a good supply of scrappiness. However, now that I see the finale, I'm going off on my own. Not terribly far off course, just a little bit. I'll keep you posted on that as I progress.
Apparently Polly, my kitty, missed me while I was away on vacation. Every morning after Fred leaves for work, she now waits patiently for me to get my coffee poured, my phone handy, and something to keep my hands busy. Then she crawls into my lap for a leisurely bath and nap. The blanket has gotten too big for both it and Polly to be in my lap so I've been working on a cross-stitch project. I'm getting to where I smell the finish line on this one and I'm loving it! This is called "It's Spring Fever" by Blackbird Designs. Guess you can tell how long ago I started this by the title! Haha! It's the first project in a series and, while I hadn't planned on doing any others, I am considering the third one which was recently released. It's got a kitty on it!
And speaking of kitties, here's a picture of Polly yesterday. I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked up and saw her there! Yes, that's right! She's on top of the cabinet over the refrigerator. Bad kitty!
And one last picture to leave you with. I took this one of my mother viewing the eclipse here in Illinois on August 21, 2017. Isn't she adorable?
Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!
Sounds like a wonderful trip! I am trying to wrap my brain around the "180 1-1/8" squares" thing...seriously? That's a pretty ambitious assingment for a single week. I haven't been following that quilt-along but now have to go look at the finished quilt. Sounds interesting....
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