Road Trip!!

Some people may spend their day off doing housework, or sewing, or spending time with their beloved, or maybe even reading. In fact, I've been known to do some, even ALL of these things on my usual day off each week (Friday). But THIS week I went on a ROAD TRIP!!! YAY!!

And I even managed to incorporate a few of these usual ways of spending my day off ... well ... NOT the housework! :0)

It all began when my Beloved Geek Boy came home and told me he had to travel to Yandina (near Nambour) on Friday to install some video conference equipment for a client for work. I jokingly said, "Friday's my day off, maybe I should come for a drive with you." To which he replied, "OK, it would be nice to have company ... but you WOULD have to get up early." Hmmm ... OK ... so after weighing up my Friday sleep-in with a road trip adventure, I set my alarm clock.

So bright and early (7am is early for us night-owls, anyway!!) and after a bit of a scuffle over whether we listened to talk-back radio (Blech!!) or Rob Thomas (YAY!) we settled down to enjoy the three hour drive and some 'together' time - very nice indeed! :0) And the scenery was pretty speccie, too. With the wet summer that south-east Queensland has enjoyed, everything was so GREEN!

So ... we arrived at Yandina about three hours later and GB got to work while I curled up at the back of the conference room with my stitching travel pack ...

Into my lovely stitching pouch made for me by the gorgeous Joy-Belle, I packed my favourite needle folder, a cute little tin to hold my threads, my Gardeners Journal

Watering The Garden' block and my instructions. Now ... to keep my stitching stuff to a size that fitted into my pouch, I photocopied the stitching instructions for Gardeners Journal and shrank them to A5 size ... Oh so handy and I didn't have to worry about my lovely book being damaged. And so I stitched ... and stitched ... and enjoyed a quick lunch with my beloved before he went back to trouble-shooting the video conferencing equipment ... and I stitched ... and I snoozed ... Oops! Maybe not quite, but the installation was a little more complicated than GB had hoped and took quite a lot longer. But FINALLY ... we were back on the road and since I'd been such a GOOD girl (stop laughing, you lot!!!) GB made a special stop off for me here ...

The Patchwork Angel at Forest Glen!! YAY!! It had been a couple of years since I popped in for a visit this well known shop. We arrived not long before closing time and it was a little bit busy ... but fun! Penny said that I was welcome to come and join the madness, as long as I could cope with choas ... I told her it is the regular state we live in at our place, so I felt right at home!! :0) And of course you KNOW something followed me home! :0)

Not too much ... I was trying to be good and had stocked up not too long ago at my home-away-from-home, but these few fabrics came home with me and I grabbed a few threads for Gardeners Journal that I didn't have. The two on the left looked just perfect for some appliquéd  bears; I noticed the other day when looking for a white tone-on-tone fabric in my stash that I only had a small piece of one left so this will be great; and I'm always on the lookout for nice yellows, which seem a little hard to find for some reason.

After I'd satisfied my fabric addiction, we hit the road again headed for home over the range, enjoying gorgeous views of the glasshouse mountains ... which I tried REALLY hard to get photos of. However, the photographic faeries were NOT on my side that day. In the morning, there had been rain and low cloud preventing me from getting nice photos (in fact we couldn't SEE the mountains in the morning!!) and in the afternoon ... we discovered there was nowhere to pull over to get photos - Aaaaarrgghh!! However, after listening to me mutter about not being able to capture the fabulous effect of the afternoon light on the Glasshouse Mountains, my dear GB found a slightly wider section of the shoulder of the road and pulled over for me to take this shot ...

Here we have ... a Glasshouse Mountain ... singular! :0) This unusually shaped peak undoubtedly has a name ... but I don't know it - geography was never my strong point at school. :0) See how green everything was!! And I even managed to capture a curious horse and a couple of magpies on the wing. Actually, the horse got a bit upset with us ... I think he was expecting to be fed when he saw a van pull over near his paddock ... then we just drove off again!! What the?!?! Tee! Hee! Hee! Poor horsie! We finally arrived home at about 8:30pm and I confess we watched a couple of favourite shows on TV and crawled into bed early worn out after our early morning start. All in all, it was a lovely road trip. Now we just have to work out when we can have a LONGER road trip back there to see and do more things! :0)

Today, then, was housework day, but after the chores were out of the way, I headed into my sewing room to put together my first block for the "A Gardeners Journal" Stitch-A-Long. Yep ... I finished the stitchery block in the photo I showed you ... told you I had a lot of stitching time while GB was installing gadgetry! :0) I have to say, while putting this block together, I remembered why I don't usually do much patchwork! I muttered some VERY unladylike things when the ruler slipped or the blocks didn't stay where they were put!! :0) Ready for the unveiling??

Ta Da!! Block G of "A Gardeners Journal" by Anni Downs. Despite my grumbles about piecing, I'm pretty happy with how it came up - although the colours in Anni's original quilt look more like summer, it is definitely SPRING in my garden! Tee! Hee! Hee! When I decided to join the Stitch-A-Long, I promised myself (and my long-suffering GB!!) that I wouldn't buy any fabric for this project, it all has to come from my stash, so it is going to be a bit of a scrappy version of Gardeners Journal, but that suits me fine. And even though the one and a half inch squares made me mutter under my breath to cut and stitch, they ARE handy to use up some of those small-but-pretty pieces in my stash that I just haven't been able to bring myself to throw out.

And now, I think I've earned a cup of tea, so I shall pop off and put the kettle on ... just call me "Polly". Tee! Hee! Hee! Hope you're having a fabulous weekend whether you're road-tripping (like me and Peg!!) or having a quiet time at home. Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!
CHEERS!
KRIS