Home again, home again!

To start with, here are the adorable kids in the t-shirts I made for them. Eva is in the cat shirt, Maddie in the flower shirt, Bekah in the lady bug, and Ian in the rocket ship. I think they had a great week together. Maddie loved brushing Eva's hair.

The great adventure has come to an end. Nines left my parents' house around 8 this morning. My son told me that it was time for me to go at around 9. I think he was in a hurry to have Grams and Papa all to himself!

We had a lovely week! Nina arrived on Monday evening. After dinner, Papa took us all for a hay ride (minus the hay). Kind of hard on those of us with older backsides! After getting the kids in bed, me and Nines started cutting out one of the two quilts we planned to make.

Oh - I almost forgot all the wonderful birthday gifts! I will let Nina post pictures of what she gave me. I LOVE the quilt she made for me! And so did my mom and dad. They both told me repeatedly that it should stay at their house. Wrong!

Here is the quilt that I made for Nina. I think she was a bit shocked by it's loudness!


I also gave her a lime green wallhanging.



She also received these note cards. Store-bought plain note cards with scrap strips sewn onto the front!



Tuesday morning we were up bright and early and headed down to Nashville for some shopping. Nina's cousin, Beth, was kind enough to play tour guide for the day. She drove us around Brentwood (extremely pricey homes), showing us the homes of Dolly Parton, Kenny Chesney, and Trisha Yearwood. We then headed on to the Stitcher's Garden in Franklin. This store is wall to wall fabric. Bolts piled everywhere. While here, Nina announced next year's quilting challenge - a two color quilt. So we each had to pick out the main fabric. Nina chose a beautiful rich red. I think orange will go well with this -just kidding! I chose a soft limey, leafy green. After a lovely lunch, we hit another local quilt store and Hobby Lobby. On our way back home, Nina decided we needed to stop for a nice quiet dinner. After hitting the Joann's that was located in the same parking lot, we had a yummy dinner at Olive Garden.

Wednesday morning started with the UPS man arriving bright and early with our fabric from Dharma Trading Company. Mom suggested we do our dyeing then since her and the kids would be gone until after lunch. Good idea! Plus I think she did not want to witness whatever mess was going to be involved! We made a quick run into town for some more plastic storage bowls, change into our grubby clothes, and got started. We had so much fun! Nina's new nickname is "The Chemist" - she kept saying "Let's add a little of this and a little of that!" We are both pleased with the end products - which Nina will probably share pictures of. She was a bit camera happy this week. I am cutting out my quilt pieces - Nina is taking pictures. I am ripping up the fabric for dyeing - she taking pictures. You get the picture?

After we dyed up our 15 yards of fabric, we got to work sewing. Nina had suggested that we each make a quilt for our dad. My dad says these are the biggest quilt blocks he has ever seen! This top went together in about an hour. I will leave it to Nina to post a picture of hers - I don't want her mom to be mad at me! Peni - she had those fabrics chosen before she got here!

Thursday we each made one of these star quilts. I made mine for a friend who is a Blackhawk pilot in the army. He has been to Iraq several times.

Of course the week was over much too quickly. We are already scheming about when we can do this again!