Hey - it's me...checking in! There's been minimal sewing here at Chez Tonia. All with good reason though, I drove about 3,718 kms within the past six days. That is how far it is from my home town to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where my daughter is going to university, and back. Yup, approximately 30 hours of driving time, not including the hours spent ferrying stuff back from the shopping mall, Costco and Walmart. So please excuse me while I yawn a little!
I did get to see some pretty neat things on my drive though...like the St. Lawrence River, and the tunnel underneath it (Montreal, Quebec), the HUGE bridges OVER the St. Lawrence we accidentally drove on, not once but TWICE (Quebec City), the French Fry Capitol of the World (Florence-Bristol, New Brunswick), the town that boasts the World's Longest Covered Bridge (Hartland, New Brunswick), Magnetic Hill (Moncton, New Brunswick), the World's Largest Axe (Nackawic, New Brunswick), and a whole lotta signs I didn't understand in Quebec (except the Arret one - it looks just like the English one!).
I also got to see a few things in Halifax, since I was there for three days - the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning (oh, yum fresh artisan made chocolate croissants, with awesome Oh La La French Roast Coffee), local beer - Propeller Bitter on the patio right on the harbour at The Hart and the Thistle, the boardwalk with Theodore the Tug Boat (yes, it's an actual tugboat!), amazing sushi at the Sushi-nami Restaurant, and peach wine from Lunenburg Wineries. A few things are the same everywhere - Costco, Walmart...you know, the places where you stock up on student stuff. Since that *was* the purpose of our trip, I couldn't get away from it, but DD#2 did allow me a brief moment to pick up some hand dyed yarn from the Listmore Sheep Farm at the market.
The last night we were there together, we ordered take out Thai (oh my...I'm certain Halifax has the best Thai restaurants around, so far I've had food from two of them, and both times it has been a religious experience!
I'll post a few pictures at some point, but right now they're still on my phone...
I did manage to sneak an hour of sewing in yesterday. I'm working on Butterick 5678, view C, but some how cut the continuous lap too short, and the slit too long so I promptly put it all away.
I did receive ANOTHER pattern order from Vogue Patterns today (yikes! This has GOT to stop! I need to sew a few of them before ordering more!) - too many patterns to count, some duplicates that I found while searching through things yesterday. Others were duplicates on purpose - my two university student daughters are slowly realizing the value of a mom who sews! And $3.99 was WAY cheaper than drafting/copying the patterns out myself!
I'm still percolating ideas for my Sassy, Brassy Retro SWAP project! Thinking of fabrics I know I have in the stash, making notes on my iPhone, cross referencing patterns online, pulling fabrics from the storage area when I have a few minutes...
Aurgh! No sewing for me in the near future this week either - I'm heading off to London (Ontario, not England) for work this week. I'd best go and get off my duff...it's almost bedtime and I haven't even packed yet!
How do you feed the beast when you can't get to the machine?
