My weekend at Charm

What a fun weekend! It was so great seeing all the ladies again. First thing when I arrived in Charm I had to go across the road from the quilt shop to the bake sale and get a cream stick - yum! Yes, I broke my diet for Friday and Saturday. I only eat cream sticks twice a year when I work in Charm, but for lunch and dinner I only had grilled chicken - no bun, no noodles, no potato soup, no pie, no mountain dew. Here is a shot of the traffic - horses, buggies, tractors, trucks and cars - oh my!

The shop looked beautiful! The women had the place all organized and there were loads of beautiful samples - purses, bags, and quilts.

There was a huge selection of flannels both upstairs and in the bargain basement. Here is the flannel that is upstairs.

Here is the area they call the Bakery with the jelly rolls, layer cakes, and other pre-cuts.

Do you need any toweling fabric? Look how many choices they have!

I got to tour the new retreat house next door to the quilt shop. Oh my goodness, it is beautiful! It will sleep 10 and is handicap accessible. It looks completely different from when Mrs. Miller lived there. The Rural Thimble is available for retreats and look at the work room! They have had knitting groups, scrapbooking groups, and well as quilters. You can see more pictures on their website www.theruralthimble.com

On Sunday I started washing and ironing the fabric I bought at Charm. I bought a bunch of music fabric to build up my stash again. I had used up all my white/cream background fabric in the piano and drum quilts.

I spent some time straightening up my fabric storage room to make room for all my new pieces. Here is my music fabric shelf before

And here is it after. I also gathered up my pirate fabrics and put them with the music fabric.

I found these two pieces in the bargain basement for $6.00 a yard. So at 20 percent off they were $4.80 a yard! There was 6 yards of the blue and 10 yards of the gray.

I bought the blue to go with these other blue pieces I had already in my stash for baby quilts.

The gray I put with the gray and yellow fabric I have been collecting to make a quilt for Peg's room. When I was straightening up yesterday I gathered all the yellow and gray fabrics and put them in a stack with the new gray at the bottom.

I also bought some Insul-Brite to make some pot holders. Mine are pretty crusty!

So after all that washing and ironing I went outside and started digging up the center flower bed. What a mess! It totally got out of hand between not have the energy after my surgery and the summer's heat. I am going to do a complete over haul of this bed.

I dug up four of the day lilies and took them to work this morning for two of the women who wanted them.

I dug up the cora bells and transplated them in the back bed. Once I get my buckets back I will dig up the rest of the day lilies and take those to work. I still need to dig up the daffodil bulbs too. I will only leave the mugo pine and maybe some of the giant orange day lily in this bed. I will cover the entire bed with black plastic and let the sun cook it all winter to kill the weed seeds and decompose the rest of the stuff. Next spring I will plant a thick bed of cone flowers which the deer don't eat and the finches love. It just got to be too much trying to keep the deer from eating the day lilies.

After digging in the yard I hemmed the sleeves of a jacket for a neighbor, took it to her house - she lives just around the corner. I finally called it a day about 8 p.m. I was tired!