Shopping and Crafting last weekend

I spent a long weekend in the Chicago area, shopping with family on my mom's side :) We do this every year and have a ball! Some years we shop in other places, but we usually end up back on the north side of Chicago. Gurnee Mills Mall is a favorite for the group!

I spent most of my (limited) funds ... imagine that!

This year I was in charge of the craft. Yes, we craft on Saturday evening, in the midst of all our shopping. We made small feather/bottle style trees :)

First we painted the bases with various colors and used some stickers to mask off letters or shapes on our blocks.

 And while we waited for the paint to dry, we built the trees by twisting the wires

  To finish up, we hot glued the trees into the blocks. Some took the white paint and put snow on their branches. All of them are unique, and everyone was pleased with the results.

 

Some years the crafts aren't quite as successful ... we spent a lot of time reminiscing about one that caused LOTS of laughter a few years back :)

At least I didn't bleed on the quilt

I have been working on the "Izaak's Castle" quilt today :) Loaded on the frame, started quilting and things were going smoothly ...

Which means it was time for something to go wrong *sigh*

I ran the needle through my finger ... breaking the needle ... making holes in the quilt with the broken needle ... making it necessary to rip out a block segment and sew a new one in (thankfully I had extra ones left over from miscounting) ...

Can you see the gaping hole in the loose piece? I'll have to find some way to cover up the matching hole in the backing fabric *sigh*

While running up the stairs for assistance with bandaging my finger, my only thought was, "I hope I don't have to retime the machine!" And, I didn't.

So, two things to be thankful for, I didn't bleed on the quilt and I didn't have to retime the machine :) I'll try to focus on those things while I find typing to be awkward and my finger continues throbbing.