I am late in updating because...

Well I thought I was done with my birthday...but I have one last thing to share about it.  My children gave me money towards this for my birthday:  A NEW sewing machine.  I have been looking at new sewing machines for sometime now.  It has been over 30 years since I have had a new machine.  I have an old Kenmore which I have been quite happy with but I have been doing so much quilting and I wanted to do my own free motion quilting and I thought it would be nice to have a new sewing machine to do that.  So I bit the bullet and bought a new Huaqvarna Viking Sapphire 875!!! 

Here is it pre-opening.

Just out of the box!!!

Set up and ready to go.  Just let me tell you I LOVE it.  I have been busy getting acquainted with it.  Hence the reason I did not blog sooner.   With that being said here is what I wanted to blog about last week.

 Last Tuesday, April 4th Jill and I went to Osage, IA to meet up with Wendy Jo.  Here we are in the quilt shop it's called Debbie's Quilt Shop.  We had been to the cross stitch shop-The Stitchery Nook but didn't think about pictures until the end of our visit.  Pictured from left to right is:  Jill, myself and Wendy Jo.

We had a great time.  I met Wendy Jo through blogging and we have met up once before and have been talking about doing it again, so we just made plans and did it.  So often you always talk about doing something and unless you make plans it just doesn't seem to ever happen and life it to short not to try to do the things you want:)  Sorry I didn't get this picture out there sooner for you Jill.

On our way to Osage we happened to drive through Dexter, MN and since I am hooked on Dexter I just had to take this picture!

 

 We also drove by a lot of windmills and I couldn't resist a picture of them.  I also had to stop and listen to them.  I thought the sound was quite soothing.

 

 Back to my new sewing machine.  I bought this baby quilt as a kit and sewed it together.  Then I tried my hand at some free motion quilting. One of the reasons I bought my new machine is because it has a wide opening between the needle and the arm of the machine.  Not sure right off hand what that space is called but I have 10 inches of space and it sure makes a difference.

 

 Here is a close up of my quilting.  I will have to say it really isn't to hard to do, just need a lot of practice.  So this is not perfect but I am happy with the results so far. So I need to say Thank you to my children for helping me give this wonderful sewing machine for my birthday--with how much it cost it should be part of my Christmas present too:)

 This is what the back looks like. 

 Here is another reason I have been busy.  We spent quite a bit of time with this little guy, our grandson Silas last week while his daddy--Kyle helped grandpa with some yard work. 

I hope everyone is having a great week.

  I will be going on a retreat this weekend with our LNS--Stitchville.  Thea Dueck is the teacher this year.  So I should have some things to blog about early next week. Can't wait till Friday:)