AND A GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL

Oh, what a week I had. You will get a much better photo journal by checking out Anna Maria's blog over the next several days, but here's just a little bit from my whirlwind trip to NY and a little of my babysitting in Nashville after Anna Maria's husband joined her in NY.

After Anna Maria put the final touches on her booth (sewing the quilt down in place, so it wouldn't be "lifted in her absence"),


we taxi'd to the Soho district. Oh what fun. NY shopping at its best! I purchased a sweater (sale, of course) in Anthropologie (a better price than I've ever seen in their catalogue). From there we went to my two goal places, Purl Soho,


and Purl Patchwork


both owned by the same wonderful young lady.

I purchased fabric for a queen size quilt.

I didn't buy any yarn, but I did buy a book, written by the owner (seen here cutting my fabric).

From there we walked to Arturo's for pizza where we were meeting Anna Maria's husband Jeff who had just arrived in the city, and my son, daughter-in-law and their 5 year old Lizzie. Ah, nothing like NY pizza. But on the way, we happened by a sign outside a church basement about chocolate art. I pointed out the sign to Anna Maria, just because she was photo snap happy and it was chocolate (connected with me, anyway, for her Chocolate Lollipop line). Besides taking a photo of the sign, we walked in to the show (we had just missed a chocolate fashion show!) Here's a couple of my photos of the chocolate art:


Pretty amazing, huh?

After our pizza, it was time for me to leave the city to be ready to fly back south early the following morning to care for Anna Maria and Jeff's children until their return home on Wednesday. Other than an occasional disgruntled child because Nani doesn't let them break too many rules, it went quite well. I even got to go to Isabela's last day of school picnic with her mom, dad, and little sister. And guess what blanket they took to the picnic: my very first quilting project! It's the quilt that Anna Maria cut and pieced in a college fabric class. I spent the following summer hand quilting it--and a quilter was born, perhaps a cacoon for a long time, but born nonetheless.