Down By The River

Had a nice 3-day weekend in San Antonio last week. Went for a conference, dragged the hubs along. One of these days, though, I'm going to get over the whole "I need to get there as early as possible so that I have a full day to spend doing whatever". I'm normally just climbing into bed at 3:30 a.m., not rolling out of bed to catch a 6:20 a.m. flight.

While I sat in overly-air conditioned meeting rooms, the hubs toured the Alamo,

and then ambled over to the Mexican Market to check out the Cinco de Mayo festival.

We stayed at the Mokara Hotel and Spa on The Riverwalk, which was nice.

 

The Riverwalk has mystical powers....not only can you purchase a 30 oz. margarita for $14, but you'll be stone cold sober after drinking it. It always impressed me that no one ever fell into the river on any of my trips there--what with all the drinking and the crowds and the narrow pathways, but I think I've now discovered the reason for this--there's no tequila in the drinks. :)

Regardless, a nice time was had by all. (And we had a bottle of Vodka in the hotel room, where there was a daily fresh tropical juice drink served in the lobby each day that provided a nice mixer).

What with planning for this trip, and another couple, there's been little time to sew and I'm behind on some of my self-imposed obligations. I had only completed 5 of the 10 monthly Dear Jane blocks I committed myself to, so once we were settled back home I flipped the switch to 'catch up mode'.

This weekend I was able to knock out 9 blocks. If you're counting, I've still got 6 more to go to be on track for this month...

 ...except that I screwed up and repeated a block I had already made (Curses!!!)  So really, I've got 7 more blocks to do.

 

The problem is that I'm working with a book that has no instructions, that I use to measure and look at a drawing of a block for how to assemble the pieces, and I'm printing out paper piecing patterns from the EQ Dear Jane software. Rather than introduce yet another thing to keep track of (some people make a chart of the quilt), I'm simply sticking an adhesive dot on the book when I've made the block.

Well, note to self,  double check that the paper piecing patterns you're printing out aren't ones that you've already made....an easy thing to do because you pick them off a menu and send them to the printer. Basically, I wasted an hour making a block I already made. Won't happen again.

These are my two favorite blocks from this round of paper piecing:

I enjoy paper piecing. It's not something I do often, which is probably why I don't mind  the precision involved.

Good luck to everyone entered in the big Giveaway. I need to find some time to check out the offerings. Because of this trip I wasn't able to participate this time around, but I've got a super fantastic giveaway for the next one.

Enjoy your week, and hopefully beautiful late Spring weather as well.