Off on Various Tangents -- Anything But Sewing

At the end of July I had to go to Minneapolis for a week for work. We have relatives outside the city, so the hubs tagged along to abandon me in the hotel for a few days while he had some fun exploring Minnehaha Falls and the Mall of America and such fine places. And when he returned, he amused himself by walking to a Twins game while I was working at the Convention Center.  So, basically, one of us had a good time.

To prep for this trip, I figured I needed some hand sewing.....LOTS of hand sewing.  I had two lengthy flights, with equally lengthy airport waits.  I'd be hanging in the hotel room at the end of the day by myself, with nothing to do but try to figure out why the 11 o'clock news was on at 10--and how I managed to miss Big Brother--who's watching 'prime time' TV at 7 o'clock?  That's when you're cooking dinner and you've got Wheel of Fortune on for background noise.

A week or so before the trip, I spent two days rearranging my studio closet solely for the purpose of integrating that little 10-compartment canvas shoe hanger on the right that I got at Aldi for $4.99 one day because I thought 'Gee, that looks like a cute thing to put some projects into'...and while I'm at it, I can put together a bunch of hand sewing projects to take on my trip.

So, I packed up my cool little Vera Bradley bag with some Karen Kay Buckley applique work, a wool pincushion applique project,  another panel from the embroidered Halloween quilt, and a new Halloween banner embroidery. Tossed in a couple of Halloween panels (to embroider and frame), and two sashiko panels.

On the flight to Minneapolis I was totally amused by the fact that the seat in front of me had a video screen and I could plug in my headphones and watch a movie--for free.  Get outta town!  So after determining which movies weren't going to be longer than the flight, I settled in to watch Al Pacino in Danny Collins. (As usual, the hubs slept--what is it with men and sleeping on planes)

Once in Minneapolis I found myself going to 8:15 a.m. breakfast meetings, or being asked to show up for 9 a.m. meetings at 8 a.m.. I went from working all day at the Convention Center to walking back to the hotel to meet up with coworkers for dinner before heading back to the hotel room to do my regular work that I hadn't been able to do at the Convention Center. Never once did I delve into my project bag. (Heck...I never once opened the cute little bottle of Vodka I bought the day we got there.)

On the upside, there were no videos on the flight home, so I was able to get a little embroidery done.  Guess all those Halloween projects are ready for future trips, and (sadly) future Halloweens.