South Pacific

Last week I was in Fiji for business.  It was the first time I've been there.  After a rather long 10+ hours flight, I arrived to a nice hot and humid climate in Suva.

I spent 3 days in the city visiting with my customer and working with our support engineer to get the equipment installed. (She did all the work, I was moral support).

This is the view from the hotel in Suva.



Across the street from the hotel was the main government building.


After the work was done, I headed out to a place called Crusoe's Retreat to spend a few days before heading home.

This is the view from the main building where there was a game room, restaruant, bar, internet/library, etc.


Here is sunset from the same location:


Here is a picture of the swimming pool - it's in the shape of a foot - I'm not sure why...


Unfortunately, my weekend was over shadowed by the fact that Cyclone Evan was approaching the island as was gaining speed to a category 4 storm.  This hindered my day of scuba diving :(.  However, I did get in one dive along the coral reef and it was simply spectacular.  Amazing colors and marine animals, will forever be inspiration to keep our oceans clean for me.

On the long 2.5 hours taxi ride to the airport to try and beat the storm, we encountered several cows along the roadway, they seemed tame enough...


The people of Fiji are very hospitable and warm.  The beaches are beautiful and scuba diving amazing. I was very fortunate to have visited this country in the South Pacific.

Christmas pants

I finally started on the Christmas tree skirt. I threw out the old one last year to force myself into making one. I used Missouri Star Quilt Company's tutorial.

It's ready for binding and buttons. Anyone want to come cutout the bias binding for me?

Red work

Sorry I haven't blogged in so long, life got busy and the new iPhone OS really hindered my picture uploading abilities!

Here is what I'm working on now, it's a pattern from Bird Brain Designs and I really am enjoying the stitching!

My FNSI was all about why I love Christmas!

I love the hustle, the bustle, the cooking, the decorating, the presents and the reason for the season!  I love that all the preparation is to celebrate something so wonderful.  I don't go around and declare my faith to everyone, I've always been pretty private about it.  I do love what Christmas is all about and why we have that holiday.  To me it is the most special holiday because it represents so much - salvation, love, and sacrifice, and pure joy.

So I get a lot of flack for doing my countdown to Christmas posts on Facebook, but I really am excited for it get here every year.

With the Friday Night Sew In, I started on some more Christmas gifts.  My friend Karen had showed me a pattern for a wine tote on ebay a while back (secretly, I think she wanted it and I snagged it out from under her - I'm a bad friend) that I ended up purchasing.



So I dug through my stash to find some Christmas fabrics, to see how I could make these cute totes up. In the essence of time, I decided against doing the patwork and the stitching.  I'm sure Karen is slapping her forehead.  I also had to consult my friend Regena about the size of the quilted body, so I could bypass the piecing - I'm still learning!



But one day I'll make the full blown tote - but I may want to keep that one for myself.  Then I found that last year, I had ordered some extra Sweetwater labels that would go great for where the stitching is on the flap.


I plan to do some embellishing to the flaps too to juice up the labels some.



Last night, I did all the cutting out and applied the labels and quilted the bodies of 3 totes for the Friday Night Sew In.


I got through 2 of the tote body quilting steps and 8/9ths of the 3rd before the dreaded bobbin emptied on me.



Last year I did a post about "Listen to the Bobbin".  Where I outlined how it never fails, you're up late sewing, you're tired, but you don't want to stop so you re-load the bobbin and next thing you know you have the seam ripper in your hand because you've screwed something up because you're too tired to still be up sewing at 2 am.  When the bobbin emptied on me last night, I closed up shop and crawled my tired butt into bed.

Friday Night Sew In

Heidi from Handmade by Heidi is having another FNSI.  I've signed up this week and love the whole idea of this.  It's a great way to unwind from a hectic week and spend some time being creative.

Since the count down to Christmas is getting close, I will work on some items for gifts.

Stay tuned to see what I work on and join in over at Heidi's blog.

Dresden Madness

You should know by now, I love dresden plates.  So when Denise said dresdens for a block swap, I was all in!.

Here is a sneak peak!







This last photo gives me all kinds of 3-D ideas for a candle mat!

I don't have enough hobbies

You see, I like to learn things.  I love trying to do new things.  Sometimes, I really enjoy them, like sewing, and other times not so much, like scrape booking. 

Let me intro this with the fact that my dad, my brother, my cousin, several friends all do this.  I get to travel to really cool places and have not been able to do this yet because I was not certified to do this.  Sometime between now and the end of the year, I am going to Fiji for work.  Yes, I know crazy right?  Everyone tells me I need to extend the trip and do this there. 

A while back my husband went to the shop and asked all the questions, signed me up for the class and all around got me going on this.  So for the last month, I've been to the lectures and to the practical training. But on Sunday, I went for the real test. Can you guess what I'm doing? Yes, that's right, I'm learning to Scuba Dive!  On Sunday, I was able to complete 3 of the 5 necessary dives to get my NAUI certification.  Next Saturday, I hope to finish up so I'll be ready to go to Fiji when the time comes.

I'm really enjoying it and hope that I get do a lot more it in the years to come.

Here is where went diving - yes at dawn too!


And here is me getting ready to go scuba!


A couple things I didn't know - yes, you can get motion sickness from all the surges under water..not fun.  Sea urchins really can prick you through your 7 mil gloves.  You burn a ton of calories keeping yourself warm in the wetsuit.  It's a total body work out doing beach entries.