4th of July Weekend -- Sewing in Lake Arrowhead CA

Spending a long weekend in the mountains, and away from our 100 degree heat, was such a treat! Dan and I left Thursday night for Lake Arrowhead, which is only about a 2 hour drive from our house. As we were approaching Crestline, just the sight of all of the trees put me in a peaceful, calm frame of mind. I lived in Crestline for a few years and it always felt like I was on vacation.

Of course, I brought all my sewing paraphenalia and a project:

One of the stops on my 4 week trip that starts Monday is the dealer convention for Brother International, which will be held in Nashville. Carol Bell had sent me a few embroidered blocks to play with to prepare for teaching my free motion class on the Laura Ashley machines. I took four of the blocks and laid them out the way I wanted them positioned in my little quilt.

I decided that I wanted the blocks to have a bit more color around them, so sewed a narrow, 1/2" finished border around each block.


Playing around with the blocks and some Christmas fabrics from my stash....do I want a straight set?










Or maybe add an additional fabric and put the blocks on point?

I totally took over the kitchen island with all of my sewing stuff -- I decided on the straight set and put the four blocks together with sashing...

...then started adding a narrow border with the striped fabric. I must have had a lot of distractions because this is as far as I got in three days!

I shopped at the Lake Arrowhead village and bought a dress, a few tops, a couple of belts and a fairy themed necklace and earrings.

There were spectacular fireworks over the lake on Sunday; that was our 24th anniversary, so Dan and I thought it was a really fun way to celebrate it!

Monday morning breakfast -- beautiful flowers right next to our table...

...and a great view of the golf course and the tree covered mountains.

The house where we stayed belongs to my in-laws, Len and Leslie. They've been married for a little over two years and still act like newlyweds! Love them dearly -- it was so fun to spend the holiday weekend with them.

Today I have to work on this Christmas quilt; it's hard to believe that I'm leaving in just four days!