February 23, 2010 – Going to the Quilt Show!
Tomorrow morning I will be heading off to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival. I will be traveling with quilt friends, of course! There will be four of us piled into my car. We plan on making a day of it, stopping off in Fredericksburg to check out a quilt shop and have lunch, before making our way to the hotel.
This year I have signed up for one class on Thursday and I will be tending our raffle quilt on Friday. The rest of the time, I will be shopping and taking photos of all the great quilts in this year’s show. As I walk through the show, I find it hard not to take a photo of each and every quilt. It seems as though each one is prettier than the last. I have been taking photos of quilts for over 20 years, and I have quite a collection. It is easier now we have gone digital. At least the photos are organized on my computer and in a format that is much easier for viewing. When reviewing the photos…even just two or three days after the show, I am always surprised at how many quilts I have already forgotten. But that is probably just a result of my aging and memory loss!
We are looking forward to a great girls weekend away, much shopping and fabric purchasing. I will have my computer with me and I will try to get a post up each evening, if I can get an internet connection.
Happy Quilting!
Betty Dietz
January 19, 2010 – The real “Chocolate Factory”
This past weekend we traveled to NYC. We took a bus from Rosslyn, Virginia, just outside of Washington DC. The bus stop was located near a McDonald’s, a nice place to stay warm and get some coffee while waiting. Our only difficulty was finding a parking spot. The parking lots are open during the week, and on Saturday, but not on Sundays. We would have had no way to retrieve our car late Sunday night on our return trip. We did finally find parking in a hotel lot. I suspect most of the bus riders get dropped off, or they come into the bus stop through the Rosslyn Metro Station. Next time, we’ll take the Metro. The bus ride was smooth and efficient with no stops, all the way to NY. We were dropped off just outside of Macy’s on 34th Street. It cost us just $25.00 each one way. When you figure gas, tolls, and the cost to park your car in NY, this was quite a bargain.
Our purpose in visiting NY was to watch our daughter and her entire swim team at a meet on Saturday. They won. So that was exciting. Of course, we wanted to spend time with our daughter, Kelly, so we took her out to dinner. We found a nice quiet Italian restaurant where we could sit and chat and eat good food. She loved it since we were paying. We tried to get tickets to a Broadway Show, but were unsuccessful, so the three of us ended up watching the football game from the TV in our hotel room. It was all good.
Sunday was a messy day with lots of rain. Hard to enjoy the city or to even walk around with the rain coming down in buckets. So we slept in, of course! Our daughter told us of a great place to eat brunch, and we were to meet there at noon. All that I knew about this place was that they served great hot chocolate and had lots of other chocolaty items on the menu. When we entered Max Brenner’s my first thought was this place looks like a chocolate factory. There was little on the menu that did not include the word chocolate somewhere in the description. If you are a true chocolate lover this is the place for you! The hot chocolate comes in three flavors of chocolate, dark, milk and white and is served in a cute little Hug Mug. I did not know to ask for the hug mug so mine came in a regular glass. But it was still delicious. My husband, Tom, ordered a butterscotch milkshake, mmm! very good. For food, I ordered the Pearl Sugar Waffles, banana split version, and Kelly got the Tutti Frutti waffles. The waffles came on a plate with a scoop of ice cream and chocolate sauce to pour over all of it. What a sugar and chocolate rush. Tom refrained from ordering food, he knew he would have to help us finish ours. What a great NYC experience. We found the real “Chocolate Factory” and I loved it!
Betty