No sewing last week...for a good cause

I got absolutely nothing sewn last week. But I had a good reason. My husband and I took a 4 day trip to Colorado to stay with friends and ski. Sans children. That's right. Grown-up time. It was a lot of travel for two days of play, but it was worth it and we had an amazing time.


Here we are on our first play day after skiing at Breckenridge. I did blue square trails and was very pleased with myself. Blue squares are not all created equal.




This is us after our second day of skiing. We skied Arapahoe Basin and drove up to the Continental Divide afterwards. We may look cold, but it was a balmy 55 degrees, even up that high!




And I have to share, out of pride and complete amazement...my husband is a really accomplished skier. He loved Arapahoe Basin and skied "The Legend". Our friend took this picture of him, because I sure as heck didn't go up that high. Notice the signs...it basically says it's a cliff covered with jutting out rocks. Go ahead and ski it if you dare.



I'm happy to be back home and looking forward to posting about what I was able to sew this weekend on Sunday!

Annual Christmas Trip to Beantown

It's actually become and annual tradition..we started going four years ago when we were just getting to the "serious dating" stage. We take a trip to Boston for some great food in the North End, some Christmas shopping, and a quick little getaway in the chaos that is holiday time.

This year we stayed at The Langham, Boston. It's right in the heart of the financial district. The room was very nice, but no free breakfast. A pretty big drawback in my book! We decided to walk to dinner, although it was pretty windy and cold, and saw this along the way, and I just loved it.



We got to dinner, at Trattoria di Monica on Prince Street in the North End. It came pretty highly recommended, and being the research geek I am, I read tons of online reviews. It was exactly the type of restaurant we love. Small, great atmosphere, romantic (ok, that's my favorite, not Rob's), and amazing food. Very cozy on a cold wintery night.



Even though it was tiny, Rob managed to snap a few pics, and caught me smiling at the amazing choices. At least this time I wasn't tweeting, or updating my Facebook page, which is what he usually catches me doing.



After dinner we stopped at Mike's Bakery, on Hanover Street, which was actually rockin' at 10:30. There were literally throngs of people going in and out. Some sitting with coffee, some taking boxes of sweet deliciousness home. That I did manage to tweet about.



I got a decaf cappucino, and about 8 different chocolate treats. Giant peanut butter cups, giant chocolate dipped pretzel rods with toffee crumbs on top, coconut clusters...oh lord. All of them were amazing, and we actually have a few left.

When we got back to the hotel, the concierge actually managed the truly rare and elusive photo of Rob AND Rebecca. These don't happen often, so I was glad it came out as well as it did.



The next morning we went to Sowa Holiday Market, which is a fantastic show featuring 80 amazing artists and craftspeople. I tell myself that I'm there to buy gifts and then manage to come home with presents for myself! My favorite artist was there, James Polisky. He designed my logo.



He has an amazing perspective. He manages to show the darker side of people, kids, animals, you name it, with what to me feels like a beautiful, funny overlay. For some reason, his work just speaks to me.

As we were eating lunch on Newbury Street, I was looking out the window and saw all kinds of people in Santa hats run by one block up. As luck would have it 5 minutes later, the Speedo Santa Run went right past us. I had never heard of it, but I guess it's to raise money for a few local charities. Needless to say Rob got TONS of pictures, but just to give you a flavor...these people were CRAZY.





As always, it was a wonderful, memorable trip. We will most definately be going back next Christmastime.

Pattern Test for Patty - Flora & Fauna Blossom Pillow

Once again, thanks to Twitter, I was given the fantastic opportunity to test a new pattern for fabric/pattern designer Patty Young.



Patty launched a new set of patterns this week, and I was asked to test one of the decorative pillows from her "Pillow Trio" pattern. This time around Patty sent me her new Flora & Fauna fabric, and a suggested layout for the fabrics.



The fun part is that my finished test pillow gets to be in the actual pattern once it's printed, and Rob's great photos of the pillow get photo credit in the finished pattern too!

Overall, the pattern was super simple to complete. Something a new sewer could make with ease, and get some super immediate gratification. All of the pillows are a finished 18", so they really look fantastic and stand out on a chair or bed.