Last week we had some friends over for dinner who were leaving the Kingdom to go back to the US for good. "Hello" and "Goodbye" are so much a part of life here and it is always sad to have to say goodbye to people you are just getting to know.....

I was glad we were able to have one last dinner together though. As I was thinking about what to cook, I thought of a yummy lasagne type casserole that I used to make a lot. Since I had just finished a row of butterflies for the new Round Robin over at Patchwork Posse, I decided that it was meant to be....

So I got out the butterfly pasta (that's what we call it anyway!), made up white sauce and mince.. then started layering:


White sauce and butterflies... then steamy hot mince mixture:


More butterflies:


More white sauce and cheese:


Ready to go in the oven... forgot to take a photo of it done, and it didn't last long enough to take a photo once I remembered.... :) Yum! Must make it more often!

And what about the Butterfly Row for the Round Robin? Here it is, blue butterflies all in a row:


Ready for the next row.... Just in case you are wondering, I am using my stash for this quilt and also decided to try to do each row with one main color... let's see how it works out, and let's see if I can keep up this time!!!

..... with just over a hundred colors.....


Faith's quilt (from my beginner's class) pinned and ready to quilt:


A Jelly Roll all sewn up like they did in the Jelly Roll race:


And a Honey Bun done in the same way:

A few weeks ago one of my new friends asked me if I had been to the notion store... and I said, what notion store???? She's like, oh it has lots and lots of threads and buttons and ribbons and... and... and.... Of course I had to find it and go see for myself.

So, another friend and I went in search for it on Wednesday morning. She has a driver, however he doesn't really know where he is going and hardly speaks English, so it was quite an interesting morning!

I think we must have done a tour of Riyadh, becuase we passed most of the important sights. At one stage I called Cameron to see if he could help us because the GPS was taking us into the center of town instead of the edge... and he wanted to know where we were... which of course we didn't know... and just saying that we could see the Faisaliah Tower didn't help either because you can see that from most spots in the city...

I think the driver was getting a little stressed too, because at one stage he pulled up on the side of the road and said, "One minute madame..." and proceded to sit there for a few minutes while my friend and I looked at each other in confusion. A few minutes later he pulled out into the traffic again and kept going.....

Anyway, we made it in the end with a little help from our friends... many phone calls and u-turns later :) It was worth it in the end, because it is the coooooolest little shop I have seen in a while (litereally as well as figuratively- they had a/c thank goodness). (It is now in the mid 40sC during the day.)

We went into the shop and found ourselves surrounded by color and glitz...


You know how I hate zips, but these were almost tempting:



Buttons anyone?


Yes! DMC for my stitching!!!

And some yarn!!

But the main thing I went for was this:


Threads... many colors for applique! The top boxes with threads are all 100% Italian cotton which I love to work with. So I asked the man if I could have two of each color.

He said, "No problem."

It took him a while.

And when he had reached 100 different colors he'd had enough. I asked him if that was all the colors, and he muttered something about it being enough... poor guy... I got him to pick 5 more and then took pity on him and decided 105 colors was a pretty good range :)

I need to set them up somewhere in the shop so that while we are doing a class if someone runs out they can grab one. There is nothing worse than needing a color and having to just drive out for one... However, at least we do know where the shop is in case we need more :)

I also bought some pins and needles and tape measures to have in the shop in case we need them too.... so all in all it was a great day!

(Thanks Janelle and Marisol!!!!!)

I thought I'd let you see a few more lovelies from our Quilt Guild Mini Show... Lots of the members were busy making wall hangings this year to donate to one of the children's hospitals in town. They were all so pretty, and lots of work went into them:



Here's a close up of the flower one, click on it to see how the centers were made with Texture Magic - a technique I really want to try soon:

Some more embroidered and appliqued ones:


Hmmm... do you see the one in the middle? I wonder who made that one.. anybody recognize the pussycat?! More on that one another day :)

I am sure the kiddies will enjoy looking at these wall hangings don't you?