Phoenix Vacation!

I had a wonderful time in Phoenix and thought I'd share a few photos with you. I could have taken so many more pictures but I restrained myself.

One evening we went to the Desert Botanical Gardens, the paths were edged with luminaries. They were so pretty! I didn't think to get a picture of the path edged with them. They didn't use paper sacks, they were in these plastic containers.

There was a glass sculpture display by renowned artist Dale Chihuly, these glass sculptures are displayed all over the world.

They also had a display inside a building. There were informational photos showing the artist blowing the glass and creating these sculptures.

This was my favorite of all of them, these red points just glowed! We went back to the garden later in the week but during the daytime, the sculptures are definitely at their finest  during dark.

I'm always intrigued by the sidewalks. This sidewalk is older than I am! You never see sidewalks this age in any of the northern states due to moisture, freezing and heaving. 

I wore sandals every day, of course the first thing we did was to get pedicures.

The Bougainvillea was in full bloom, aren't these flowers beautiful? I don't know if these bushes are available in any other colors, I have only ever seen them in red.

I tried to go for a long walk every day. Usually I walked down 3rd Avenue then walked along the canal. The houses along the canal have privacy fences, most of the fences have been painted. This parrot and butterfly were my favorites of all the paintings.

I didn't see the usual conifer Christmas trees on displays in public venues. They normally had a tree made of poinsettias. They were very elegant!

This is how they decorated the desert trees at the Botanical Garden. Blogger decided this picture needed to go at the end of my post even the photo was taken at the same time as the other pictures from the garden.

The Sunday I was in Phoenix, we attended a Christmas program at Paradise Valley United Methodist Church.  Later in the week we attended a Christmas Eve Service, there is a lot of talent in this church.

We also enjoyed a presentation of A Christmas Carol at a playhouse in Gilbert.

My two weeks in Arizona were fun, enjoyable and warm!

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Put Your Foot Down, Stitch Sew & Show, Needle & Thread Thursday 

Applique Update

I'm home from my visit to Tempe, Arizona. What can I say but no snow, no ice, warm/hot temperatures, sleeveless blouses, culottes, sandals and a lovely visit with our daughter and son-in-law.

I won't list all the places we went but I did attend (by myself because she was working) the AQS quilt show in Phoenix. Yes, this country gal was in downtown Phoenix, all by myself, and nothing bad happened to me! I spent a wonderful day at the Convention Center viewing all the quilts and browsing the vendor booths.

I completed a Pastor's Attic Quilt block while I was in Tempe. The first 5 blocks in row 1 are finished. I chose to chain-stitch embroider the narrow stems. I'm not talented enough to make 1/8 inch applique stems. The original quilt has an embroidered swirl in the center of the X flowers but I liked the idea of french knots better, so that is what I did. The center of this block and the X's were back-basted then needle turned appliqued. The rest of the flowers were regular needle turned.

All of the background fabric squares were cut into larger blocks and will be trimmed to the correct size after ALL the blocks are appliqued. 

Like the rest of the blocks in Sweet Surrender, block 9 was easily appliqued in an evening. The other 3 blocks in this prepped WOF will be this weeks handwork.

Linking up to -

Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching
Quilting is More Fun than Housework
Esther's Wednesday WOW
A Quilting Reader's Garden