Making Up for Lost Time

I went on a stash diet this summer because I was planning on spending my dollars at Seminar in Santa Fe. 

I did really well, too. I bought some threads. And two magazines. And that was pretty much it. Until I ran into this at the October Loudoun Sampler Guild meeting. 

It's a new chart by Barbara Hutson of Queenstown Sampler Designs. Something about it just spoke to me. I could easily do a year of stitching only Barbara's designs. Because I own that many of them. LOL

And upon arrival in Albuquerque we did things like visit this museum. We'd been to the proto-museum years ago when it was located on Kirtland Air Force Base. 
But now there's this lovely new building. With great exhibits for Cold War buffs. You can learn fun facts like it's only the old orange Fiestaware that causes the geiger counter needle to move. 

So we got our geek on and then went all old Route 66 and stayed at the Monterey Motel - an interesting cross of kitsch and German sensabilities. You'd have to stay there to understand. This is where my sweetie started our Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives portion of our trip. We had dinner at the Standard Diner. In the morning he wanted to go to Sophia's, but I chose Ropers instead. They were nicely decorated for Halloween. Terrific application of fake cobwebs. 

Meanwhile, at Seminar, all my shopping plans went to kablooey due to my illness. All I managed to buy was one of the last EGA Logo Bag kits. That's an awful lot of blue beads. 

And on Trading Post day - which nicely ran from 3-8 p.m. I barely made it around the room. So unfair. I did pick up the pin kit for next year's Seminar. 

I didn't buy a single book. The only things I purchased from the Boutique, which was nicely done by Stitchville USA from Minnesota, was a set of stretcher bars (how did I get one size wrong?) and more Ultra Fine Needle Threaders. Which I'm going to need if I'm going to do all this beading.