Do Not End O Summer

I still can't believe that I won this wonderful giveaway; aren't these pieces adorable? Look at the cheerful prints; it's a purse, billfold (so detailed), small bag, and keychain! They are so well-crafted, too. Thank you, Cyndi (of bluebirdswing blog)!!

I have been spending gigantic chunks of time digitizing music from not only my old vinyl records, but also my cache of old cassettes. Several cassettes had to go to music heaven, however, without making it to Digi-Land, including this one, Appalwood, that I always enjoyed. Guess I loved it to death:

Is anybody familiar with this one by any chance? Do you know where I can get another copy? I googled it and left a search for it on eBay, but nothing is available right now that I can find. Maybe there are some old cassettes laying around in stores in southern Virginia. Their home base was Independence, Virginia.

I drove up to the Smokies and stayed overnight at the Brookside Resort, that has rooms over the most beautiful, bubbling, loud creek.

I guess you can't see this (well maybe if you click on it to enlarge), but the Ripley's Aquarium (which is wonderful by the way) has this glass wall visible from the street (across the creek) where you can see the penguins swimming and playing.

I left Atlanta at 3am so I could drive through the Park from sunrise on. Arrived there exactly on time and what can I say, it was simply gorgeous. I went on to Sevierville, Tennessee (after getting breakfast at the Donut Friar in Gatlinburg; now that's a doughnut....or a few) to visit two quilt shops. They said No Pictures! at The Cherry Pit, so all of these pictures are from a shop called Machine Quilting by Iva, where the ladies were quite jolly and friendly, and had quite a large inventory of fabric, several rooms, in fact. The Cherry Pit had quite a good inventory, too, and I managed to add to the stash in both places.

The area just had their Shop Hop; this is a block from their Hop:

Here's the haul:

The Apple Barn in Sevierville is always a nice stop:

Nearly comatose and still turning out apples!

The Pattern Mart in Pigeon Forge had the most astonishing supply of quilt/craft patterns. I didn't get anything, but spent quite a bit of time just enjoying seeing so many patterns by one designer in one spot.

Sorry about all the stoplights and wires, but this looked so sensational as I was pulling out of the Food Lion:

Time to head home, driving through the Park once more:

What a treat to escape the unbearable Atlanta heat, even if only for a few days.