Advice?

I found this plaid fabric in my "stash" last night and was wondering if you think I should use it on my pink elephan quilt.  The plaid is actually pinker than it looks in the picture and the pink isn't quite so bright, and the background for hte pink elephants is more cream than yellow.  The second picture is more accurate.

 

 My thoughts are
            1) to use the plaid instead of the pink or cream,
            2) to use the plaid for sashing, or
            3) to use the plaid as a small border (before the other elephant fabric I have)

So, what do you think?  I've decided to use it as the binding even if I use it in the quilt as well.

And More Wine Tasting

and now, back to wine tasting in Napa ...

Our third winery was Raymond. (Where do they come up with these names??) 

Raymond was an interesting place.  The bar area was fairly traditional but the rest of it was anything but.  I'm not sure what this area was -- we just looked around and then left.

 

These "angels" were up above. 

Outside there was a little walkway with a garden with lots of veggies and other things.  I thought it would be really dull, but it was quite interesting.  Either that or I had had a few too many sips.

 Weeds .. volunteer plants. hmmm.

 At the end there was a spot for picture taking ...

And then the last one.  It looked like a warehouse from the outside, but inside it was great! I think when it says "tasting cellar" that was the room we were in.  it was massive, smelled winey (in a good way).  It was perfect for our final stop.

 Behind the bar.

 The three of us ..

All in all, a good day with some very interesting wines and wineries.  Can't wait to do it again.

Birthday Weekend

My oldest and youngest sons celebrated their 33rd and 27th this weekend.  We had a lovely dinner on Sunday with both boys.  My cousin Steve was in town too, so he joined us.  I've pulled the pictures Steve took from fb.

 Getting dessert ready.

 The birthday boy (and his bride) -- her birthday was October 1.

The other birthday boy, and his bride (her birthday is tomorrow).

Of course, I didn't take any pictures of my cousin.  :(.  what's up with that?

Wine Tasting in Napa

So, we've lived in Northern California for 15 years now and this past weekend was the first time we've actually gone wine tasting.  On two earlier occasions, we attempted to do it, but didn't know what we were doing and it didn't actually count.  I think the first time we went to one winery in the Santa Cruz mountains and the second time we went to one winery in Sonoma.  This time we went to Napa with a friend of mine who showed us how it is done.

Our first stop (after McDonald's for breakfast), was Mumm.

Here we tasted champagne -- or rather sparkling wine.  We tried six different kinds.  At the table next to us, they sampled twelve different kinds -- or at least they had twelve glasses.  That makes for a very pretty table.

and here's our table.  Not nearly as impressive, but we needed to be able to walk away and even do some driving.

Outside the winery there were lots of these flowers.  I'm guessing that they are mums.

Our next stop was St. Supery.

Here we tasted 8 different wines - two tastings of four wines each.  I discovered that I like Sauvignon Blanc better than Chardonnay.   I was going to take another picture, but the bottles disappeared right after this.

 .

I'll post pictures of the other two tomorrow.

I think it's interesting how each winery has its own feel / character / atmosphere.