Yearly Statistics & More Travel Pics

It wasn't a stash busting year.  Sigh! On the other hand it wasn't terrible either. 

2017	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
Nov	25.875	118.625	6.125	108.125	10.50
Dec	0	118.625	0	108.125	10.50

It dawned on me recently that I forgot to post the November debacle, er, statistics.  I overdid it at JoAnn's Black Friday sale.  I ended up buying a lot of fabric to use for pillowcases for Country Piecemakers.  Between that and my two trips to Lancaster I had a lot of fabric coming in this year. Thinking back, I might have used a half yard or so more on doll clothes during December. 

But I did get a lot of fabric used.  Frankly, I was surprised to see how much was used. Here's a review since 2010 when I began keeping statistics. It was my 2nd best for using fabric.  *FYI - I only count fabric used when it is complete -- a finished quilt, doll dress, pillowcase.  When an item is finished then it is counted as used.  I'm not terribly upset with my purchases.  I suspect I will have quite a few finishes this year as I hope to get some of the tops I have hanging around completed as well as a lot of pillowcases made and donated. 2017 was my 2nd best in terms of fabric out and in.

Year	Fabric In	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
2010	65.00	70.250	13.000
2011	186.5	72.00	114.500
2012	113.545	108.970	4.575
2013	100.71	103.015	2.305
2014	108.25	79.75	28.500
2015	66.205	77.150	10.945
2016	83.375	55.375	28.00
2017	118.625	108.125	10.50

Now, a few more photos from vacation. We were in Guatemala where we had just seen the banana trees growing in my last post. We were on our way to Quirigua Archaeological site. It had no monumental buildings but it has quite a few interesting stelas and zoomorfas.  (Stelas are tall sculptures where the history of the time was carved.  Zoomorfos are squat, frog-shaped sculptures also used to tell the history.) 

An estela close up. Most of the estelas and zoomorfos dated to the 700s.  

 Both history and a calendar were included on these estelas.

Zoomorfo. It turns out that zoomorfo is the Spanish for the word for zoomorph. One definition I found at Wikipedia was: "Attributing animal form or other animal characteristics to anything other than an animal; similar to but broader than anthropomorphism."

Another zoomorfo. Notice the red on the left side -- evidently the stones were painted red originally. 

This is part of the Acropolis. The Mayan civilization here didn't last long and some speculate this particular city might have been destroyed by an earthquake thus the buildings were no longer standing. 

Pat chose to climb these steep steps, while I didn't.  You can see that the steps are higher than what we are used to.  Mist and rain periodically came up during the day so these were also slippery. 

This bride and groom were having pictures taken which the tourists took pictures of.  Note the figure on the top with a yellow ball cap?  That's Pat checking it out. (All of these pictures can be clicked to see a larger version of them.)

Closer up of the wedding picture.  I'm not sure I'd be spreading out a long veil (or train?) over all that moss! 

As we rode back to Santo Tomas de Castilla, we saw plenty of big rigs, smaller trucks and lots of motorbikes.  I couldn't catch a picture of the woman riding with an infant in a pouch on her back but I did capture this family. It was not unusual to see motorbikes with children riding on them with a parent. Sometimes we saw a rider (or two) with a big package tied on to the back. 

Our ship was docked at an active shipping port.  Pat and I spent some time watching the loading of the ship docked in front of us. It was receiving mounds of brown something that was being dumped into the hold of the ship.  A fellow passenger told us that it was soil being shipped to Russia where they extract minerals from it.  Pat and I thought it might have been from coconuts -- the outer husk.  In doing a little research I couldn't verify either idea.  US is the top receiver of goods from Guatamala and their top export is fruits and nuts. 

The oddest thing we ran into during our travels we first experienced in Guatemala: a bathroom thing.  At Quirigua Archaeological site no toilet paper was put in the toilets.  There was a plastic lined trash can next to the toilet to dispose of the toilet paper.  We found this to be fairly common at many of our ports once we were away from the tourist area. 

That's it for me today.  I'm linking with Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop? and Oh Scrap when it becomes available.  I hope you'll join me in viewing what folks are doing in their studios these days.  Right now, I'm going down to the studio to load a quilt onto Ruthie 2. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie