interesting times . . .

Has anyone else struggled with what day it is?! LOL! I stayed home sick on Tuesday and the boss shut us down for the remainder of the week, so I worked from home. The days start to run together after a while!

It's been a busy and fairly productive week, though. I have enjoyed some super domestic time ... I made bread and have done a lot of cooking (which I don't typically do during the week). One of our favorite meals is . . .

Italian Loaf Rustica aka Double Crust Pizza! It's so very good, but very time consuming to make. We had this for several meals, actually!

I've gotten in several lovely long walks around the camp this week. Thursday was super warm and look what I found hanging out in the nursery sanctuary . . .

Two toddler turtles! We figure one's a two-year-old and the bigger one is three. They still look sleepy and have dirt on their tiny faces! It's gotten cold again, so they've gone back down under.

Todd and I also watched the sun go down from the back deck that evening.

It was just a lovely day through and through. I love sharing all my camp nature pics, but I hate making these posts so picture laden (not that you could ever tell). I share a lot on Instagram as @daneesey, too! :) There are a number of duplicates, but ah well.

I also got in some quilting/stitching time. First things first, though. My Nook was in desperate need of attention. I'd not taken the time to set things straight after retreat and it had already been in need of tending after I finished my class quilt. So I spent a couple of hours and took care of it. Happy National Quilting Day to me. ♥

It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was, once I scooped up trash, put fabric and rulers away, and swept! Then I got on to stitching.

I finished up this small quilt kit from Temecula Quilt Co. Then I hand quilted the heck out of it! In honor of the first day of (astronomical) Spring, I quilted a pink dogwood blossom in the center.

It's sort of hard to make out, but I know it's there! I also had gotten the week 10 block finished on my Peppermint Purple stitch along.

I guess block 11 and the binding for my Temecula piece will be my slow stitching for today! I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts for that.

One last thing I want to share before I head to the living room for church (!!!)...

I've seen this in several places and have posted it myself on social media, but I think it bears repeating. It's been comforting to me to re-read this and reset my focus!

Be blessed today!!

:)

more utility (love) stitching . . .

Yes, I do have to qualify that utility stitching for my grands is definitely *love* stitching!  Ellie's 8-year-old "blankie" needed some attention.  Seriously, I should have taken a before pic! I reconstructed it for her, making it a quilt, of sorts . . .

  

Hopefully it will get her through (to adulthood)!  :)  It made her so very happy to get it back, my heart was happy too.  

I am struggling with allergies again. I'm sniffling and sneezing and coughing ... the very thing people do NOT want to be around right now! So I'm self-quarantining. Add the fact that I'm immunocompromised, and it just makes sense that I stay put. So I spent yesterday in the Nook, finally getting around to binding my wool pumpkin piece . . .

I'm really pleased with the final piece!  I'm especially glad I waited on binding it until I found the right black for it. I felt like a solid would be too harsh for it and I think I made the right call!

Sawyer turned TEN this week!  I could cry...it's so hard to believe this boy is already in the double digits!  I so wished to be able to spend this special birthday with him. His mama's is the day before and Kim & James's anniversary is today (twelve years)!  One year I'll make it there for all three!

Sawyer told me he was so excited to spend his birthday at LegoLand and especially to go to the pool there (they were spending the night).  They pretty much had the park to themselves on Friday, but the park made the decision to close on Saturday, so he didn't get to swim.  But he was okay with it.  They did get to overnight in the hotel and he enjoyed that!  Sweet boy!

I was going to show off my weeks 10 & 11 of my Peppermint Purple SAL, but when I went to grab the photo, realized I'd only completed through week 10!

So I guess you and I both know what I'll be working on this afternoon!

I'll also be working on a little utility work that Joc sent home with me Thursday, on behalf of Edith (this time).  LOL!

Sweet little baby doll frocks need fixing.  Neesey will take care of that! Linking up with Kathy's Quilts today ... be sure to hop over there!

Y'all stay safe ... stay calm ... and stay well!

:)

girls, girls, girls . . .

This was another of those weeks in which I had something after work every night.  Ten hour work days with an activity after work makes for LONG days!  But that's okay.  My reward came Friday in the form of a visit from these cuties . . .

Yesterday was their mama's birthday, and I kept the through the day Friday and overnight. While these visits are generally about movies and popcorn, Friday was a lovely, sunny day and we did go exploring!  Everyone found a different daffodil to sniff . . .

We took time to smell whatever this was that was flowering  . . .

And we enjoyed the Obstacle Course (in our own manner) . . .

We even had a gourmet picnic lunch!

Teapot bologna and cheese hearts.  It's all in the presentation, right?!  :)

We did a final walk before dinner.  The girls were happy to tromp around in the dusk.  It was a lovely late afternoon and all three of the girls were captivated by the moon . . . 

And then the sun really started setting and we trekked back in the near dark!  

But these sweet girls just felt safe and confident in their surroundings and didn't bat an eye.  That makes my heart so happy!

I did manage to do a little stitching ... well, darning ... this weekend.  Evey's beloved blankie had a bit of an incident (which I won't go into) that left it looking like this . . .

That was right after it happened a week ago.  I wish I'd taken a picture of it after a week's worth of 'loving'!  LOL!  You can imagine. I'm not an expert with yarn, nor an expert at darning, but I think this will hold it . . .

Bless her heart.  I sent the pic to Joc, who showed it to Evey, who said, "Neesey is my hero!"  Well then, good enough!! ♥

I did purchase some fabric . . . this lot from an estate sale:

And this lot from an LQS.  The black on black for the binding of my pumpkin piece and the little floral piece just because I need another whole in my head! What?!?  It's pretty.  Reason enough.

We're taking Joc to lunch for her birthday after church today.  Then my plan is to do a little binding work for my slow stitching this afternoon!  With that in mind, linking up with Kathy's Quilts--be sure to check out what others have lined up for the day!

Have a great day and enjoy that extra hour of daylight (ha!) we'll receive at the end of the day, compliments of Daylight Savings Time!!

:)

 

a little remiss . . .

What can I say that I've not said before?!  Life is BUSY!  But that's okay; I'm in the here and now!

This past weekend I hosted (?!?!?) the first ever Camp MACOBA Stitcher's Retreat! It was such a cozy, fun weekend!  I hashtagged it #rustricretreat.  There's a reason!  LOL!

We made use of both bunkhouses.  We slept in the one . . . 

(Can you tell it was a quilter's retreat?!)

And we stitched in the other . . . 

(And we trekked to the 'outhouse'.  Really it's not that primitive -- it was a bathhouse.  But still it was a tiny trek! #rusticretreat)  I even did quilting/stitching themed favor boxes for all the ladies:

They were filled with my "favorite things" for stitching, including chocolate.  Of course. I wish I'd taken a picture of all the goodies! There was some good stuff in those little boxes!

Because the bunkhouses are filled with ... well ... bunks ... we had to be creative in the stitching room.  As in "push all the bunks to the back," keeping a path to the back door (fire safety!) and the small fridge, a coffee/tea station and our snacks.  Priorities. (I mean, right??) But it was plenty of room for five women and their machines/tables, plus a cutting table, an ironing station, and even a design wall!

I did a lot of handwork. *wink*  Who am I anyway?!  Haha!  One of the things I wanted to accomplish was finishing up the quilting on the above piece.

Done! I'm really pleased with this piece. I was hoping to get it bound, too, but I didn't have a fabric on hand that I wanted to use for binding.  I'd like to use a black, small print, tonal Civil War reproduction for it.  I guess I know what I'll be spending that LQS gift shop I won!  

I finished up Week 9 of the Peppermint Purple SAL:

I finished up block 3 of the Hospital Sketches BOM (that I'm working in wool) that's been lingering in my 'to do' pile for a number of months:

I started a new little mini that was a Temecula kit (I picked it up while I was in California):

I've done all the piecing by hand, so far.  It's rather fun!  I do enjoy hand stitching.  I just really do.  So I also did a little embroidery stitching on these two pieces . . .

I just stitched where the whim took me!

The other thing that I really wanted to accomplish was some significant progress on my big hexi piece:

What I ended up doing was hand-stitching together two rows, and then ripping those stitches completely out, because I'd misaligned the two rows.  Aye yi yi. Ripping hand stitches is a bigger bugger than ripping machine stitches, in my humble opinion. And then in my exuberance in stitch ripping, I accidentally ripped into a row instead of staying between the rows.  Gah.  I finished ripping, restitched up my accidental ripping, and put it aside.  I may not pull it out again for a month. Or two. —insert eye roll emoji here—

Todd was so good to us, he cooked a fish fry for us and put a huge fire in the pavilion fire place for us to enjoy!

Yup ... rustic but restful and fun!  What a sweet group of ladies!  I'm blessed!

:)

eclectic collection . . .

It's been a busy week, which means I wasn't able to get in as much stitching as I would have liked, but I got some in nevertheless. I did make some progress on my heart:

But put it down to work on the Peppermint Purple SAL. 

Week 8 was made available on Wednesday, and I had it finished on Thursday, along with a good majority of the box outlines for the entire stitchery!

It's easy, soothing stitching and I'm enjoying it very much.  

Thursday was guild, and I struggled to go, because by the end of my work week--especially when it's been a busy one in the evenings--I just want to go home.  But I went and I'm so glad!  Our speaker was Diane Knott, who was just delightful!  I really enjoyed her program.  Then as a bonus, I won a $20 gift certificate to a local quilt shop!

Yay me!

Saturday I did some utility work on a sweet little bubble of Edith's . . .

This is the after pic. It's challenging, but you can just make it out in the center of the photo. It had a tiny tear so I used a square, white cotton patch and fused it.

This is the back side. If you've never used this fusing stuff, you should give it a try. 

Especially for applique and wool applique! But also for fabric tears. It is very pliable and soft when the fusing process is finished. Very nifty to have on hand!

I also prepped and stitched a block from the Grandmother's Choice BOW.  I actually did go to the last entry and finished up block 49.  

I think eight years ago I may have been afraid of the curved piecing. It didn't phase me in the least in 2020! LOL!

So progress is progress, right?! Still not quite to the halfway point.  The gap in row two is starting to bother me, but it *is* a block that's giving me pause. I may whittle this bad boy down to a six blocks by six blocks quilt and call it done.  If that's the case, I'm MORE than halfway through!  Ha!

While I was in the Nook, I came across a project I'd started late in November and because I'm a squirrel chaser . . . well, need I say more?  Heh.  Anyway, I decided I wanted to finish it up and get it to guild for show 'n tell next meeting.  

It really doesn't need much. I need to stitch the vines, then add the leaves, and then quilt it.  I'll spend my slow stitching today working on it.

After all the rain we've had in the last MONTH (!!!) I did take advantage of the sunny Saturday (brisk as it was) to take a slow stroll around the camp.  Things are starting to green up just the slightest and it makes me happy to see it.

The trees always make me smile.  This one in the center is just the perfect cone shape!  Enjoy!

Linking up today with Kathy's Quilts.  Have a super Sunday!

:)