happy 2020 . . .

Happy New Year!  I have so much to share since I posted last, which was before Christmas; the day after which I hopped on a plane heading to the sunny west coast to visit my son and his family!  It was a marvelous trip, though it passed way too quickly. I so enjoyed spending time with these three:

Baaahaaahaaa!!  No, no ... not those three, THESE three . . .

My California Crew!! ♥ ♥ ♥

I also got some sight-seeing in . . .

Yup.  James moved within a ten mile radius of BOTH the Temecula Quilt Co. *and* Primitive Gatherings!  Whoop!  I share more on those (and my purchases) in a later post. ;)

June and Olivia both came away from that trip with some fabric and wanted to do things with it, so I also got in some slow stitching . . .

The girls and I shared the work on their respective projects, but they both did planning, cutting, and stitching!  They were so proud of their finished pieces!  ♥

Just about the only thing that made leaving those three behind the slightest bit tolerable, was being able to spend some time with these two, seeing Little Women yesterday afternoon . . .

Did anyone else go to see it over the holiday?  We *loved* it!  I pretty much held back sobs off and on through the whole thing.  LOL!  :)

I do have some Slow Sunday Stitching I'm working on (still) . . .

It's slow snow progress, but it's progress!  Oh, and it's fun to get away and visit, but it's lovely to come home, too!

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.  Happy (sunny, for a change) Sunday!!

:)

a weekend of quiltiness . . .

What a lovely weekend!  It was filled with a lot of quiltiness. For one thing, I've been very diligent about getting in at least fifteen minutes of  'quilting' in each day.  Whether it's hand-work or sewing or shopping or designing or organizing in the Nook ... I've been very successful in hitting my goal and actually exceeding it on most days, which is very exciting to me!

Thursday kicks off my weekend (we work four, ten-hour days), and Thursday evening I did a little more embroidery sketching and then spent some grand time with the girls!

This little chica has such big personality! She wore four or five different costumes before it was bedtime!

Friday, we spent on the boat. Todd fished (and fished well, I might add) . . . 

While I stitched (and read and swam and napped) . . . 

I've made four or five of these sweet little hexie mug rugs over the last several years, and gifted them all away. This one is for me!

The top is finished and ready to trim and assemble for quilting.  Yay!

We finished Friday with a gorgeous sunset . . .

Gosh, what a beautiful way to end the day!

Saturday was filled with quiltiness from beginning to end. My collaboration partner and I were one of the teams drawn at July's guild meeting to participate in a shop hop!

It was a great group of ladies . . . there were fifteen in all. And we did shop 'til we dropped! Five stores participated and treated us grandly with goody bags and fabulous discounts! In turn, I did my part by spending a little something in each of the shops we stopped in . . .

A pretty decent little haul! My fave find (well, gadget-wise, anyway) was the cute little "lipstick."

Isn't that COOL???!  The fun thing about shopping with a group of quilters is that you enable each other.  We may have bought out the entire of their inventory on this one.  LOL!

I took this shot for posterity.  These are my COLORS!!  ♥  If there's family fabric shopping for me, this is a good start.  Hahaha!

Sunday was a quilty-guildy (quuildy?) day, too.  We had our final board meeting for the 2018-19 year; our guild year ends with the August meeting.  The short board meeting was followed by the transition meeting ... where the outgoing board members met with the incoming board members taking over their respective positions, and handed over responsibilities.  Then we had a potluck dinner, provided by the outgoing board members, and then the new board had its first meeting of the new year!  Let's just say I didn't stick around after dinner.  I'll still be helping ... it'll just be behind the scenes. And I won't have to go to board meetings.  ;)

Anyway, I got home early enough that I could put in some Nook time and worked on my mystery quilt (which is due Thursday).  Have I ever mentioned I put the "pro" in "procrastinator"?

Rows 1-3 are completed and stitched together.  Row 4 is in blocks, which need to be stitched together and added to rows 1-3.  And row 5 has all the components ready to be stitched into blocks.  Then two simple borders need to be added.  It's pretty straightforward and I'm confident it will be ready in time.  Uh-oh ... or maybe not . . . looking at this picture I just realized there are two three "oopsies" in the first row.  Yikes!  Now I'm very confident I'll get in my daily 15 minutes every day this week!

:)

may day, may day . . .

It's been a very busy Spring! I looked up and realized if I didn't post something here, May would go by (along with the bottom two-thirds of April) without a word from me. Heaven forbid!!  ;)

Our guild strives to be active in community-oriented events.  One of those events is Panoply, an annual arts festival held in downtown Huntsville's Big Spring Park.

This year at our booth, we went interactive! We had hexies prepped and ready to baste to engage passersby!  

Over the course of Saturday and Sunday, over 200 people, adults and kids alike, basted up a hexie!

We'll whip the hexies together (after allowing members of our guild to participate) and it will become the #HEXIEquiltthatHSVbuilt! Go Team Hexie!

I also found a new-to-me LQS -- Hook & Bobin.  Cute little place ... this fabric *immediately* caught my eyes . . .

Isn't it marvelous??!!  Cat-finity!  Tah-dah! At this point I have absolutely no idea what I'll do with it, but I don't mind waiting until it speaks to me. Sometime in the summer of 2011, I fell head-over-heals in love with Moda's "Dragonfly Summer" line.  Bought yardage in several of the fabrics and a layer cake.  Once again I had absolutely NO idea what I was going to do with it all.  In fact, it's still sitting in my stash, nearly eight years later!  But it finally did speak to me . . .

This will be a picnic quilt -- 80" X 90" -- for Joc and her family. Whew! It's a very simple design, but I think it works for a big utility quilt.  Anyway, maybe I'll have something figured out for the cat fabric by 2025?

The older two local grandgirls had their end of the year ballet recitals!  They both did so well!

This was Evey's first year and she was the epitome of grace!  Edith wanted in on the picture, of course.  She's already gung-ho to start ballet and dances with her older sisters every chance she can!  

Joc and her crew were at the beach for Mother's Day, so we celebrated this past Friday.  Jocelyn set a lovely table and prepared a feast for our "Ladies' Lunch"!

Delectable, non?!  Everything was so pretty and tasted so yummy!  It was a fun treat. After lunch, they spoiled me with presents!

A little bit of something representing all my favorite things!  A book on tea that doubles as a tea diary, a pretty owl spoon rest, two wooden trivets that look like they were EPP'd, and Kathy Schmitz's book, Stitches from the Garden.  I have the other two books -- Stitches from the Yuletide and Stitches from the Harvest, so it feels nice to "complete" my set!  In fact, I think Joc has gifted me with all of them!

I'll leave with a photo of the girls and me . . .

They're growing so fast . . . and more beautiful with each day!

Linking up to sarah did it! and the HeLP post!

:)

to sum it up . . .

It was a very quilty week! On Sunday and Monday, I finished up the seven hexie flowers that needed whipping together . . .

All forty-five flowers (and parts thereof) were together, stacked and ready to "landscape" my garden!

Monday was a dual purpose day . . . a quilty friend of mine and I headed to visit 3 Hens and a Chick, a local quilt shop in nearby Athens. 

Sarah's one of my co-conspirators in the Quilting Intrigue Club at guild and we've been ironing out the details for our guild's mystery quilt, which we'll introduce (fabric requirements) at this month's meeting. I actually picked out fabrics for the quilt while we were there (I've got to stay at least one step ahead):

The yardage on the right is for the mystery quilt. It's QT Fabric's Whisper (with the exception of the middle piece which was Oasis Fabric's Romance). Isn't this line yummy???!!! It's whimsical and sophisticated, all at the same time. I'm so excited to work with it! The fat quarters on the left were ... well, just fun finds (an in case you couldn't tell, I was already scoping suitable oranges for 2019's pumpkin projects)!  ;)

I mean gosh, there were a lot more shelves in the shop than the one that held the Whispers line. I had to browse shop them all!

From the quilt shop we headed into the square in Athens and stopped for lunch at the local tearoom. 

Aren't our spiced chais fun??

I had commitments after work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings; generally I wasn't getting home until after 9 p.m., so not much evening stitching until Thursday -- I don't have to get up for work on Fridays -- so when I got home Thursday, Todd put a movie in and I started working on my 'gardening'!

Friday was a kicked back day.  Todd and I went out and had an early lunch and did some shopping. I also did a little grocery shopping so we'd have 'game day' food for the SEC Championship game on Saturday.  Sausage balls and pigs in a blanket! Plus I got ready to celebrate the Advent of Christmas with the Advent teas the Merkel family had gifted me with for my birthday . . . 

A different tea for each day leading up to Christmas! I thought it would be fun to hang a week's worth of them (and prudent, so I wouldn't forget) over our coffee/tea station! Do you want to know how hard it's been to wait over a month to start trying these teas?!?  :)

Through the weekend I've worked in earnest on the Mod Flower Fall project . . .

This sheet has been SO helpful through every stage of this project. I've now whipped up ten of the sixteen rows, and stitched the first four rows together. 

I don't think ... even though I knew the dimensions from plotting it out in EQ ... that I am prepared for how BIG this is going to be. LOL!  Just these first seven rows are over 4' in length. I'm stitching up the rows individually, first.  Then I'll stitch the rows together in sections ... and then finally I'll stitch the sections together.  I think that'll make it the most manageable. 

Saturday, in between the Texas vs. Oklahoma and the Alabama vs. Georgia games (Roll Tide!), I went out into the Nook for a bit of machine sewing.  I stitched together the first pole twist valance, backed and turned it.  It still needs to be quilted, but I love this look!

It'll be fun to have it hanging over the window across from where I sit, so I can SEE it. I also did some teeny, tiny blocks for the matching mug rug.

I was channeling my inner rogue quilter for this bitty thing -- 1-1/4" HSTs!!  I've got fabric cut for the second valance, and I still need to work on the matching runner.  But I'm confident after finishing the first one that it'll all stitch together quickly!

Today's slow stitching will definitely be back at the hexie flowers ... making that garden grow! Linking up with Kathy's Quilts for that.  May your Sunday be filled with blessing and rest ... so you're ready to face Monday and a new week!!

:)

niggling projects . . .

So.  I stayed home sick on Thursday. But one can only stay in bed for so long, right? Anyway, even as cruddy as I felt, a little playing around with EPP pieces could only make me feel better, right?

So I kinda wasn't kidding. I really did play and play and play. Turtles, frogs, cheerleaders . . . they're all in there.  I mean, you can see 'em, right??  All that playing left me with a niggling idea for some orphan blocks and leftover fabric from a swap I did a couple of years ago.

So I made myself a kit.

I'm well on the way.

Because I needed a new project.  Right?

Right?!?

And even though I'm still not at 100%, I did have a lovely time with my grandgirls over the weekend. I'll share that part later -- they deserve a dedicated post!  LOL! And I didn't play a single April Fool's joke on anyone . . . except myself!  I shared this on Instagram yesterday, but it's so fitting, I thought I'd let y'all in on the laugh, too . . .

When you go into the quilt shop just to pick up a single skein of DMC floss, and you come out with all this in your bag, you know the April Fool's joke has been on you.

Linking up to Kathy's Quilts for some sloooow Sunday stitching today. Goodness knows I've got plenty of it to attend to, now!

Happy Sunday!

:)