brevity is not my strong suit . . .

This is going to be (relatively) short and sweet . . . I'm still in the wilds of Yellowstone, having a wonderful time with my daughter and her family!

I did manage to work out my next 3-yard quilt before I left. Fabric Cafe has a new pattern book out and it's BIG Block 3-Yard Quilts . . . for those quilts where you love a fabric so much, you want good chunks of it in your quilt!  

I chose this design, "Felicity" . . .

And these three fabrics . . . 

I'm sure you can work out what's going to go where!  I'll plan on working on this when I return. I got extra of the dark fabric because I like to make wider borders than they do. The finished quilt constructed by their specifications is 44" by 57", but mine will be a little bigger all around.

I also fully finished this piece . . .

So much for having it to work on during my travels! I'm really pleased with it, though, so I don't mind.  

I even love the back! It's really sweet and I'm also tempted to do a second.  I enlarged the template when I printed it, though, so I'll need to remember by how much I enlarged it!

I didn't bring my Mayflower project because it's so big, it's hard to carry around (and would definitely not be fun to work on while flying), so there's not a whole lot of change to it from last week. Besides, I caught an error that needs to be corrected before I can move on . . . so I probably won't work on it for month.  J/K!  

Sunday is a 'down' day for us . . . we've only got one walk *and* a 1.2 mile hike on our itinerary for today.  LOL!  I'll get in some slow stitching on my Spring Quaker project, hopefully!  Linking up with the slow Sunday stitching post on Kathy's Quilts!

I'll be back next week with fun pics from the trip.  Enjoy the Memorial Day holiday and have a great week ahead!!

:)

floss crossing ahead . . .

It's been a very stitch-intensive week!  I probably should've/could've been working on a 3-yard quilt, but I'm heading to Yellowstone this week and didn't want to leave a project in the making.  So instead I headed to my wool stash to kit the patriotic project I shared last week.  But I got distracted when I found this cute patriotic mini-Quaker cross stitch kit I'd ordered last year.  Squirrel!  

So I got busy.  Two days and two audio books later . . .

Yay!  It's pinned up (for now) next to this finish (another patriotic Quaker project):

I do love me some red, white & blue!

Evidently I also love small Quaker cross stitch projects, because this lovely little lavender project is also in process . . .

The Primrose Cottage designs make my heart happy!

I did finally make it to the wool stash and prepped this project to stitch on when I travel . . .

Isn't it cute??  I will really enjoy stitching on this!  

And finally, I did pull out my Coming to America project and got some significant work done on it.  

I mean, the ship is really showing up now! It's one of those I work on for five hours, and then I need to put it away for a bit.  I'm in it for the long haul (I'm using it for my Leap Year SAL 2024 to 2028 project on Facebook). 

Netflix just introduced a 35 minute documentary about a quilting prison program.  It was very good and I highly recommend it.  

I was so impressed with the work these men were doing!  Truly rehabilitating.  Worth the watch!  There was a bit of language in it, so be mindful of who's around if/when you tune in.

Finally, I'll leave you with this stylized portrait of me and the girls (and a few of my favorite things) that ChatGPT came up with for me . . .

I'd say it knows me pretty well! I know folks have mixed feelings about AI and how it could be misused, but ChatGPT has been so helpful to me over the last year. 

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts and her Slow Sunday Stitching post.

Have a great week ... me an' Old Faithful will be hanging out!

:)

all the things . . .

What an odd week . . . we had something pretty much every evening this past week, and I feel like I've been oh-so-busy. But for the life of me, I can't figure out what ate up all the hours in all of the days of the week! Okay, well that's not completely true. As I went back through photos I'd taken (which were relatively few this week), I remembered a couple of things:

The only thing I don't like about this time of year is that I leave in the dark . . .

And I come home in the dark . . .

As much as some don't like it, I'll be really glad when we switch over to daylight savings time in two weeks, so at least it's brighter in the morning!

I *do* love the fall color . . . to that end, thanks to everyone who saw THIS post and voted for me!

This is the entrance into the camp. Isn't it pretty??! Voting is open until the 24th.  Just sayin!

Evey came by to see me at work last Thursday.  We had a lovely visit right up until her mama HAD to leave to pick up Ellie at school:

Two years old and strong willed equals a good ol' face-on-the-floor tantrum.  It was loud but brief and kinda funny to watch (and since it was me she didn't want to leave, rather gratifying, as well -- just don't tell her mama I said that!).

The ENTIRE day of Friday (my off day -- our together day) was dedicated to acquiring a new car for me. The PT Cruiser (aka Princess Buttercup) is ten years old and to the point where it's starting to need things that add up to $$$.  And we had to decide if we wanted to put the $$$ into her, or into a newer vehicle. I have loved my little PT Cruiser well, but she's not well suited to camp life (because she sits SO low to ground), so after a lot of online research and a lot of trying different things out, we settled on the Ford Escape. I'm please to introduce Ms. Scarlet (with a middle name of Ariel, as a nod to Ellie) . . .

Nice, huh?  It's a 2014 with low mileage and GREAT gas mileage (which the PT Cruiser did NOT get). I'm very pleased with her! And just so you know, this is why I gave her a middle name:

Hahahaha!  Joc says it's been pretty near impossible to get Ellie out of the wig and she's had to forbid her to sleep in it!  Gotta love it!

Finally, on Saturday, I attended the Tennessee Valley Colony meeting of the Alabama Mayflower Society. I'm a member, but my folks are Maryland members. I thought it would be a fun way to introduce them to the Mayflower Society in Alabama and they would get to meet new people and visit a Huntsville attraction (Constitution Village).  

My mom has quite the ribbon of ancestors! Of course, mine would look just like that, with the addition of William White, from my dad's side!

After the tour, we all had lunch at Humphrey's just off the square in downtown Huntsville.  While we were that close, I persuaded my folks to visit Harrison Brother's Hardware which is on the square. It's the oldest hardware business in Alabama and is now run by the historical society as a gift shop.

So I had to take a selfie with my mom outside the shop while we waited for my dad to park!

Needless to say, my stash report is unchanged.

And in fact, I have done NO stitching this week, and have nothing planned for today (except homecoming at church and a trip back to Lyon Farm with the grands).  So, no slow stitching for me. Maybe next week.  Maybe not!  Anyway, linking up to Patchwork Times this morning!

I hope for you are able to enjoy a quiet, blessing-filled Sunday!

:)

a long line . . .

This was my great, great, great times a lot, grandfather. On my dad's side.

One of my cousins grabbed these two pics when she toured the old homestead, when it was up for sale a year or so ago.

I thought today was an appropriate day to show and tell! I'm one of those lucky people who's descended from Mayflower stock from both parents. My dad from William White (Peregrine's dad), and my mom from EIGHT Mayflower passengers, including Miles Standish, John Alden, Priscilla Mullins, and George Soule, to name a view. Pretty cool! Thanksgiving takes on an extra special meaning for our family.

And so, Happy Thanksgiving!!

From my home to yours!

:)

lineage & the mayflower . . . and a quilt?

Being a member of the (relatively) full-time, out-of-the-home workforce, I don't have a lot of spare time to quilt. Not nearly as much as I'd like to have! Between work and responsibilities at home, and family, and our ministry, I'm already spread about as thin as I care to be (wish that thinness would spill over into...ah, never mind). And as much as I'd like to be able to be a "hands on" quilter more frequently, the fact of the matter is, I am not. But, that doesn't mean I don't *think* about quilting on a daily basis! I do, I do!

You may remember that yesterday, was my mom's birthday. Below is the bouquet she received . . . they did do a great job! Not *exactly* like the picture, but close. And most importantly, my mom loved them! They do look like Spring, don't you think?

So, it being an important family member's birthday and all, I got to thinking about my family and my ancestors and those who made me, well, me. I just happen to have pictures of both sets of my grandparents to share . . .

This is my Grandma Willie and Pop-pop, my dad's parents. Pop drove the back end of a hook and ladder truck for the District of Columbia's fire & rescue before he retired. Then he honed a tin can craft which was wonderful. These two were camping adventurers; they had a travel trailer that they would take out west and stay for months at a time. I loved traveling and camping with them! Our family went with them to Mexico several times, and I traveled with them to the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on one trip, and to Ireland on another trip. They were wonderful, loving grandparents.

This is my Grandma and Grandpa Wadleigh, my mom's folks. Aren't they a handsome couple? Dr. Cecil H. Wadleigh worked for the Department of Agriculture and is published. They were both terribly good cooks, although when he retired from the government, he moved into the kitchen (from which she promptly retired)! I get my love of kitchen gadgets from him. They were so sweet with each other. I believe this portrait was taken around their 50th wedding anniversary. Grandma Wadleigh was a member of all kinds of things like the Daughter's of the American Revolution and The Mayflower Society and several other such groups. She was also a quilter!

Interestingly enough, from both my sets of grandparents (and both my parents, accordingly), I inherited a legacy that traces back to the Mayflower. Pop Fowler and Grandma Wadleigh both had ancestors that made that harrowing trip from England and made a life in what would become these United States of America. Pop and my dad trace their lineage back to William White, father of Peregrine White (the only baby born on the Mayflower who survived). My Grandma Wadleigh and my mom have a whole slew of folks--at least eight lines--that they can trace their lineage back through! Most notably, Priscilla Mullins, John Alden, and Miles Standish.

Both my mom & dad are very active in The Mayflower Society, and they gifted each of their four daughters with membership, as well, several years ago. I hope to be able to do the same thing for my children sometime down the road, if they're interested. And now, with a grandson due any time now, I hope to be able to share our Mayflower history with him some day, too!

Hang in there with me; I'm coming back to quilting . . .

All of that to say that someday, I'd like to take this beautiful picture of the Mayflower, from Best Scale Models.com, and do a landscape quilt from it.

Choppy seas, gulls and all . . . except not with that other ship in the background. I've dreamed of trying my hand at a landscape quilt for a while (add that to the list of all the quilts I want to try my hand). Though, this one is certainly not the place to start! I've seen online classes for landscape quilts at quiltuniversity.com. That's probably where I'll start. Anyone else out there have any experience, advice, etc., about doing a landscape quilt? For now I'd best just finish up that baby quilt!

Ships ahoy!

:)