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!!

:)

touching base . . .

Greetings!  Just checking in real briefly to update my shoulder progress . . .

Which, all things considered, is going extremely well!  I'm very pleased, as are my PT gurus and my doc. What I need to be careful of is not getting ahead of myself; I feel so good I want to do things it's not time to do yet. Yikes! 

And to say Happy National Quilting Day! I'm totally bummed that I'm not ready to do any quilting (or stitching of any kind, for that matter--typing is exhausting enough), but when I googled "national quilting day", I came upon a link to National Day Calendar and wanted to note here what it said about this {ahem} auspicious and important holiday:

National Quilting Day is observed annually on the third Saturday in March. It is a day that is celebrated around the country with special quilting shows, classes, open museums and much more. This is a day to appreciate and to recognize quilt makers, along with all of their long labor, love and skill that goes into the making of each quilt.

A quilt is a layer of batting or stuffing between two layers of pieced together fabric. Early American quilts were the result of patched together pieces of worn out blankets and clothing. Since they had to weave their own fabrics, there was little time for creative piecing together of colorful, artful patterns. These items were purely functional.

By the mid 18th century Americans were making elaborate quilts designed to be handed down from mother to daughter, often pieced together from salvaged pieces of clothing and other bedding.

HOW TO OBSERVE

Buy a homemade quilt or make one yourself. Use #NationalQuiltingDay to post on social media.

HISTORY

At the 22nd annual show of the National Quilting Association in Lincoln, Nebraska in June of 1991, a resolution was passed and National Quilting Day was started.

Did you read what I read?!?  I feel like I just got permission to BUY. A. QUILT.  A homemade one, at that! :)

I probably will NOT go that far to celebrate, but I have purchased some sweet embroidery patterns and a darling wool sampler pattern during my recovery.  

Let those who can stitch, stitch stuff.  And those who can't, buy stitching stuff.  I'd better recover soon!

Enjoy the day ... stitch a little something and think of meeeee!!  In the meantime, I'll have a spot of tea and stick to something I *can* do . . . 

:)

bunnies and wattles . . .

This past week was rather topsy-turvy.  Todd's dad had heart surgery on Friday and there were a lot of pre-surgery appointments leading up to that and of course, Friday was spent in the cardiac waiting room.  His surgery went well but he's still in ICU for the time being.  Needless to say, there was a LOT of waiting time during which I stitched.  And stitched and stitched and stitched!  (Except for the fifteen minutes I spent on my knees, picking up tiny yellow seed beads off the floor of my car. UGH!)

So, the two projects I started on Monday, filled my entire week . . .

And the nice thing about that is, I have two finishes!

"Wattle" stitchery.

Bunny Candle Mat. I'm not sure which I like most!  But I do know I will probably (most certainly) make two more Bunny Mats before Easter, if you get my drift!

I got the loveliest package in the mail yesterday, too . . . 

Is that fun, or what??!  It was the perfect *happy* on National Quilting Day!  It's a 'follow-up' to Jean's first package!  Does she know me?!  Haha!!

That fabric made me SMILE!  And it also -- along with two yards of Kona black I purchased for the Pineapple Quilt -- increased my stash!

It's starting to creep out of control!  I need to have a big finish here soon!

I printed out my Irish Blessing last night and will do some stitching on that, between church and the hospital. Linking up to Patchwork Times and Kathy's Quilts: Slow Sunday Stitching.  Have a happy Sunday!

:)

a successful national quilting day celebration . . .

What a fun weekend!!  Our guild's pancake breakfast fundraiser and the scavenger hunt that followed were both huge successes.  I had a BLAST!  Mostly because I was part of a great team . . .

We were "The Bloomers".  We didn't win (though we were close) but we had a lot of fun and collected all our clues! We drove close to two hundred miles. Yikes! One of our tasks was to grab a picture of the shop with the most thread on display . . . 

I was so tickled that I could take a panographic shot!  It really was a LOT of thread!

We also did lots and *lots* of great shopping.  I tried to purchase a little something from every shop:

I tried and succeeded!  LOL!!  Lots of fun things. Several were freebies. I picked up the specialty thread I needed for an upcoming swap. We also got some nice freebies. The SEW embellished! book caught my eye right away and felt like a needful thing. (Haha!) Notice what's not there??  

Not a single bit of fabric.  Not even a fat quarter!!  LOL!!  Consequently, my stash report has a little movement on the outflow and none on the inflow:

Used/donated this week: 1.5 yards

Used/donated year-to-date: 12.0 yards

Purchased/added this week: 0.0 yards

Purchased/added year-to-date: 37.0 yards

Net used/donated for 2013: -25.0 yards

I was actually pretty impressed that I managed to shop for five hours ... in fabric stores ... and not purchase the first yard. I truly just didn't see anything that "called" me. Lots of pretty stuff, though, trust me! 

I did get these fun Kanzashi flower makers ... there are several different templates available and I got three of them.  I tried my hand at a couple of flowers Saturday night . . .

Are they darling?  And they took no time at all.  I see matchy-matchy dresses and flowers for barrettes or headbands.  That's what I see!

Sunday I enjoyed the lovely, lovely weather ... I took some fun shots of the camp, too . . .

Everything's starting to bloom out ... and even the fishes were out, finally!  And they were hungry, too.  Wish I'd had Sawyer with me.  He'll make a good fish-feeder, I have no doubt!!

And since it was quiet, I had the afternoon/evening to finish up my Crazy Quilting course!  Whoohoo!!!

I'm so happy to have successfully completed the class -- and to have such a pretty set of stitching tools, to boot!  Now I'm itching to create my first solo block, which will definitely be tea-themed.

Nothing really on the design wall per se.  I've got Joc's wedding quilt to work on, still, as well as the pineapple center to put together (for this month's "get 'er done") and I've got this month's doll swap quilt to work on.  I've got the overall design/theme . . . 

I am just trying to decide which way I want to go with the Irish chains!  Any thoughts?  I posted the two pics on facebook and have had some great feedback!  I'm really wishy-washy on this one.  I guess because it's not for me?  

Linking up today's post to Stash Report #11 and Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times and to Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts!

I've got a lot of ministry / Camp MACOBA catch-up to do this week.  So that's on my calendar and will keep me from stitching today and tomorrow, probably.  But last week's time with family was *totally* worth it!  And we had a glorious weekend for our campers -- and our D-Now girls came in and did a FABULOUS job in their service project!  So even though it's raining and grey today, the camp looks *super*!  Have a great week, y'all!

:)

wasn't it just monday?

Gracious ... how time flies when you're having fun!  Mom and dad headed back for Maryland this morning -- we had a great visit and I hope you'll indulge me as I share a little lot!

I'll start out with my 'crafty' things.  I found a new blog (that's in Malaysian, but what's a foreign language between crafty people -- especially when there's google translate?!) called Diari Ann.  She had instructions for a darling ribbon flower that I wanted to try and copy . . .

I didn't read all of the instructions until too late (which is typical of me), but I loved how it turned out in spite of myself!  I see lots of uses for these ... little girl barrettes and head band embellishments, for starters!

I also finished up the "C" stitchery for the little mug rug for my mom . . .

She was tickled with it and it made me happy to make her a little happy!

I also gave both my mom and dad their Christmas presents (don't ask), which included these fun Christmas tree napkins I'd made . . .

I'm going to make a bunch of these for the coming Christmas, I think.  They're easy and look so pretty!

And in this week's mail was a happy, too.  I'd won a Connecting Threads gift certificate from Doniene, over at Now It's Just Quilts . . . 

And finally decided to but some crib batting with it, for June's quilt!  It was actually a nice blessing -- I needed batting for her quilt ... I've got some, but I hated to chop up a full-sized batting panel (which I hope to use for a different quilt) to get the crib-sized, but I really need to finish June's quilt up!  (Sheesh, right?!)

It arrived in the mail yesterday -- speedy service.  Thank you, sweet Doniene!

And of course, the week was a family-filled, action-packed, on-the-go adventure! I took Sawyer out on Tuesday (which was his birthday) to pick up some rain boots. We went to Tractor Supply.  

He was so excited to find boots his size!  According to Kim, it's been particularly difficult to get them off of him.  I think on Tuesday, he actually wore them to bed for his nap!  Now that's a gratifying gift to give! 

He also tried on this cowboy hat (which was WAY oversized):  

He put that hat on his heat and let out a very LOUD, "YEEHAW!"  Of course he's such a charmer that everyone in the store thought it was cute ... including his Neesey!

Wednesday night we had a big fish fry up at the camp.  Unfortunately it was quite cold, but that didn't stop us from having fun!

James had my mom and dad pose "American Gothic" style - 2.0 camp version. They're such good sports!

And really quite happier people than you'd surmise from the first picture!

Time to eat!

I love how Kim was "hands-free" wearing June ... who seemed quite warm and snuggly and content to watch the party from her 'papoose'.  She eventually conked out, right where she was!

I asked everyone to lean in and give me the ol' "Cheese!"

If you look closely, you can see that even Ellie -- down there on the left (middle) leaned her little self in.  She was quite taken with the fish and kept a filet in her little fist for most of the night, nibbling on it at will.

Evidently she kept a little in both cheeks, too.

According to Sawyer, when you're the 'cool breeze', you wear your shades regardless of the time of day.

Haha! (Notice his footwear.)

Did you see the fancy place mats we were using?  Here's a close up:

Aren't they darling?  My mom and dad brought them for me!  Such fun -- perfect for up at the camp!!!  

And finally . . . we spend a lot of time as a group, parked in Joc's home.  

As you can imagine, Leia wanted to be in the midst ... but managed to stay out of harm's reach (for the most part)! Linking her up to the Feline Friday party over at Sarah Did It!

We have two big groups coming into the camp this weekend -- in fact, this weekend pretty much kicks off a run of weekend events up at Camp MACOBA for the next couple of months!  Spring has sprung!

Plus ... tomorrow is National Quilting Day!!!  

How are you going to celebrate?  I plan on eating/serving  pancakes at Applebee's tomorrow morning (an event our guild is hosting) and then heading out for another guild event -- a quilting scavenger hunt!  I *might* even get a little quilting in.  Who knows?!  

TTFN and TGIF!

:)