starting july off right . . .

We enjoyed a terrific long Independence Day weekend! On Thursday, we had 'staff enrichment', which means we went to lunch together at a nice restaurant and then went home afterwards. Hip, hip! On Friday, Todd and I did our usual boating trip where he fished and I mostly read. I never get tired of the scenery!

On Saturday, we hit the lake again, this time with the Merkel crew.  

 

We spent the day swimming and splashing (and eating), and then we headed towards the shoreline at dark to watch fireworks.  It was fabulous!  

All the big shows had coronacancelled, but there were enough private fireworks being set off that we had a 360-degree viewing field! 

Early on Sunday morning, Joc, Ellie, Evey and I loaded up in the car for the five and a half hour trip to Indiana, for a baby shower for my nephew's wife (they live in Alaska, but her family is in Indiana).

It was a fun trip with the "big girls" and I got to see my sister (from Virginia) and both of her daughters (and her oldest daughter came with her husband and family, and I got to see her youngest for the first time). 

It was a sort of mini reunion!

On Monday, before hitting the road seriously, Joc saw an underground river tour she thought would be fun, so we detoured over to Bluespring Caverns. It was amazing! It's the longest stretch of underground river in the United States.  The cavern (cave) is a balmy 54° (air and water), year around, which made it a lovely stop on a 90° day!

The girls mined for gems and fossils and that was fun, too!

I didn't get a lick of stitching done in the last week, but I *did* finish up the 2018-19 HQH mystery quilt a couple of weeks ago!

Really pleased with the quilting on this, which was done by my longarmer friend, Melissa.  She does such beautiful work!

My sweet little helpers enhance the look, too!

I hope y'all are all doing well and staying safe and healthy! 

:)

this, that, and some more . . .

The calendar has been full, full, full, but I've still been managing to daily get at least (at least) 15 minutes of time towards some aspect of stitching.  It makes me so happy to be able to do this!  I did manage to finish my bee quilt in time for the guild's "parade of mystery quilts" . . .

Not great pics, but I'm so in love with this layout ... it's very pleasing to my eye.  I'll use this again, soon.

We had a great wrap-up of our mug rug swap, too . . . 

It was fun to end the guild year on a high note!

I've spent a lot of time with the girls, too. They started school last week (homeschool on Monday and Classical Conversations--their weekly trek--on Tuesday):

Two weekends ago I stayed with them Saturday and Sunday, and Evey, Ellie and I made clothes for Piglet and Owl.

Edith got a woobie.  Or as she refers to it, a tendu.  Yes.  When she got it, she exclaimed, "Mom!  Neesey made me a tendu!"  LOL!  Love these girlies!

The California crew headed back to school and Kim sent me first day pics . . .

All three are in the same school this year -- can you believe that Olivia is in Kindergarten?!  They're loving their new school!

This past weekend was spent at a friend's mom's house on the lake.  It's her birthday weekend and her mom opens up her house for a mini-retreat.  What a blessing!  

As per my usual optimum retreat experience package, I just brought handwork. I finished up block one of Barbara Brackman's Hospital Sketches, from Civil War Quilts blog, which I'm doing scaled waaay down and in wool . . .

I'm so in love with this!  I forgot to bring the templates I'd painstakingly printed, so I had to settle for finishing the one and moving onto something else.  I finished up one of last year's Attic Heirloom ornaments . . .

And prepped two hexie oven mitts/mug rugs . . .

Aren't these fun?  Easy to prep ... not much to the stitching, either.  I'll finish them up sometime this week and share later.

We also to a field trip into town on Saturday and hit Wilson's Fabric.  

I found some fun things--a LOT of purple! (Including another pair of embroidery scissors which I forgot to take a picture of.)  From there we went to lunch . . .

It was a very fun group of ladies and it was a lovely, laughter-filled, productive weekend.

And now let's conquer Monday!

:)

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!

:)

getting stitchy . . .

Last week was a lovely, stitchy week!  On Sunday I remembered the sets of embroidery stencils I got while my shoulder was out of service for National Quilting Day (see that post here).  I pulled them all out and picked one that looked like fun to stitch . . .

I worked on it Sunday and finished it up on Tuesday. Todd and I drove six hours, round trip, for a work conference.  Well, he drove and I stitched!

I adore how this turned out!  I will finish it up this week and gift it later.  :)

I didn't skip Monday ... I road-tripped!  With a couple of my quilty friends up to Chattanooga for a tea and quilt shop hop.

We visited Polly Claire's (a first for all of us) and had a lovely time!

I spent more than I should have, probably, but the fabric ... it calls to me!  What I'm really glad of is that I'm not keeping up with my stash this year.  I'm considering it all slush fund for retirement. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!

Wednesday evening I worked in EQ, laying out the design for our mystery quilt, with my chosen fabrics plugged in.  This is what I settled on for the final design for my prints:

Thursday evening I prepped and ironed a roll of binding to get ready to stitch it on Friday morning.

This is a "keep it secret, keep it safe" project.  So this is the only picture I can share . . .

My fabulous clover clips on where I've already hand-stitched the binding down on the boat on Friday!

Saturday I spent some time restoring order (again) to my work space in the Nook, and also started working the components for the blocks that will make up the mystery quilt (which, by the way, is no longer a mystery).  

And Sunday afternoon I continued to work on that and get bits and pieces plotted out to construct the blocks.  I put the two together . . . 

It's due August 15, so I should have no problem getting it together!

Last night I also finished up a Holly Jolly Topper (it was my Friday/boat project a week ago) by stitching the elements together . . .

If that's not the image of Christmas in July, I don't know what is! I love this topper....it's the favorite of my own designs.  But stitching for Christmas now has me itching to stitch up a pumpkin or two (or twenty-three)!!!

I worked really hard to make sure I spent at *least* fifteen minutes each day working on something quilting related. Mission accomplished!  I wonder what this week will hold?!  

:)