WIPs With Friends

Well, my weekend was not full of sewing.

It was full of canning.

This bin of apples plus more came off of our one apple tree!

We pulled out our sauce maker and tried that for the applesauce and it worked GREAT!

All in all we canned 24 quarts of applesauce!!!

I had made some chili that turned out way too hot for us.

So I got out the pressure canner and canned that for our daughter.

Nothing is ever hot enough for her!

Next on my agenda was to make Sun Pickles.  

My husband's cousin's wife made them and they were excellent! 

 Nice and dilly and crunchy!  

They sit in the sun for 3-5 days then go in the fridge.  I'll let you know how they turn out.

I got the hubby off to Canada for another week and 

decided that I wanted to start on a baby quilt while he is away.  

Additionally, I would like to finish his fish quilt too, but after this baby quilt.

The boys were "helping" me.  

When they romp through my stuff things go flying!

I snapped this pic in a resting moment of wrestling.

Here are some of the blocks for the quilt top.  

There are 15 pieced blocks made up of two of these units and two other units.  

I got all of the units finished.  

I'm hoping to get them assembled into blocks tonight.

Eventually the boys crashed and found a place to sleep.  

Finn just drops where he can. 

 He had one of the pieces underneath him so I had to fish that out.  

Cole, ever the good boy, knows I like him to lay on the quilt put on my table for this purpose.  

What are you working on?

Please link up.

I'm linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts.

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

Folksy Fish Finish

I've been sitting on this finish until the quilt had been received and then life intervened.  

My daughter has a good friend that had a baby.  

I have adored the pattern Folksy Fish ever since I saw it.  

If you *need* the pattern you can find it here.

They decided to decorate in a fish theme.  

PERFECT!!  

Now I could make this pattern. 

 I collected up the stuff and began working on it. It was a really hard pattern for me!!  

All of the fish were paper pieced but I was not understanding how to assemble them.  

 I also decided to improv some "water" and that took me much longer than I anticipated too.  

Good think I started early!

On to the quilt

  I call it Too Cool For The School.

Good thing I love this girl!

This fish represents baby Jack.

Kathy at Thread Bear quilting did the quilting

 I asked for wavy lines, seaweed and bubbles.  I love how it turned out!

This fish was the most labor intensive.  Those white lines were all paper pieced.

Once I finished the fish paper piecing they had to be sewn into the background in a curve.

Wooo, lots of new stuff to learn!

I could not resist making one "cat fish".

You can really see the seaweed and bubbles in this section.

When we were in Florida in the spring I found the perfect backing fabric too.

I snuck in some little animals too.  

Also the word "fly" (dad is a fisherman) and "love".

Here is baby Jack on his new fish quilt.

I did hand embroider the label.

The new little family.

Even the doggie got in on the action.

It makes my heart so happy when I gift something that was so much work and is so appreciated!

The mama, messaged me right away to let me know how thrilled they were with it!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Up Friday.

Speaking of Friday, have a good weekend everyone!

It's good to be back!

~XOP~

OBX Continued

The next trip was to Jockey's Ridge.  

It is a state park and there are multiple sand dunes there.  

 This was the lead up to the ridge.

These were the dunes.  

Thank goodness the day was overcast or the sand would have burnt our feet!

Such a great view once we were up on top of the ridges

The people walking on top of one of the ridges reminded me of what 

I think it would look like in Egypt.  

You can see father and daughter sitting on the ridge, in the distance.

We took a photo of the three of us on ridge too.

I thought this pinecone was amazing with all of the colors.

Next up was Kitty Hawk and the Wright Borther's Memorial. 

 This rock was the starting point for their flights and many famous aviators 

have touched this exact rock 

(Including my husband). 

 Both of the Wright brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and Chuck Yeager to name a few.

These stones represent the first 4 flights of the Wright brothers.  

The first of which lasted only 12 seconds!

This is looking the other direction to Kill Devil Hill. 

This is the hill the Wright brothers took their glider up to work on it's flight.  

That hill is NO JOKE, I thought I would die before I got to the top!

I can NOT imagine walking up that hill carrying a gigantic glider like the brothers had to. 

 Makes me sweat just thinking about it, LOL.  

This is the road leading up to the hill and the monument.

This was the back side of the monument.  It was super impressive!

You can see this is the path we walked to get up to the monument.

While standing taking the photo of the path, 

I turned around toward the monument and this is what it looks like on this side.

We headed back to the camper after that and let the boys outside to play in their tent.

I thought you might like seeing them play in the tent too.

 Then when we came inside they were lounging about on the table and the bench.  

It was difficult to see Cole in the photo above as he is so dark and blends into the shadows.

Lazy boy Finn.  He thinks he owns the camper!

This is our daughter and her boyfriend and their dog, Max on the beach.

She took this of me when I was not paying attention.  

Beach finds.  Hubby found the one on the right and I found the one on the left.  

My daughter and I found the Mermaid Purses.

Hubby and I walked over to the other side of the road to watch the sunset one night.

The next day we got up to watch the sunrise together.

Last day on the beach before heading home.  It was a wonderful time!

So now you will have to endure some more traveling kitten photos.

Funny story.  We stopped for gas and I got out to use the bathroom while hubby pumped the gas.  

A few minutes later he was in the store at the gas station and was asking me if I had the keys.  

Well, no, why would I have the keys?  

We walked back to the truck only to find a 

certain 2 somebodies standing on the arm of the door, and we were locked out!!! 

 Luckily, the gas station let us use their phone and we have On-Star so they were able to unlock the truck and we were on our way in a matter of minutes.  

Thanks On-Star!

Finn thought his shoulder would be a good vantage point

I hope you have enjoyed our trip to the OBX.  You may consider going there sometime.  

Off season was great, just listen for hurricanes prior to traveling in the fall!

~XOP~