Progress in My Quilt World

I went to my Wednesday night quilt group last night.  I was sitting on the fence about what to bring.  I finished my kitty mini quilt.  I finished the wedding label embroidery. Decisions, decisions.  

I opted to bring another chenille blanket to baste, some fabric to cut into 6.5" squares for another left over triangle pieced quilt top and Fox Face to get all the basting done.

I am happy to report I basted the chenille blanket. 

 I got TWO of the sets of the 6.5" square quilts cut out.  

I also got Fox Face basted and ready to quilt!!  

I used all the pins I have which makes me realize I need to pick up some more.

I may begin the chenille blanket tonight. 

 I am hoping to get the next wedding quilt cut out on the weekend.  

I will be going with my daughter to do some wedding cake testing on Saturday, but am hoping to cut out the wedding quilt on the weekend.  

Trying to push through some of the UFO's at the same time as making some new ones.

Wish me luck!

~XOP~

My Weekend

My weekend was full.  

Full of happy mail and time spent with an old friend. 

 Full of laundry and cleaning cat boxes.  

Full of spending time with my hubby and hanging out in my sewing room. 

 How about you?  Was your weekend full?

First up happy mail.  I have the BEST friends!  

My friend, Vicky sent me this adorable stationary and post it note package.

My friend Judy in Michigan sent me one long strip of the 1.5" wide pieces that I plan on using for my gigantic strip quilt.  

You can see what she did and if anyone else is interested in helping me out, I would be thrilled!  

It introduces variety into my quilt that I don't get from using just my own pieces.

Thanks Judy!!!

I also won a giveaway on Instagram and got some Aurifil thread.  SWEET!!!

I am in a Kitten mini quilt swap and 

I had to work furiously on getting my mini quilt put together and quilted. 

 I am not sure my partner reads my blog but just in case, I can't show it here.

  I was pretty proud of the adorable cat face I quilted into the negative space though.

I have picked up a few things for "extras" and one of my favorite things is this orange kitty cookie.

I also had some help with all the quilting. 

 This is the view from me looking over the top of my machine.

And my view as I was trying to sew.  I keep having to push her out the backside!

Apparently I forgot to mention my weekend was also full of a CAT!

I did manage to get my entire swap quilt all quilted.  

Next up is to trim and bind it.  

Then on to making an extra to send with it (a requirement). 

 I am trying to decide between a pincushion or a pouch.

  I finally found a pouch pattern that looks like I could make it so I may have to go for it. 

Stay tuned to see if I attempt it!  

~XOP~

Introducing Polka Dot Playground With A Giveaway

I am happy to let you all know that I have a quilt in the April/May 2016 issue of
McCalls Quick Quilt magazine this month!

Subscription issues began shipping February 9, 2016. By March 1, 2016, the issue will be available on newsstands, as well as in print or digital download format at QuiltandSewShop.com at the following link here if you would like to purchase it.

This is my quilt.  

It's called Polka Dot Playground.  

You can find the Issue here if you want to preview it.

If you are interested in my quilt specifically you can check it out over here on the McCalls page.

I have 2 issues of McCalls Quick Quilts to giveaway (provided by McCalls).

In addition the Fat Quarter Shop has provided me 2 copies of Cozy Cottage Calendar to give away!

The FQS is such a generous sponsor!

If you are interested in winning a either thing, pop over to this link 

and leave me a comment.

Then come back here and tell me that you did.

For a second chance tell me what YOU are working on!

Please be certain that I can contact you via email.

If you are no-reply, leave your email in your comment.

That's it!

I am so excited to be able to share this new quilt with you all!

I will link up with Finish It Friday at Crazy Mom quilts too.

Have a wonderful weekend!!

~XOP~

The Long Road Home

After we left Florida, we traveled on to Tennessee.  

We spent the night at a hotel that had a great view.  

Fortuitously, it was on the front side of the I75 road closure.  

We found that I-75 was closed due to a rock slide.  

It had to be pretty major as it closed BOTH sides of the highway!

The road closure necessitated a detour, that ended up being the best part of the road trip!

The scenery was just fantastic!  It took us longer but it was worth it.

Following a river and VERY twisty roads. 

 Poor hubby couldn't see as much as I could as he was trying to remain on the road.  

Some of the photos are not the best as they were while we were moving and 

also through the car window, but you get the idea.

Look at the color of this river!

I couldn't get a good photo of the BIG rock faces and this was a smaller one, but you can see that the road was literally carved out of this mountain.

So pretty as the sun peeked around the mountains over the river.

We had determined to stop at Jungle Jims. 

 I can't even begin to tell you what this place is like.  

Imagine your largest grocery store and at least triple it!  

It is HUGE.  

There are two and they are in Cincinnati.  

Just check out their website and you will see what I mean.  

I was totally fascinated by these ginormous shrimp!  

They were as thick as my forearm!!! 

 And next to them are sea urchins.  

After spending a couple of hours in here we traveled to Wayensville Ohio to go to the Fabric Shack.

If you are there you should stop in this town.

In addition to the fabric shop there were lots of antique shops.

This is the stack of fabrics I bought there.

I could have done sooooooo much more damage though.

One of the antique shops that reclaims old building parts and such had this great thread chest.  

I would have loved to have taken this baby home with me.  

The part about stopping in the town was seeing this Singer Featherweight #68 cabinet in person!

This is a very rare cabinet built to house Featherweight machines.

They are very scarce and command an extremely high price.  This one was no exception.

It has a lift mechanism inside of it and the oval you see to the left in the photo goes over the top to make the whole thing into a table.  

Beautiful.

This website has a little history on the cabinet if you are interested.

This website has plans/kits to build your own.

So this concludes our trip.  

I hope you have enjoyed our travels and will stop back once I'm posting about my regular life again.

Have a great weekend!!

~XOP~

The Vacation Continues

After I met my friend Nicole, we ended up going to visit an orange grove! 

 Mixon's Orange Grove.  

I was on a quest for some Honey Bell oranges 

(and you would be too if you tried them!)

They had this hilarious wind bottle holder there. 

 I might need to search this out on the internet for my daughter.  

We drove to Anna Maria Island for lunch at City Pier.  

This was the view from our table.  

There were people sitting at that table so we got seated where we were and then the table opened up.  Figures right?

I ordered a Caeser salad with shrimp and it was amazing!

Our waitress was kind enough to take our picture.  

Don't I have a handsome date??

As you can see by the sweatshirt and the fleece, it was not particularly warm!  

Sunny and beautiful, but not too warm.

A wonderful bird is a Pelican

His beak can hold more than his bellican!

Beautiful view of City Pier

The last day, Friday, we went to Coquina beach. 

 It was around 60 and VERY windy!  

We had sweatshirts and long pants on!!

It sure was beautiful though.

An underrated beach for sure.

Loads of shells in certain spots on this beach. 

Found some of the Coquina shells that this beach is famous for too.

Love the lifeguard stands

Bye-bye Florida.  We leave for Michigan tomorrow (Saturday).

The next post will have the tail end of our vacation.  

We spent the night in Tennessee and traveled from from there on Sunday.

~XOP~

WIP Wednesday

I have not had any time for the past 2 weeks or so to have many WIP's to talk about.  

I did manage to trace the label for the next wedding quilt onto the fabric.  

I thought I would have time to work on it while we were in Florida.  

I chose to read a book instead.  

(Outlander, so who can blame me?)

Actually, once I begin a book that I like I have exactly ZERO self control to do anything else until that book is finished.

Here is the progress I actually did make on this though.

I know it is difficult to tell but the thread is a very dark green.  

The quilt will be greens and grays with a little Kona Snow thrown in.

For some reason I am having some difficulty getting into a new project.  

Maybe because I still need to get all the travel things put away, or do the copious amounts of laundry from the trip, or clean up my messy room, or get the tax stuff together or snuggle the cats.  

Maybe I'm completely exhausted from getting up so early again after vacation. 

 Whatever it is, I need to get over it and get back to my sewing.

I was supposed to get some business stuff done for a friend and that has not been done yet either 

(sorry Kim)

I'm hoping that maybe this weekend, I will have that burst of energy and get back into making again.  I have no shortage of things to do that's for sure!

I will link up with Let's Bee Social and WIP Wednesday.

Enjoy your day!

~XOP~

Continuing The Vacation

This next part of the vacation is a little more vacation oriented (but there is also some quilty stuff).

First up was hubby and his fishing obsession.  He caught this bass in the pond behind his dad's place.

It is a little difficult to actually see but if you look at the center tree, you can see the head of a crane.  They have made a nest in the top of the tree!  

We went to Venice beach for our first beach trip on Monday and the water was so pretty. 

 LOTS of people at the beach and it was by far the warmest of the days we were there.

After the beach we headed to the Daquri Deck for a frozen adult beverage and snacks.  

I had a wonderful handsome date too!

I had the pleasure of stopping at the Cotton Patch which is near my In-Laws place.  

It is the cutest little shop.  Very friendly and they have an adorable Bassett Hound named Fred!

Isn't this adorable?

Here is what I bought from The Cotton Patch.

One day there was a lot of rain and tornados. 

We set out to go to St Armand's Circle but due to the tornados, we scrapped that plan.

  We headed to Der Dutchman to eat lunch.  It was so good!  

Then we stopped at Alma Sue's quilt shop.  

Such an adorable shop complete with little Amish ladies hand quilting!  

You can see them on the right.

Hubby found this fish quilt that he thinks he wants me to make.  

I bought the pattern and a few "fishy" looking fabrics.  Into the que it goes!

Then we went to a shop called It's Sew Worth It.  They had a few more things for the fishy quilt.  

If you are into Batiks this place had a great selection.  

I can see these turning into fish.

 They did have some more modern fabrics. I found this Fox Field charm pack there.  

 I got to meet a friend from Instagram, Nicole.  

We met up at Panera and spent two hours gabbing and gabbing. 

 She is running an It's a Small World Quilt Along on IG and swims every morning at Siesta Key.  

We had fun talking and hubby was such a good sport!

More to come...

~XOP~