WIPs With Friends

I don't have a lot to share about this today but I am hoping you will have more than me!

I worked on my August bee blocks last night and got them finished! 

 Put them in the mail this morning.  

One more thing to check off my to do list. 

I am linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts Let's Bee Social.

How about YOU??  What are you working on?  Share with the linky button and show us!

Let's see if we can get 10 people to link up.  

If so, I will do another giveaway!  

Some pretty great fabrics in my stash need a new home.  

Will it be yours??

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

The Great American Solar Eclipse 2017

Yes, even those of us in MI suffered from eclipse mania yesterday. 

 My hubby drove to my work so we could go out and watch it together.  

There were so many people outside starting around 1:30.  

We were outside for a little over an hour and saw it get to 80% eclipsed.  

There was a woman in the area that  had a telescope set up and 

a friend of mine gave us some viewing glasses.   

We also used our phones to try to take some photos with and 

without the viewing glasses over the phone lens.

Probably the best shop I managed to get through the clouds.  

Not sure why it looks so dark, but the bright light seemed to mess with the camera on the iPhone.

This is a short video of all the rest of the folks at U of M (in the space we were)
watching the eclipse too.

This one was on paper.

It was fun to be out there with everyone enjoying the beautiful day and the excitement of the eclipse.

I hope that you all got to be caught up in the excitement 

even if you were not able to view it at your own home. 

 This is the third one I remember in my lifetime.  

There were no fancy glasses for the first one when I was a child 1970, 

and the one in 1979 happened when I was in college.  

It's fun to be a part of history!

~XOP~

Catching Up

I feel like I have so much to catch you all up on and have been too busy to write anything much! 

 I went with a friend to the AQS show in Grand Rapids last week and we had a blast! 

 So many beautiful quilts!  I think this one was my favorite. 

 I want to make a Viking quilt some day too and this one was fabulous!

There were so many beautiful quilts!  These are just a few of the ones I liked. 

 Hubby is a pilot to this depiction of the Blue Angels was pretty cool.

My best friend has a Double Yellow Headed Amazon so I took this shot for her.

The Koi pond was striking.

Of course I loved the cat ones!

As much as I loved all of the quilts it was very exciting to me to get to see Sylvia's original 

Epic Halloween QAL quilt. 

 It is the one that inspired my Hallowedding quilt!

Here is my Hallowedding Quilt so you can see the differences.

Of course no trip to a show is complete without visiting the vendors!  

I picked up a few patterns and this amazing seam ripper/stilletto combo.  

This shows it fully opened.

Then pull them out and turn them around and it is all closed up!  So cool!!

I found a cool pattern for a cat bed too. 

 I already had the insert so now I need to put this on my short "to do" list for the kittens!

Last but not least were some patterns. 

 I bought the two Lynette Anderson patterns on the left and the fox quilt on the bottom at the show.  The other two I bought last weekend on our camping excursion to Shipshewana 

(more to come on that soon)

I am so excited to tell you all about the camping trip too.  

Soon!

Stop back tomorrow for WIPs With Friends!

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends

I have been so busy with the new camper that I have little to show.  

I did finish my stars and have sewn 33 sets of the setting squares but 

I forgot to take any photos of those.  

Last 4 stars of what I had to make.
Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts

I thought I would show you my fisheries biologist daughter at work in the field.  

That right there is a 57 pound catfish!!!

I also have some pretty photos of some flowers in my garden to share.  

My coneflowers were gorgeous this year.

I planted a new foxglove and it is doing so well.  

My grandmother used to tell me the spots on the flowers were where 

the bees walked in with muddy feet!

I also had this little guy show up on my house too. 

Apparently you should not touch them as their "fur" can cause a rash.

Who knew?

I will be attending the AQS show in Grand Rapids tomorrow 

so hopefully I will have more to show next week.  T

hen we are off on another camping trip this weekend.  Trying to eek out the last bit of summer fun!

Please link up what YOU have been working on and if we can get 10 people to link up I will do another little giveaway!

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

Camping with the Kittens

Some of you may know that we parked our camper for the whole week at the 

Covered Wagon Camp Resort.  

We had our son's dog for most of the week while he and our daughter and her boyfriend were using our truck and camping up north in their tents.  

They came back on Friday and we all went to the camper for dinner.  

We brought the kittens with us to spend a few nights.

First let me say that while it was great to take the camper out, 

the campground was not really "resort" like, LOL.  

There was, however a super creepy slide!  

I took a few pictures to share.  There is a pond with a raft for the kids to play on too.

I thank that, back in the day, this place had to be pretty cool.  

This slide would have been amazing to go on as a kid!

Interestingly it ends in some brackish water and at the end of the water trough is a cement slab.  Better make sure your raft stopped before you were launched onto the cement!!  

They have a nice playground, a train that runs on the weekends with lights and putt putt at the front of the campground.  all, slightly, run down, but they had a AWESOME pool!  

We never made it to the pool but if the weather had been better I would have loved to have gone.

Finn was exhausted by all the activity.  

My daughter bought them both collars, tags, a harness and leash.  

We put the boys in the pet tent for awhile then put on their harnesses and leashes. 

 Finn was up for exploring but Cole thought we were killing him, LOL.  

He laid down and would not move!  haha

They BOTH loved looking out the screen door.  

I think I am going to have to find some kind of screen protector from little kitten claws though, sigh.  Cole has the brightest eyes!

As you can see camper life seems to agree with all my boys!

We did spend some time in Dundee.  

We were looking for something to do and ran into a small tractor show. 

 I thought this view was so pretty.

I think this is one of my favorite photos of Finn.  He is much easier to photograph then Cole.  

When I found this rug I had to buy it.  I think this is so true for us!

I did manage a little sewing but no photos, maybe tomorrow.  

I think we are going to be going camping again this weekend in IN near Shipshewana.  

Stay tuned for more of our camping adventures as we figure this all out!

~XOP~

Sea Horse Quilt

I have had a few finishes but want to share them one by one. 

 So today, since this quilt has *finally* been gifted I thought I would share it. 

 Do you remember the sea horse quilt that I did with my two friends?

We finished it and sent it off to California to it's new owner.  

Little Camilla now has her quilt

Looks like her big sister liked it too!  

I used the Mermaid Minky on the back and it is so soft!

I absolutely fell in love with this fabric. 

 If you can find some reason to use this you should!!!

Please, run right out and buy some, you will not regret it.

Here are some photos of this all finished.  

If you need to make one too, the pattern is by Summercrafter and you can buy it from her right here.

I made the pink one.

My friend, Judith, made the green one.

My friend, Robin, made the blue one.

I made the waves too and put the quilt together and did the binding.

Quilting was done by Kathy Koch of Threadbear Quilting. (she is amazing).  

I found this adorable Mermaid quilting pattern.

You can see how cool the Mermaids look on the back too.

I was happy to sneak in some bunnies and that adorable little cat face!

 This little queen of the Mermaids was one of my favorites!

Welcome to the world little Camilla!  

We were so blessed to be able to make a little something to brighten up your room!!  

Many hugs and kisses to your sweet mom too!

I miss you Karen <3 p="">

Enjoy your weekend everyone!  

My kids come home today and we are all going to hang out at the camper.

  I can't wait!

~XOP~