Wish me luck!

The past few days I've been busy planning a new quilt. DD#1 has asked for a quilt for her bed in her new college apartment. I'm afraid if I don't get it done by the move in day it may not get finished (or even started). So I have 2 weeks to complete it! Remember I tend to get easily distracted so - wish me luck! I have gotten all my fabrics together and will start cutting it out today. I've also quilted 2 small quilts this week but need to sew the binding on.
I thought I'd share some beach pictures of our vacaction to the beach (Emerald Isle, North Carolina).


Before the storm


After the storm


View from the house we stayed in

Collecting shells - another obsession

While on vacation I binded a very old ufo. I have several quilt tops that I put aside because I felt like my machine quilting skills were poor. But I've been
practing the past several months. I'm pleased with the stippling I did. Who would have thought - practice does make perfect. Well maybe not perfect - but at least finished!

When I arrived back from vacation I found my Christmas in July swap from Helena at www.syverkstan-helena.blogspot.com
waiting for me. She sent me this very cute bag. I love the fabrics she used. Polka dot Christmas fabric - it just doesn't get any better than that. She also made a wonderful pincushion and a little bag that was filled with pretty christmas buttons. Helena also included one of her patterns. I've been following Helena's blog for sometime so it was such a nice surprise that she was my partner.





I also discovered that while I was away I won a giveaway from Ryan www.imjustaguywhoquilts.blogspot.com at
What a nice way to begin the Monday after vacation.

Thanks to both Ryan and Helena!

VACATION!

I'm taking some stitching along and a UFO that needs binding, and my hexagons for my grandmother's flower garden that has turned into my perpetual summer project. I plan to sit on the porch overlooking the ocean and sew, read and eat ice cream (cappuchino crunch) every single night!

One of my first blog friends - Amanda www.scrandasmusings.blogspot.com is doing a Pay it Forward and I signed up to "pay" along. This is what I received from her and yes I was very excited and curious as she had some sneak peeks on her blog.

This little 'flower' and look at the cute tags that were hiding inside of it.



A beautiful wall hanging - look at the gingham flowers and the polka dotted hearts and I love the bird. So sweet and pretty!


And some other goodies, Amanda makes cards and has shown some wonderful examples of her work on ocassion. I love this one - with the hexagons - it will look perfect in my sewing room.
Thank you so much Amanda!

Today Linda www.all-stitched-up.blogspot.com showed us what was on her table (and isn't that giraffe really cute?) - She asked what was on our tables - so here goes:

Can you believe I just cleaned it off last night. There were lots of scraps - that are now in that red pot waiting to be sorted by color, some wool that I put aside a long time ago and just got out to finish it, lots of containers with scraps & rotary cutter & ric-rac, my bin with blocks I'm currently working on, somewhere in there is the beginning of my first PIF. I had only one PIF person sign up and she has dispearred from blogging. My thought is to surprise some of my blogging friends if I don't hear from her soon (if you would like to join in let me know), also last night I cut out some more blocks for my whirlygiggle top, one of my treasured posession - a little leather and felt box that was my grandmothers - she kept her embroidery floss in it and now so do I. She gave it to me when I was a little girl and her eyes were no longer able to sew. My huge table gets messy quickly - I'm always amazed at what I find on it when I tidy it up.

I've been working on some WIP's - not to mention finishing up my Christmas in July swap.


I decided to go larger on my whirlygiggle quilt - I have some really cute polka dotted fabric that I want to use in it.


I'm saving all my strips and have been sewing them onto foundations. I'm not sure what this will end up being - but it's thrifty! I wouldn't give my husband strips to tie the tomatoes up this year - they're all mine.


Finished my 70 blocks for Crazy Mom Quilts quilt-along.


Something else I've been working on too. I've been using leaders/enders to do this - but worked a couple of evenings getting this part of the project finished.


Check out Lori Holt's blog www.beeinmybonnetco.blogspot.com (one of my favorite) for a terrific giveaway. Just visit her blog for a while and enjoy the music - I love it!