I got the Drunkard’s Path top pieced this week – I love how this turned out!! The fabrics are so bright and the big circles remind me of planets 😂
I haven’t chosen the backing yet or figured out how I want to quilt it…so for now it will wait.
I finally pulled out the tops that I should’ve finished in April & May for the APQ UFO challenge. I’ve decided I’m going to make a double-sided quilt with them. I don’t ‘love‘ either one of these tops – that’s probably why they’ve been sitting so long!!
These fabrics and layouts don’t really match but I guess that makes them perfect for a double-sided quilt! Haha!
The APQ UFO number for June is 1 which is my Rainbow Postage Stamp top 😯 This one has been intimidating me for years so its time to get it done!! I’ll be using the smashing atoms fabric I bought last week for the backing…once it gets here 😏
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I’m still walking…mostly everyday. The weather has been quite nice here even though by now we usually would be experiencing lots of heat & humidity. It’s been a pleasant relief!
That’s about all for now…enjoy the rest of your weekend!!
I put the final stitches in the orange Modern Irish Chain quilt yesterday and even ran it through the wash to remove the glue basting!! Yay!! It’s ready to be sent off to one of the charities in the Hands2Help 2023 challenge.
I found this striped fabric in my stash and used it as the binding since it had some orange in it. I am so over the color orange at this point I don’t want to see it again for a very long time!! Hahaha!!
That’s about all I’ve done in my sewing room this week. I have the drunkards path blocks all sorted the way I want them and they’re lined up by my sewing machine ready to be pieced – hopefully I’ll get to that later today 😏
I made some fabric purchases last week from Missouri Star, they had a couple of 108″ fabrics on sale I couldn’t pass up and with their bundle program I can shop over multiple days to let things add up to avoid shipping charges
And wouldn’t you know it, Connecting Threads has a great sale going for the holiday and I found another 108″ fabric…actually it’s the sister to the dark one above, only with a white background. I actually wanted this one first but by the time I checked out at MSQ it was sold out ☹ I’m glad I found it on sale at Connecting Threads! I also got a navy fabric called Word Play
I walked most days this week but missed Friday & Saturday because it rained ALL DAY both days 🫤 It’s still raining this morning but should finally clear up this afternoon so I can get my walk in!
That’s about all for now…enjoy the rest of your weekend!!
I basted the Modern Irish Chain and I’ve started quilting on it. Last time I showed a very rustic drawing of my quilting plan and I love how it’s coming out! I’m using a light tan thread so it doesn’t show very well in this picture
Between basting and quilting I finally got the Drunkard’s Path blocks up on my design wall and I’ve chosen this layout – I’m still moving blocks around to get a good balance of color and contrast. This top will finish around 47 square, I have 6 blocks left over that I’ll incorporate into the back.
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I walked most days this past week – no reason for missing Sun & Thurs other than I just didn’t feel like it 😞
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That’s about all for now – enjoy the rest of your weekend!
I’m happy (and a little surprised) to report that I’ve kept up with walking at least 1 mile a day in May!! I’ve actually been doing 1.5 miles most days. I haven’t ventured to the beach again because most days I don’t get my walk in until after dinner…but at least I’m doing it! LOL
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I finished the final two seams in my Sewcialites2 top and I put a border piece at the top so the butterfly is centered. I’m thinking about adding borders to the sides as well but for now this top is sitting in the ‘to be quilted’ pile because…
I need to prioritize the Modern Irish Chain quilt so it will be finished for the Hands2Help challenge. I needed to make a back for it so I dug into my remnant pieces and came up with enough for this:
Now I just need to get it basted and start quilting on it. I think I know how I want to quilt it. Please excuse this sloppy rendering, it’s my first time trying to use the photo editing feature to mock up quilting designs! Now I just need to decide what color thread to use…🤔
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We went to the Myrtle Beach Pelicans game on Wed night. The weather was gorgeous but unfortunately they didn’t play well enough to win 🫤 That’s OK we still enjoyed our night out! And how about that “bat boy”!
That’s about all for now…enjoy the rest of your weekend!
I’ve been looking for a way to get my rear moving, some accountability to help me stay consistent and I think I’ve found it. After my 30 day break from Facebook I logged back on and started searching for a walking group and came upon Healthy Living – Walking Women over 60. I think this is just what I need! There are no specific challenges, they just encourage everyone to post a picture from their walk each day. I decided I was going to start with walking at least 1 mile a day and so far I’ve done it! Mostly I’ve just been walking in my neighborhood but I did venture to the beach one day. It was a gorgeous sunny day with temps in the mid 70s.
What I didn’t expect to see this early in the season is JELLY FISH! Yuck!!! Someone from the group called this a Cannonball Jelly fish… THIS is just one more reason why I don’t swim in the ocean!!! LOL
We finally got some hummingbirds to show up at the feeder…I was worried they’d skipped SC this year LOL
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I’m slowly making progress on my Sewcialites2 butterfly… two more seams. I think I’ve lost my sewjo with this project but I’m not giving up until the top is done!!
Next up I need to prioritize the Modern Irish Chain quilt for the Hands2Help challenge. I need to make the back then get it basted & quilted!
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I finished a really good book this week, “Two Nights in Lisbon” by Chris Pavone. The story had twists and turns and I wasn’t quite sure exactly what was going on until about 3/4 the way through. I’d give it 4 stars.
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That’s about all for now…enjoy the rest of your weekend!
I haven’t done anything in my sewing room since I posted last week…wait, check that… I did put together a new TV stand I ordered off Amazon (I’m not affiliated).
The TV in my sewing room came with legs that attached on the far ends of the TV…unfortunately the table I use is not that wide so I’ve been making do by using my 2.5″ strip AccuQuilt die to bridge the distance 😳 clearly not recommended!!
The new TV stand has a wide center base and attaches to the TV as if you were hanging it on the wall. This is a double win for me because I now have access to my die whenever I need it and the TV sits about 4″ higher than before making it easier to see the whole screen from my cutting table 😉
Of course I didn’t take a before photo but here are two ‘after’
The stand is made to accommodate TV’s from 27-55″, mine is 32″ so unfortunately the brackets extend above the TV. Yeah, it’s not so pretty but it works!!! The only other issue was the HDMI hook ups on my TV are right behind the horizontal bracket and the slots were not big enough to allow it to fit through so…. DH took it to the garage and ‘modified’ it to fit!! 😂 There’s no returning it now!! LOL
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I have a list of projects I plan to start working on later today through next week – hopefully I’ll have lots to share next time:
Baste & Quilt Elephant Abstractions
Make last four Sewcialites2 blocks & decide layout
Make Back for Orange Irish Chain top (Hands2Help)
Make Back for Triplicate top (APQ UFO #4)
Decide layout for Drunkard’s Path blocks
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That’s all for now…enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Mary and I left Monday morning around 10am for the 5 hour ride to Asheville. It turned out to be a beautiful day with light to moderate traffic but luckily no traffic jams! We stopped about half way to have lunch at a local Mexican restaurant called San Jose in Elgin SC. It was very good!
We arrived at the hotel around 4:30, got checked in and relaxed a little before walking a couple blocks to have dinner at Texas Roadhouse. I got their Herb Crusted Chicken – it was yummy – and a margarita cuz they were on special 😉
We went back to the hotel and had a few beers at their bar before heading up to bed.
We got up Tuesday morning, got dressed for the day then went down for the complimentary breakfast which ended up being a menu selection of 6 different options…and it was delicious!
(I’ll pause here to say we absolutely loved staying at the Holiday Inn & Suites Asheville/Biltmore. Everyone was so amazingly friendly and the hotel is very clean & modern. If you’re heading to that area I would 11 out of 10 highly recommend!!!)
We had tour tickets for 10am so we left after breakfast and made our way to the Biltmore entrance about a mile away. I’ve been to Biltmore several times but it’s been almost 10 years since my last visit; this was Mary’s first time! It was fun to see it all again through her eyes. It took about 1.5 hours to walk through the whole house, then we roamed the gardens for a little while before our legs started to scream! LOL
We got the shuttle back to parking then drove across the property to visit the winery. Everyone kept telling us that we had to have reservations for the tasting (which we did not) but we could walk the winery and store whenever we wanted. When we arrived the gentleman outside recommended we check with the person at the reservation desk because there could’ve been some cancellations or ‘no shows’ for the tasting… and as luck would have it… we got right in!!! Yay! We tasted 5 different wines – 3 white, 2 red then went to their store and bought a few bottles. I enjoyed their Cardinal Reserve Red so that’s what I got. Mary got that as well as their Masterpiece Collection White Wine.
As you might imagine, we were exhausted so we went back to the room to relax a little before our dinner reservations at 6pm at the renowned restaurant Cúrate. It’s a Spanish style tapas bar and we enjoyed everything we ordered including the Sangria 😉
Once back at the hotel, I checked my smart watch and found I had walked over 10,000 steps 😳 holy cow, I haven’t walked that much in one day in YEARS! No wonder I was tired 😂
We drove home on Wed and it was smooth sailing until we hit stop & go traffic on the short stretch of I-95 N we take to get home. UGH, they were working on a bridge so everyone had to merge down to one lane. It took us about 35 minutes to get through that mess! After that it was open road again!
Instead of posting all the Biltmore pics here, I created a Google link to the photos… feel free to take a look if you’re interested 😊
My favorite shot is the one I took outside. If you’ve never been to Biltmore it’s really hard to capture the grandeur of it all in photos.
I’ll be back on Sunday with my regularly scheduled post… take care!
I didn’t spend much time in my sewing room this week so I don’t have a lot to show…but I did get the borders on my Dos Cuadrados quilt! Woohoo! It measures 65×88 – I’m gonna have fun pushing this through my machine :-p
I also started a new project – shocker, I know! LOL We had our neighborhood sewing club meeting on Monday and I decided to take a new project with me. I’ve had a drunkards path quilt on my ‘to-do’ list for quite some time so I purchased templates a few weeks ago and I pulled a Riley Blake layer cake from my stash to take with me. I was able to get all the pieces cut and I pieced about 20 blocks. Of course I didn’t take any pics that day but here’s the beautiful stack of trimmed blocks
But I have several other projects I need to finish before these two:
My Elephant – I finished the top & back in Feb but I’ve been waiting to start quilting on it until after my machine was serviced. I plan to do straight-line quilting (like in the pattern picture).
2. Orange Modern Irish Chain – This quilt is going to be donated for the Hands2Help challenge with Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I still need to make a back and then quilt on it.
3. APQ UFO Challenge – April’s number is 4 and that’s my Triplicate quilt top. I finished this top way back in 2017 and it’s been sitting in a box ever since 😦 The pattern is from Patchwork Essentials: The Half-Square Triangle book by Jeni Baker
4. Sewcialites 2 QAL – I need to make the last 4 blocks and then decide on a layout. There are so many options listed on the Sewcialites FB page…I just need to pick one!!!
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I’ll be heading out of town tomorrow with my girlfriend Mary…we’re going to Asheville to see Biltmore. We were supposed to go back in April 2020 while the Downton Abbey exhibit was there, but we all know what happened! Hopefully this trip will be uneventful and I’ll try to do a better job of taking pictures 😉 We’ve also made reservations for dinner at a highly recommended restaurant, Cúrate Tuesday night before heading home on Wed.
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That’s about all for now…have a great rest of your weekend!
I finished the center of the Dos Cuadrados quilt but had to stop for two reasons… 1. We went to Charlotte for a few days to celebrate DH’s birthday and 2. I needed more fabric for the borders and binding!
Here we are at our favorite birthday restaurant Del Frisco’s. We had an absolutely lovely dinner and topped it off with their signature Seven layer Lemon cake – YUMMM! (I really need to get better about taking more pictures!). We stayed at the Rennaisance Hotel literally two blocks over from the restaurant LOL
The weather was a bit of a bummer, it started raining after we arrived Thursday and didn’t stop 🫤 AND the temps plunged into the mid 40’s! WTH!!! The drive home on Saturday was ugly, thankfully we made it without any issues.
Since we were in Charlotte I contacted the sewing center where I bought my Pfaff and asked if they could do an annual cleaning and checkup during our stay and they said Yes. We dropped her off Thurs afternoon and picked her up Sat morning before we left. The sewing center was about 3 miles from our hotel 😉
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Before we left I contacted Ellie of Mojave Farms Quilting Co to get yardage of one of the prints from the FQ bundle I purchased. I had auditioned scraps from all the prints and really liked the purple for the border and binding…and it was waiting for me when we got home! Yay!
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I recently found a new book series through one of the many blogs I follow – but now I can’t find who it was that recommended it, UGH!!
It’s a series from Elly Griffiths with Dr Ruth Galloway, an archeologist. I finished the first book “The Crossing Place” last week and really liked it! I downloaded the second book to my tablet, “The Janus Stone”, and started reading it during our trip to Charlotte. I like how the mystery unfolds in the very first chapter and it’s easy to get drawn in!
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That’s about all for now – have a great rest of your weekend!
Today is my one year anniversary of retirement! Wow, this past year went by both quickly & slowly. That may sound weird but as I look back on my first year there are parts that seemed to fly by and others that seemed to crawl.
So what was my first year like? To sum it up in one word: AWESOME! I started working at age 17 and didn’t stop until last year…43 years straight. I was certain I would miss the routine of working, the purpose and responsibility – NOPE, not.one.bit! What I did and still do miss is the comradarie, being able to share experiences with others going through the same thing. To try to fill that gap, I’ve joined my neighborhood book club, I’ve started a neighborhood sewing club and I’ve explored a new quilting community online – Tiktok specifically.
I was very apprehensive when I joined Tiktok, I had heard so many varying opinions, but I decided to log on and find out for myself. I gotta say, I’ve been pleasantly surprised! Once you weed out all the junk you don’t want to see (it takes a few weeks to curate the algorithm) it’s a really fun place to spend time. Lately I’ve had to put limits on myself so I don’t waste hours watching videos!! But I also decided to start posting videos of my quilting adventures and projects. Its been fun to get feedback and support 😊
Here are my highlights from the last year:
Two trips to Charleston
A new sewing table for my quilting addiction 😋
Two trips to Maryland
A 10 night trip to Aruba
And here are all the quilts I finished!!
Of course that doesn’t count the ones I’ve started but not yet finished
The other bonus to being retired, I can watch Tennis all day & night if I want. If you didn’t know, I love watching Tennis (it’s second only to watching NFL games). The freedom I felt to be able to stay up late or get up stupid early to watch tournaments in other parts of the world – hooray!
All in all, it’s been a very full year of doing what I want, when I want. It’s not been all rainbows & butterflies – I’ve had a few down times where I missed the feeling of connection to my old teammates but not enough to even think about going back to work LOL!
I love to share my Quilting projects with other Quilters. My goal is to share my progress on projects that I am working on. I would love for you to follow along with me during my endeavors. I hope you enjoy watching me tackle new techniques and projects. Hopefully you can learn from my "hiccups" and mistakes and make your journey easier.
Sew Quilty Good 