Van Gogh Experience!

We no sooner got back from Maryland and I was out the door on Wednesday headed to Charleston. I’ve been wanting to see the Van Gogh Experience for a while now but it wasn’t close to me until last month. I asked Mary if she wanted to go and she said Yes so we bought our tickets and booked the room last month. I would not have normally planned two trips so close together but it’s just how it worked out. Unfortunately DH came down with a bug Monday night and I thought I might have to cancel the trip but I tested him TWICE for covid before I left and both were negative!

The 2 hour drive was easy and we were able to check in early after stopping for lunch at a mexican restaurant. Our tickets for the show were Wed at 6:30 so we had dinner afterward. The pictures below are just a small sampling of the experience. The room where they have this display is very large and there are benches and cushions to sit on because the ‘show’ runs about 40 minutes. Before going into this room, there is a large display of screens to walk through that explain Van Gogh’s life and his history of mental illness.

After the show there is a shop setup to purchase all kinds of Van Gogh items, I picked up a small matted print of my favorite painting “The Starry Night”. It will fit perfectly in an 8×10 frame which I’ll most likely hang in my sewing room.

We spent the next day in downtown Charleston shopping and eating! We found a great roof top bar at the Pavilion Hotel on East Bay Street, right next to the Charleston City Market – a perfect spot for cocktails after a day of shopping!

We capped the day off with an early dinner at Phuong Vietnamese restaurant then went to the movies to see “Where the Crawdads Sing”!! We both had read the book and hoped the movie would be as good… and it was!! If you enjoyed the book, I think you’ll like the movie too!

We got up Friday morning and headed back home. We decided to take the long way (26 to 95 to 38 & 501) because I have a fear of driving over BIG bridges and this route meant we didn’t have to change drivers along the way {we took Highway 17 down and just before we got to all the big bridges I let Mary drive my car 😕}

We stopped at the new Buc-ee’s travel center in Florence just to see what all the hoopla was about and WOW it did not disappoint! That place is huge and it has something for everyone – food, clothing, home decor, etc. We didn’t buy anything but we sure were tempted!

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Back to DH, I talked to him multiple times during the trip and he was feeling pretty crappy. When I got home Friday afternoon I tested him again for covid and again it was negative…so I guess he’s just got some other nasty bug ☹️ {I used the same tests we used when we tested positive back in early May} I’ve been wearing a mask in the house hoping I can avoid getting it too… fingers crossed!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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As for quilting, you can probably imagine I haven’t gotten much done in the last week. I did cut some more fabric for the PositivityQAL blocks but not much piecing has happened. I also enlarged the Tall Tales Book pattern to 130% to make another book quilt for a friend and I started making one book just to make sure it works before I dive all-in. It’s about 80% pieced 😉

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That’s about all for now…have a great rest of your weekend!

Another UFO completed

I got my April UFO project completed early last week before we took a 3 day trip to Charleston for a Corvette car show.

The APQ UFO challenge number for April was 9 and that equaled the Sugar Blocks quilt top on my list. Last week I was still mulling over how I wanted to quilt it and as usual, I went with my tried & true all-over meander. To add some pop, I decided to go with a bright yellow thread and I had a solid yellow fabric in my stash that I used for the binding. A finish is a win!!

Here are a few close ups of the quilting

I’m still working on my Little Pink Houses quilt, I need to finish the backing and then get it basted.

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Here are a few pictures I took while we were in Charleston. I opted not to go to the car show on Saturday so there are no pictures of Corvettes :-p The first two are at Shem Creek just outside of Charleston and the last two are from Joe Riley Waterfront Park. We had absolutely gorgeous weather, upper 70’s with no humidity ❤

We got home just before lunch time today… man, it’s nice to go away but it’s even nicer to come back home!!! :-p

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That’s about all for now… have a great rest of your weekend!!

Plaidish progress

I’ve been working a little every day on my Plaidish quilt. If you haven’t seen this quilt on social media, click the link above to check out all the pictures on IG. It’s a FREE pattern from Erica of Kitchen Table Quilting and it’s really easy to put together.

Here are a few shots I captured this past week as I made progress. The last one shows the two left vertical rows all pieced. I’m planning to get the rest done today!

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So far my plan of ‘do something quilty everyday’ is working out very well. I’ve got an 18 day streak going!!!

My habit of going for a walk every day is also doing great – I’ve got a 20 day streak going with that. Alas my Fly Lady habit did not go so well this past week, especially with traveling to Charleston Tues-Wed but I did some cleaning yesterday to make up for it and will do a little more today too.

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We took an overnight trip back to Charleston for Sammie’s 30 day check up – we decided to spend the night rather than put Sammie through the round trip in one day like last time. The Dr said her lymph nodes had shrunk a little more – although we couldn’t tell. She measures them with a caliper so I’ll take her word for it! They drew blood as usual and said they’d like to see her again in 30 days. We asked if we could have the blood work and ‘measurement’ done at our local vet next month because Sammie just doesn’t like long car rides anymore. They said that would be fine, so I called yesterday and setup that appt locally. The Charleston vet called Friday with the blood work results and said everything looks good except her liver enzymes are a little elevated. Nothing to worry about right now but they’d keep an eye on it.

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I skipped the WW weigh in yesterday…I knew I was up a little with the short trip to Charleston 😦

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That’s all for now…have a great rest of the weekend!!

Lots of sewing going on

It’s a new year so of course I’ve started a few new habits…we’ll see how long I stick with them. I know that sounds negative but if I look at my history, it seems to be what I do. Start out with big plans in January only to fizzle out at some point. So here goes:

First of all I’m doing a challenge on IG started by a quilting friend last year with her sister called #dosomethingquiltyeveryday They did this last year and I loved the idea but never really joined in – however I started out on Jan 1 this year and I’ve posted something every day so far!! Woohoo and I’ve gotten a lot done too.

I mailed off the commissioned tshirt quilt to it’s new home. Surprisingly enough it got there in one day! I used the medium flat rate box with USPS, dropped it off on Monday morning and she posted this pic on Facebook the next evening!!! She was so happy and grateful ❤

I’ve started making the Plaid-ish quilt by Erica at Kitchen Table Quilting. This FREE pattern has been on my bucket list for a little while and I kept seeing pics of others making; I just couldn’t wait any longer so I jumped in last week. Here are a few of the progress pics I posted on IG – oh and this is all from my scrap bins!!

“Dark” blocks all cut

“Dark” blocks pieced, “Light” pieces laid out

My plan is to layout the “Mid value” blocks today and start piecing a few. The beauty of the #dosomethingquiltyeveryday challenge is it’s making me go into my sewing room every day and do something even if it’s just laying things out or sewing one or two seams – yay!

I’m also trying to create a habit of walking at least 15 minutes every day. Nothing too daunting at this point, I just want to create a habit that will stick. I really don’t move enough – I sit at a desk all day and then sit at my sewing machine at night. Ha! Not good! I’ve been doing really well with it, I actually started Monday 12/30 and haven’t missed a day yet! I’m using a paper planner this year and I’ve got a habit tracker sticker on the monthly page for January where I can see it every day. A few more weeks of this and I should have a habit!! I listened to the book Atomic Habits by James Clear a few weeks ago so I’m following his suggestion to start small and get the habit in place before making it bigger, sounds plausible!

I’m also trying to be more consistent with cleaning my house so I’m following the Fly Lady program; if you want to learn more you can visit her website by clicking the link or you can follow along with Steph the Secret Slob as she breaks it down for newbies. I found her videos easy to watch and her way of adopting the program resonated with me. I’ve been doing OK with this so far in 2020, I only missed one day :-p

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I weighed in at WW yesterday, I was fully expecting to hit the 10# mark…but it was not to be 😦 UGH! I really tried hard to stay within my points budget and I walked every day last week but I guess it’s gonna take a little more time! Onward and upward!

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We go back to Charleston next week for Sammie’s 30 day follow up. We’ve noticed she’s been acting a little weird the last few weeks – nothing really bad, just different from her ‘normal’ self. She’s been very restless at night when it’s time to go to bed. She usually gets up in bed and stays there all night but recently she’ll get down and lay on the hardwood floor – like she’s hot and needs to cool down. She’ll stay there for a few hours and then in the middle of the night she’ll get up in bed. She’s also been sleep really hard, what I mean is it’s hard to wake her up. My husband and I both experienced a moment of panic when we tried to wake her and she wouldn’t move!! Finally we shook her pretty hard and she opened her eyes…that was pretty scary! I don’t know if it’s the meds, her age or her illness, we’ll ask the doctor next week and see what she thinks. Other than that Sammie is doing really well, still running and playing as usual.

That’s all for now…have a great rest of the weekend!

Weekend in Charleston

Each year DH goes to a Corvette Car show in Charleston…he’s attended all 18 years!! Now that’s commitment, ha! I haven’t always gone with him but I did this year and the weather was just perfect for sitting in the middle of an asphalt parking lot – low 70’s, lots of sunshine and a slight breeze.

We drove down on Thursday to enjoy the scenery – these first two pictures were taken at Water’s Edge restaurant on Shem Creek, just over the BIG bridge in Mt Pleasant.

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This picture is from the day before the show after he had wiped the car down several times. There were plenty of other Corvette owners at our hotel so he got to talk cars all day!

Here he is putting the finishing touches on before the judging begins.

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Here are two shots of the car show on Saturday – there were over 350 Corvettes at the show – plenty to look at! There were some vendor booths selling various non-car related things so I got to do a little shopping, but nothing quilting related 😦

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I finally finished off the wedding dress quilts but didn’t take very good pictures…and the owner has already picked them up so I can’t take more. I was so happy to be done with that project and I will never do another. The fabric is extremely difficult to work with and that’s after all the stress of actually cutting up someone’s wedding dress!!

This is quilt #1

This is the front & back of quilt #1

This is quilt #2 but I added more lace to the top and bottom edges after I took this picture – it just looked like it needed more.

I also made two garter’s from the dress fabric – a first for me – that project wasn’t so hard but it took a little extra time.

Regardless, it’s done and gone & I’m happy it’s over!!

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Yesterday I finally basted the tshirt quilt that’s been in a holding pattern for more than a month. I’m sure that customer is wondering ‘what the heck is taking so long’! I started quilting on it last night BUT…I’m going to have to rip it all out!! Waaaah! I could tell the first bit of stitches didn’t look so great but I thought it was just because I was out of practice, I soon figured out I had the wrong needle it AND I forgot to drop my feed dogs – ACCCKKKK!!!

So today I’ll be frogging all those stitches and starting over – just as well because the backing also has a few ripples…Wow, I’m really out of practice 😦

ttfn…

 

Charleston and more

I knew I was going to have a short week sewing wise because we were going to Charleston for a Corvette show. Hubby has attended “Vettes Doin Charleston” for 8 of the 10 years they’ve been doing it so we just had to go this year for the 10th anniversary.

First up, here’s the sewing I got done this week:

I finished the quilting on my friends quilt and she picked it up before we went out of town. She’s going to finish it using some of the left over black strips from making the top. I really like how this turned out and it will be a perfect gift for her grandson graduating college next month.

I finally got around to making the other bonus block in The Honey Pot Bee, it’s called Sew Royal. It was really simple to make and it’s so cute!

And here’s a group shot of all my blocks so far…I just love using Blueberry Park for this SAL, can’t wait to put it all together at the end of the year!

And lastly, I pulled out the tub of t-shirts for a new commissioned memory quilt for a little girl turning 10 in September and started de-construction. This is an in-progress shot I took and sent to her Mother to let her know I started, I’ve got all the shirts cut up and have started adding stabilizer to some…

Here’s the prototype from Pinterest we agreed upon for the layout

We packed up both cars Wednesday night and headed to Charleston on Thursday – yes we had to take 2 cars because there is just no packing space in a convertible! Luckily it’s only a 3 hours drive so it wasn’t bad at all, and I had to drop my fur baby off with friends so having two cars was convenient.

I’m embarrassed to admit I was extremely bad at taking pictures this weekend!! I don’t know what happened, I usually have my phone out all the time but not this time – eek! I did take a few pictures Thursday and Friday but seriously, I didn’t take one single photo of the car show, smh!

Here we are with the Charleston bridge in the background

And here’s a selfie I took later at happy hour

And I snapped this classic picture Friday night at the pre-show dinner with the hosting club.

But after that – nothing, nadda, no pictures! The good news is Hubby won Best in Class with his 2016 Z06 and he also won People’s Choice in his class!! Here’s a picture of his car I took last summer…

The only other update is they finally started working on clearing our lot in Myrtle Beach – our friends who live in the same community sent me this picture on Friday. Whoop, whoop – they should be starting the house any time now…

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No running at all this week, but I did register 12,167 steps walking around at the car show yesterday!

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That’s about all from here…what’s going on in your world?