Family Fun!

I thoroughly enjoyed having my niece and great-niece visit this past week. It was SO AWESOME to see them face-to-face and give them a big old hug ❤

They flew in on Monday morning and back out on Friday morning. We spent a few days at the beach and at our neighborhood pool… the rest of the time was spent playing and enjoying each others company.

Here are a few highlights

We also spent time at Savannah’s Playground. I had no idea anything like this existed and if it weren’t so hot the few days they were here we would’ve gone back a couple of times :-p Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of her at the playground…she was moving way too fast and I was trying to stay in the shade!! LOL

Here are a few more pictures I downloaded from her Momma’s FB page 😉 Oh yes, we definitely had to get ice cream one afternoon too!

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That’s about all for now. I’ve been spending the last few days getting the house back in order – a 3.5 year old can wreak havoc, in a good way!

Have a great rest of your weekend 🙂

Weird week

It’s been another weird week in the US, I’m sure it’s made news all over the world. So many lies from so many liars it’s hard to know what’s really going on 🥺

With all the turmoil my motivation meter has hit another low… I haven’t stepped into my sewing room all week but I can show you what I did last Sunday.

I pieced all the remaining strips and put them up on the design wall. I moved them around MANY times trying to keep like fabrics away from each other…

I’ve decided I’m going to piece them in groups of three so I wanted to see what it would look like if I flipped every other group upside down

Not really sure which one I like better…but this is as far as I’ve gotten 😦 I was hoping for some sort of secondary pattern but I don’t see a thing!! And I still don’t have a ‘name’ for this design 😦

Hopefully my motivation will pick up this week {{fingers crossed}}. I’ll also share this beautiful sunset picture I captured last night at dinner. We were sitting outside at a restaurant called King Street Grille in Myrtle Beach… ❤

Have a great rest of your weekend 🙂

This and that

Not a whole lot going on around here… I finished the 4 big checkerboard blocks and just felt like something was missing

So I pulled more fabric and made it bigger!

I’ve had this fleece blanket laying my sewing room for a few years now…it just happens to be the perfect size for backing and it’s primarily gray with a little blue. Works for me!!

I’m thinking of finishing this ‘pillow case style’ (Ha, I have no idea if that’s to correct name!). I’m going to place these pieces right sides together with a piece of batting on the outside…then sew all the way around the outside, leaving an opening for turning it right side out. I’ll close the opening, do some minimal quilting and then sew a decorative stitch about a 1/4″ from the edge all around to finish it. I sure hope it turns out like I see it in my head!!

Other than this project I’ve not been doing much… we went to Damon’s on Friday for a late lunch and sat on the balcony enjoying the beach

Yesterday morning I drank my coffee on our back screened porch watching the golfers, hummingbirds and squirrels

That’s about all for now…I hope things are going well in your neck of the world 🙂

Have a great rest of your weekend!

Not a lot going on…

For all the finishes I had last week…I’ve got nothing this week – Ugh!

I had plenty of time to work on projects but just couldn’t get my arse in gear – so frustrating 😦 I spent my evenings either watching TV, surfing the net or reading.

The only photo I have to share is one I took when we went out for an early dinner Friday. We went to Damon’s on the beach and got a table on the deck, the weather was perfect!

#nofilter

My plan today is to use a hera marker to mark quilting lines on my Trip Around the World and then ‘get it done’!!!

Have a great rest of your weekend…

Merry Christmas?

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas. Ours was pretty low key, we exchanged a few presents and watched Sammie open a few. We also had friends join us for dinner and then watched “A Star is Born” (Lady Gaga version) afterward.

The weather here in Myrtle Beach has been unseasonably mild…like high 60’s low 70’s for the last few days – Yes! That played nicely into my plans to get a bunch of quilts basted, unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures 😦 I pulled my big ironing surface outside on the back patio and grabbed 4 quilts: Commission tshirt, Rainbow improv, Meadowland and Granny Cabin

I used my favorite basting spray from June Tailor but I grabbed the can I had purchased right after they changed the formula…ugh! Not only does it have a very strong odor but the spray is immensely sticky and not in a good way 😦 I wrote to them earlier this year to complain and they said they had to change the formula due to regulations in California; they said they were tweaking the formula to fix the smell and a few other issues and offered to send me a new can when it was released. I received the new shipment in late August but I completely forgot about it when I grabbed all my stuff to go outside yesterday…grrrrr.

Anyway, I finished basting those four quilts and I’ve ironed the tshirt quilt so it’s ready for quilting. I cleaned my sewing machine, changed the needle, changed to my free motion foot and I’ve picked out the threads I’ll be using on top & bottom. I’m all ready to get started!!

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I skipped my WW weigh-in yesterday because I knew I was up several pounds and I just didn’t want that written in my book! Ha, so silly! By my scale I’m up 2.4 over Christmas…damn cookies! I’ll probably skip the next weigh-in too simply because it will be the 1st one of the new year and all the folks who just signed up will be there, it will be pretty crazy!

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That’s about all for now….have a Happy New Year (and decade)!!

Memory quilt completed

After weeks of procrastination – I finally, FINALLY completed the memory quilt. Last Sunday I hunkered down and did the quilting and binding. None of it was hard, I just kept putting it off. This is a reinforcement that I need to STOP taking jobs for these kinds of quilts.

I’m still trying to figure out the best place here at the new house to take quilt pictures…

DH will be traveling back to the other house next weekend so he’ll take this back with him and meet up with the customer.

A few weeks ago I dropped a plate on the kitchen floor…it was a heavy Pfaltzgraff plate from a set I bought new for the house. It not only shattered but it chipped the side of one of the floor tiles UGH! Every time I walked into the kitchen I could see the dark brown spot where it was chipped so I decided I would get some fingernail polish at the Dollar Tree and see if I could make it blend in.

Other folks would’ve taken a ‘before’ picture but I was so excited to try this out I completely forgot!! Here are a few shots of ‘after’:

This first one from standing height, I’ve circled where the chip was

This second one is an extreme closeup

Yay! It worked!! I don’t even think about that darn chip anymore 🙂 And if any of the polish wears off over time I have plenty left to do another patch up.

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After living here for a few months you’d think we would’ve walked the beach many many times by now… but no. We’ve eaten at waterfront restaurants but until last week we had not gotten our feet into the sand and into the ocean. Let’s hope it doesn’t take as long for it to happen again, LOL

We do not like to swim in the ocean so we spent the next day at our community pool. Most days there are no more than 5 people there 🙂

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I dropped 1.4 at WW at this weeks’ weigh in 🙂 My running total so far is 9.4…I can definitely feel a difference in my clothes. The waist band on my pants isn’t choking me and my underarms aren’t getting pinched by my shirts :-p  I’m not having any issues following the points plan and I’m definitely eating a lot more fruits & veggies.

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Today is the last day of the estate sale at our other house. I’m hoping most everything sells but DH will see for himself what’s left when he goes up next weekend. The estate sale company said they have dealers who may come and buy what’s left for a ‘lot’ price, that would be fine too.

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

A little bit of everything

I finished up my ‘Shattered Triangles’ quilt. I didn’t use any pattern for this I just cut a bunch of triangles from my overflowing pink scraps and used white to square them up, then I alternated the direction of the triangles in each row. I had some left over backing from other other quilts so I pieced them together for the back of this one.

I took the finished quilt out in our backyard (11th fairway on Parkland at Myrtle Beach) and captured a few shots in full sun.

I spent the last few days sorting, folding and organizing my fat quarter stash. They were previously smushed (a technical term) in a few plastic bins and I had no idea what I had. This is an in-progress shot.

After working through all the FQs, I pulled out some of my ‘less than yard’ cuts and wrapped them around comic book boards. I thought they looked good on the top shelf so I moved the FQ bins down.

The brown tv cart in the foreground will be moving to another room soon but for now I get to work around it 

And at last I started working on the commissioned memory quilt I’ve been ignoring for the last month. I hope to get this one done pretty quickly so I can just focus on some ‘fun’ sewing for a while…quite selfish of me!!

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

First official visitor

We had our first official visitor in the new house this past week and as such, I didn’t do any sewing. We took her to our favorite restaurant on the beach, Bummz – twice actually!

DH & Pam

While she was here we went shopping for area rugs and some wall decor, here’s a few shots of what we bought. Excuse the boxes, I’m still deciding where to put stuff :-p

Living room rug

Carolina room rug

Dining room rug

Kitchen wall art

I still need to find something for over the server in the dining room and I plan on putting valances on many of the windows…ugh, still so much to do!!

Before she arrived on Monday, I finished piecing the Shattered Triangles top and it’s been sitting on my design wall all week…I can’t wait to get in there later today to decide on the backing fabric and maybe even get it basted.

We’ve been experiencing an early heatwave the past few days and it looks like it’s going to hang around for a few more…a good reason to stay indoors and sew!!

I wish everyone a safe and happy Memorial Day…

Settling in

This past week has been all about getting settled in to our new home. DH had to go back to the other house on Monday and since he left his car there I rode back with him Monday night (4 hours). I needed to be back in Myrtle Beach for work and a hair appointment so I got up Tuesday morning and drove back …what a whirlwind!!

My reward that night…one of the local restaurants has 1/2 price tacos on Tuesday and it just happens to be on the second floor of a building on the beach so this was my view for dinner!

I also cooked for the first time in the new house…I put a pork loin in the crock pot on Wed and made myself this plate for dinner!

The thing I’m most excited about is finally getting my new design wall up! I spent Thursday evening in the garage cutting and wrapping the 4ft x 8ft foam insulation boards. I knew I didn’t need an 8ft tall design wall so I cut them down to 6ft. I purchased a Full size white flannel sheet set for about $30 and used the flat and fitted sheets to wrap each 4×6 section. Oh boy, that was fun 😦

DH got home late Thursday and helped me ‘mount’ it to the wall in my sewing room…I’m so stinking happy with this!!! 🙂 Squeeeeeeeeeee! I put my scattered triangles up on one side and I still have so much space…I’m just loving it!!

And last but not least…I got to put my feet up yesterday afternoon and have an adult beverage sitting on our new patio furniture. Yep, I think I’m really gonna like it here 🙂

That’s all for now…

Finishes and beginnings

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there!!!

Late last Sunday I finished up the Criss Cross quilt. I chose black for the binding to help wrangle in all that color! These pictures were taken on my dining room floor, before the furniture was delivered!

Speaking of furniture… Yes, we FINALLY got our furniture moved!! Whoop Whoop!! I snapped this picture just before they finished loading and closed the door.

And here is some of the furniture in the new house…we still may move some stuff around but we wanted to ‘live’ with it a few days to see how it feels first 😉 We need new area rugs for all these living spaces so disregard the one you see in this pic, ha!

And I just couldn’t resist starting something new in my sewing room…isn’t that always the way?! I was ‘doodling’ in PowerPoint last week and came up with a design I liked using triangles and I just couldn’t stop thinking about it…so I pulled my overstuffed pink scrap bin and started cutting. I was hoping this would make a serious dent in those scraps but, lol, nope! This is not the layout…I just put the triangles up all scattered to take the picture.

Those silver boards at the bottom of the picture will soon become my new design wall…Yay!

And one last picture of how we spent our day yesterday…

Have a great rest of your weekend!! 🙂