Quilty Catch-up

Hidey ho neighbor! Well, it has been a busy few weeks. So I need to do a little bloggy blog catch-up. This should really be 2 blogs because there is so much to catch up on but…well…I'm lazy so you are stuck with one. 

Disclaimer: The first 5 quilts are not mine! Last weekend was the Venice Quilt Show and the Manatee Quilt Show. Ernie's mom and dad came down Saturday to spend the day with us. Ernie and his dad went off and his beautiful mom and I went show and shop hopping. We saw a few friends along the way and some amazing work done by local quilters. I typically take pictures of the cards so I can go back and read the stories of the artist/quilter and quilt but I also typically have a real camera and not my phone - plus the Venice show was so packed we were lucky to even get a picture at all! So, alas, the quilts below are uncredited but again I will say - they are not mine! They were just some of my favorites.

AMAZING quilting - makes it look like snow drifts

Background is silk and every flower is hand beaded in the center

Grumpy Cat!

Tokyo - made with the quilter's collection of Japanese fabrics

I just thought this was stunning - love the colors

I finally finished my Pinata pillow. It is getting much love - mostly from the cat. I just love the way it turned out and really love that I still have some of that fabric left so I can turn it into something else. Not sure what yet…side note: never ask a quilter what they plan on doing with the fabric when they buy it. Never.











Friday night was PMS night at one of the local quilt shops - Cotton Patch - It was from 6pm-midnight and boy was I pooped. It was sew much fun though! I love the new friends I have made and all of them are very talented, kind, and funny ladies. After lots of the picture below on Thursday night - I attempted to work on it Friday night and ended up with all of the fabric facing the correct way but I had reversed the colorway of the blocks…sigh.

Friday night sunlight and our organized mess

Gah!

 A bit wonky but it won't matter once it's quilted :)

Saturday afternoon was my Modern Quilt Guild meeting and we made charity quilts for a few hours. I sat with a friend who was at PMS the night before and we were both a little zombie-ish. Show and Tell was amazing as usual. Saturday night, Elizabeth Dackson from don't call me betsy suggested a #paperpiecingparty on Instagram from 8pm-11pm and I have a pattern and fabric that have been dying to just be something. So I pulled out Elizabeth's Ferris Wheel Quilt pattern and begun cutting away!  

This is going to be fun! 

Off to do a little sewing before the world wakes up and catches me…
Cheers!

Weekend Rewind

Sometimes things move so quickly - mornings turn into busy afternoons that turn into night skies. I scroll through Instagrams and blogs of complete projects and skiing trips and treasured moments and wonder how these people have the time to complete projects and take vacations. I find myself feeling frustrated and as if I am not living up to that standard of living but I realized that the only one who put that standard there is me. So, rather than get frustrated at lack of complete projects and no time for vacation - I need to just enjoy the process and enjoy the time spent with the people who matter most to me…and maybe detatch from social media every now and again.

Also, I live in Florida - HELLO! Every day is a vacation.

Myakka State Park

Alligator in Myakka - seen from our air boat ride

Saturday was an early day for us as Sophie had a choir thing and had to be on the bus at 7 am. So, by the time she came home at 2:30 it was nap time for everyone - except for me as I was fueled by my frustration of not having time to finish anything. I finished the February Lucky Stars BOM by my friend Elizabeth Dackson at Don't Call Me Betsy.This is my first attempt at paper piecing and I have found a new love! My middle got a little wonky but I don't think it will matter once it is all quilted. Everything else matched perfectly and I love this block.

Sunday we went to Myakka, explored a tiny bit and took the air boat ride. It was such a beautiful day. Sophie had to babysit so Ernie and I took walk on the beach for sunset. After living here for almost 3 years I still marvel at the clear waters and the sea life we find on our walks. It was so beautiful and peaceful. Just what I needed to calm my mind.

When we came home I started a new project. This one is a quick one and in honor of our Texas Family Easters. That is a whole other post altogether :) It will be a pillow for the couch - a Pinata pillow. This has been fun and relatively quick. It should be finished this week at the latest. Cute!

Weekend Fun and Finished Project!

This weekend was the exotic car show in downtown Sarasota. They called it a "Great Gatsby" show but really there were only a few cars that were Gatsbyesque. Most of them were expensive sports cars but they were fun to look at anyway and it was a free event - and who doesn't like free events? Oh and The Mystery Machine was there! Those meddling kids...

After the car show and a few errands I was able to spend a lot of time with my sewing machine. I started this mini quilt called Dwell by Thimble Blossoms a few weeks ago and it was so fun to pick out fabrics for each little block and watch it all come together. I used a lot of fabric from the Scrumptious line by Bonnie and Camille for Moda. I love that line - so cute! Now I have scraps too :) While I was putting it together I took pictures and posted them to Instagram with the #dwellalong hashtag and I was able to follow along and see other people's come together too. The designer herself, Camille Roskelley, "liked" mine and I felt giddy and a bit like a teenage fan girl when I saw that….

I misread the directions for the chimney at first so a couple of them turned out wonky and I had to make new ones. I will use those in a smaller one for a friend. They are all the same but just didn't match the size of the other ones so I even thought about making mug rugs out of the orphan blocks. There are enough to do a mini-mini wall hanging though so it will be a little gifty for a sweet friend. I may go back and do another mini quilt because they are a little addicting! 

It is far from perfect but it turned out pretty cute just the same! Maybe I will hang it up in my Real Estate office. It suits it perfectly!

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish...

Valentine's Day came and went. My sweet boyfriend took Sophie and me to a nice dinner at a Thai restaurant and then Sophie wanted to meet some friends to see a movie. Ernie and I decided to go see the Lego Movie - Everything is Awesome! It was very clever. Go see it if you haven't already. The Master Builders of Legos are pretty amazing. What a job they have! I just read an article yesterday and they described a day in their job life - how cool would it be to just create things out of legos all day?Sophie was supposed to be seeing that as well but they ended up seeing Monuments Men - she said it was really good.

On Sunday Ernie and I went to the Cortez Heritage Commercial Fishing Festival. We were there early so we were able to enjoy some nature before it got too crowded. It was a beautiful Florida morning! Just a little crisp and the sun shining on our faces. Just gorgeous!

White pelicans on vacation

Pelicans on parade

 

The Cortez school house was built in 1912 and in 1921 when a hurricane struck it was where the people of the fishing village sought refuge. They closed the school in 1961 and a weaver and artist by the name of Robert Sailors bought it. He added this "secret garden" and waterfall. It was actually much prettier in person! The building was always the center of the community and Robert would still hold the annual Cortez Native picnic on his lawn and still invited entertainment to perform for the community at his home. The county purchased the property after he died and renovated it and turned it into the Maritime Museum in 2006. It is still used as a community center of sorts and holds community gatherings and has a small library tucked inside. 

All in all it was a beautiful day. I am so blessed to live in Florida with it's sunshine a turquoise waters. It was really fun to see a little glimpse of a fishing villages history and get out and enjoy nature, good food, people watch, and check out a little bit of art too.

Screech Owl! He was playing with a cat toy mouse.

Beautiful Gulf Coast!

Friday Night Fun

Last night was PMS (Pizza, Munchies, Sewing…what did you think it meant?) night at one of the local quilt stores, Cotton Patch. My new friend Jaden had wanted to go and invited me to sign up to join her (if you want a good read, good laugh, and to learn a new recipe or learn how to not store fish sperm - go check out her blog!). Another friend had ended up being there last night as well and all together there were about 25 of us and the shop owner who is such a great lady. We stayed until midnight - gasp! I didn't even know I could stay awake that long anymore. Only a couple of us got loopy. It was really fun to see all of the projects that were brought and a few of them finished. I couldn't decide what to bring so I loaded myself down and brought a million projects with me. There was so much gabbing and munching and laughing that I am surprised I finished anything! 

Well, I didn't really…I shorted myself 1 white square so I had to finish my Sugar Block Club BOM this morning. I love the way it turned out and it looks so pretty next to its January friend.

Jaden and I met last month at the Modern Quilt Guild meeting. Elizabeth Dackson of don't call me betsy was the guest speaker and we had a free motion quilting workshop. She has a beautiful BOM called Lucky Stars and they are all paper pieced. Both of us signed up and neither of us know how to paper piece so we both brought our projects thinking we could learn together. Laura, the amazing owner of Cotton Patch, gave us an impromptu class on paper piecing and now we are SET! I can't wait to dig into my stash and finish this! I love paper piecing! 

This little itty bitty booger was last on my list of things I started and didn't finish. Thimble Blossoms Dwell . My little house block is only 3" x 4.5". I was able to dig through my stash and find enough coordinating pieces that I would almost call it a stash buster. But at a finished size of 13" x 15", I don't think there is a lot of "busting" going on. 

All in all it was a great night! I signed up for the March one as well and maybe this time I won't bring so many projects! I just need to finish something.

Cheers!

Finished Project!

It was such a beautiful day yesterday! Sunshine and low 80's. Almost makes a girl feel guilty when her friends up north and back in Texas and Oklahoma are freezing and prepping for another Winter storm. Then I remember that I chose to move here and they choose to stay there! I will enjoy my sunshine and warm Winters. Maybe one day this week I will even make it to the beach.

I did a lot of cutting and sewing this weekend. Sophie's pencil bag broke and I have a pattern for a bag but it is a little big. I explained it every way I could and she insisted that it would be fine. So instead of watching the Superbowl (Dallas wasn't in it so I don't care much anyway) Sophie and I went to JoAnn's to find fabric to match some pieces we already had. 

The pattern was fairly simple. 6 scrappy 8" blocks, a 14" sport zipper, 2 layers of batting, a 15"x22" piece of fabric for lining and voila! You have a bag. Being the first zipper I have ever done, of course I sewed part of it on wrong and had to unstitch it. The bag…well…it's really big! I told Sophie I would make her a smaller one and could use this one myself. She insisted on keeping this one though and proceeded to empty out her backpack of any non-important things…ie: math book…and said she would just pack an apple for lunch to save room. Oh goodness. I think I will be making another smaller bag in the near future.

Sophie and Ernie spent some time working on a very difficult Dr Who puzzle while I sewed and cut fabric for my Friday play day. It was a very pleasant evening. I do love our family time - it makes my heart happy!

APQ Quilt Along

Well, yesterday was a sewing day for sure. Kind of anyway. Friday night I finished my first block from the APQ Quilt Along. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. It is very busy for sure. I have been hoarding saving this kokeshi (doll) fabric since 2002 and I have quite a bit of it along with some sushi fabric. So I thought I would finally cut into it and use it as the large rectangles in the center of each block. Definitely  NOT low volume like it was supposed to be. I am going to keep going at the urging of a new friend and see if they get better as I go.

The Pattern and Fabric Stash

The First Block...

After the first block I decided it needed some softening up. I will use oranges, pinks, and a dark yellow for all of the "X"s and dark turquoise and this lighter one below for the rings. All the middles will be the X colors and the light turquoise chevron print that you can't see in these pictures.

The Second Block...

Scrappy Togetherness…

It's the beginning of a new month and I have 2 BOM's to do and now this one that I want to finish cutting. This Friday is PMS (pizza, munchies, sewing) night at Cotton Patch Quilt Shop and I am going with my new friend, Jaden, from Steamy Kitchen. Good thing my little machine is back from the doctor's and working better than ever. I better get cutting so I have something to do!

Cheers!