Last Minute Vacation

Our cabin

Quilt or Vacation?  Which should it be?  Vacation won out!!  I love Pat's sewing retreat, but this year it just didn't work out, vacation won out.  I had only paid for one day of sewing retreat because I just had too much other stuff going on.  Then DH decided he wanted to get away for a few days.  Well I am not one to say no to a vacation.  We went to Brevard, NC and stayed at Deerwood Inn, and it was wonderful.  We had the River Cabin, a beautiful cabin with a porch right on the French Broad River.



View from our cabin.

Yard art and garden at Deerwood Inn.

One of the lakes at Deerwood Inn.

 While in Brevard we went to Pisgah National Forest and Dupont State Forest.  They were both beautiful.  The waterfalls were outstanding, not surprising with all of the rain that we have had this year.  My favorite was called Triple Falls, it was so beautiful. 

Triple Falls

The top of Triple Falls.

I can't believe that vacation is over and school will soon be starting!!

A little of this and a little of that

Where oh where has the summer gone?  I can't believe that in a little more than a week I will be back at work.  Not at all looking forward to it.  The last week has been filled with a variety of activities, the first was pickle making.  Our garden has not done at all well this year, we have had too much rain, (if there is such a thing), 11 inches just last week, that plus very little sun has lead to a very poor garden.  We have gathered a few cucumbers.  I finally gathered enough to make a batch of pickles.  These are the same pickles I made last year from the Pioneer Woman's cookbook.  DH really liked them. 

Pickles in ice

Pickles draining just before the cooking and canning process.

 I also had an order for some charm packs of wool.  I absolutely love dyeing wool and would do it everyday if I could.  Maxine up at a Stitch in Time order some more charm packs so I had to get those ready to go.  This was in addition to delivering the monthly order for Tiny Stitches and stopping off at Little Quilts in the hope that Mary Ellen would be there and purchase some wool.  I was in luck she was there and made a very nice purchase. 

 

I also finished the piece that I was working on for Pat, Glory Garden.  I absolutely love the way that it turned out.  Check out Pat's website at Silver Thimble for a kit in the near future for this.  In addition to all of this, I did some reading, yard work and housecleaning, why can't I just sew all of the time?

Duck People, oh my!!!

Went to Bass Pro Shop with DH today and ran into two of the Duck Commanders, Willie and Phil!!!  Love watching their show!

Blue Ridge Community Quilt Show

This month, Blue Ridge, Georgia hosts their annual Community Quilt Show. I  have been attending this little show  for several years, and for the last two years, have had quilts in the show.  (all you have to do to enter quilts is be a member of the Blue Ridge Arts Association).  I am always amazed by the talented quilt makers in this little town.  I entered two quilts this year one was, Who's Your Huckleberry, and the other is the infamous anniversary t-shirt quilt.  (I actually think that he is starting to  like it!!!!! He is almost smiling here) If you are in the area the show runs for another week, check it out.

Who's Your Huckleberry, one of Pat's patterns.

I think this was a scrappy Nine Patch.  Should have taken notes.

There were a few old quilts on display, this was one of them, DH wanted to know if I was ever going to make one of these, he really liked it.

Nice scrappy batik quilt.

I think this one is sideways, but still pretty, scrap sting piecing.

Oh my, a neutral scrappy nine patch, (see this one Pat)

Great looking stars.

Scrappy Batik



Rain, Rain, Rain

All it has done around here for the last two weeks is rain, and I do mean rain.  If I were smart I probably would have started building an ark.  Our garden is a goner, the rain has just been too much for it along with the sneaky rabbits that have been filling up on the beans and corn.  Over the 4th we decided to take a few days and get away (we thought we would get away from the rain, no such luck).  We drove up to Chattanooga for a visit to the Tennessee Valley Railroad and Museum.  Now DH and I are not huge railroad fans, but thought this would be fun.  We took a six hour train ride from Chattanooga to Chickamauga, GA.  I thought we would see some beautiful scenery, boy was I wrong!! We saw the "other side of the tracks" most definitely.  The train ride itself was fun, but not much to look at outside.  It took about three hours to get to Chickamauga.  The best part of that was we had lunch in the dining car, that was nice.  It was my first time to eat on a train, and I would definitely recommend that, the boys who waited   on us were so nice and definitely added to the experience.

The Dining Car

Looking out of the window at the other train cars, through the rain.

Civil War Cannons (in the rain)

After lunch we arrived for an 1 1/2 hour stop in the town of Chickamauga.  Not a  lot to do there,(in the rain) we did tour the Gordon-Lee Home, it was very nice, and of course there was a quilt shop in town that I just had to visit.  I was a good girl, (probably because DH was with me) I didn't buy anything.  The trip back took longer due to the fact that two trees had fallen on the tracks while we were in Chickamauga.  It took a while for the trees to be removed from the tracks.  This is something that you definitely only need to do once.  We spent the night in Chattanooga, and had planned on taking a boat ride on the TN river on Sunday, but you've got it since it was raining we decided to cut our trip a little short and come home. 

And the winner is????

The winner for the Edyta Sitar Scrappy Fireworks book is Barb.  Congratulations Barb, send me your address and I will get the book out to you.  Hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th of July.

Happy Fourth of July!!!

Hope everyone is having a fun, safe, and happy July 4th.  To celebrate the day I am having a giveaway, Edyta Sitar's new book Scrappy Firework Quilts.  I was lucky enough to hear her lecture last week at the Gwinnett Quilt Guild and it was amazing.  This book is also amazing.  No big hoops to jump through, just leave a comment and you will be entered in the drawing.  The winner will be announced Sunday night.  Good luck. 

Latest Wool Applique Project

Pat, over at Silver Thimble Quilt Co. is one of the most creative people that I know.  She designs quilts, table toppers, tote bags, writes books, and is our fearless Thimble leader, and is a wonderful friend.  Last year I teamed up with her to put together a wool kit for her pattern Snowbound, it was a tremendous success.  I wanted to use some of my wools in another pattern of hers and decided on Glory Garden.   I am stepping out of my box and using really bright colors of wool. 

I decided on a pale blue and white stripe for the background and really bright colors for the flowers and the stems. So far I have just pinned the pieces down and have them ready to stitch down.  Can't wait to see how this looks. ( as you look at the pattern above, this is the next to the last row with the basket in the middle)  Check out Pat's website for more info on her patterns.

A finish, finally

I think that I was over ambitious with my UFO list for this year.  There is no way that all of those UFO's will be finished.  I did finish one yesterday, yeah, finally.  This is the last swap that our swap group did, over a year ago. I can't remember what the actual name of it was, I called it a Rail Fence, it was on the cover of American Patchwork and Quilting a while back.  It is hard to tell from this photo, but all of the fabrics are florals, either lights or darks.  While going through my stash today I even found the perfect backing for it.  It is brown with different shades of pink flowers.  I think when I get around to getting it quilted it will become my new TV watching quilt.  I have no idea why it took me so long to finish this, it was really easy to make.   

Now that I have one project finished, I am giving myself permission to start a new one, and for this new project I am stepping out of my box.  I don't usually use really bright fabrics and I don't usually mix batiks and prints; well for this one I am doing both. I found this photo on Pintrest earlier this year, then a couple of months later the pattern came out in one of the quilting magazines. It has taken me a while to go through  my stash and one visit to the quilt store to get things out of my box to gather up enough prints to get started.  I have cut all of my stash and new fat quarters that will work and have completed two of the light string pieced blocks.  I have to admit the colors are a nice change from  anything that I have done recently.  Will post more on my progress later.