A Finish!

At last I can report a finish.  This project was several years in the making, but it is now bound, labeled done!  If I were to name it, I would call it “Two of my Favorite Things.”  The applique is turned edge and hand stitched.  I had actually hoped to have it finished in time to hang at the county fair, but that didn’t happen. 

I had an unexpected opportunity to visit an Ikea store Saturday.  I had been very curious, because several quilters I know use their furniture in their studios.  It was quite an experience.  The store is huge.  You enter at one corner and exit at a diagonal corner via a serpentine path painted on the floor.  If you didn’t follow the path, you would absolutely get lost.  Although I walked at a leisurely pace, I didn’t pause very often and it still took me an hour to finish my tour and check out.  I found a task light that I wanted and a USB charger that can accommodate three cables.  Other than that, no purchases and I was able to check an item off my want-to-do list (I refuse to think of it as a bucket list).

This is about the third brood of swallow chicks raised this year in a nest located above our front porch.  The chicks are cute and the parents help control the mosquito population.  The mess under the nest….well let’s just say that when they finally finish for the season, I will need to do some power washing.

I delivered 16 anti-ouch pouches to last week's guild meeting.

Turtles, Ouch Pouches and Hexies

Much time this weekend was spent prepping the fabric Debbie sent so that it would be ready for basting onto hexagon papers.  There really are some beauties here and I’m looking forward to using them.

I also worked on finishing up some anti-ouch pouches and pulling fabric for a new red and white project that I may take on retreat later this summer. Can you have enough red and white?  I’ve certainly been working with that combination this year.

Finally, when I went to check out why my dogs were so excited one day last week, this is what I saw.  

Fortunately, he was on the other side of the fence and totally unimpressed by all the ruckus.  This guy was really big and after checking on-line, I think he was a soft shell turtle.  Most turtles we see are  box turtles, but we have these and snapping turtles too.

And the Hexies Keep Marching On

My pile of basted hexagons has grown significantly thanks to nighttime television watching and a road trip. The trip was the four-hour trek to Dallas last weekend to celebrate a dear friend’s 80^th birthday.  It was also an experiment since this was the first time we had traveled to a hotel with both dogs.  They behaved quite well considering how strange it must have seemed to them.  We hope to take them on a longer trip later this year and were relieved to see how they handled it.

Here’s a picture of my growing stack of basted hexies.

I also received a wonderful squishy package of reds and neutrals from my sweet blog friend, Debbie, over at Stitchin’ Therapy.  She saw the pictures of this project in an earlier post and volunteered to feed my hexie addiction.  These will work nicely with the fabrics I’ve already used.  Thanks, so much, Debbie.  We've been friends for many years and I keep hoping to meet you in person some day....

Because I am not confident that I really understand the ramifications of the new EU regulations affecting bloggers, I have made a few changes including removing side-bar items with direct links to third parties, like Bloglovin’.  I have never “monetized” my blog, nor do I have a newsletter or affiliate links.  I also verified that the standard Blogger notice about Blogger and Google cookies appears when viewing my blog from the EU.  Hopefully all this makes me compliant with the new rules.