Enjoying the Season

Very little stitching has happened since I last posted, and this is just a quick check-in. 

I started working on hexagons for the border of my Kim McLean project.  At least it’s a start.

We spent several days on the Texas Coast at Port Aransas celebrating our 47^th anniversary as well as both our birthdays.  The weather was mild and I particularly enjoyed sitting on the balcony smelling the salt air and reading. 

 

The view from our balcony at night.

 

One of the two rainbows we saw.

 

Fortunately, neither of these were an issue. 

It's been years since I put on a swimsuit, so cold water was not a problem.  I did get in a couple of beach walks though.

Our balcony gave us a good view of incoming ships.

Christmas was a quiet one with just the two of us.  Our family celebration was Sunday, which was also Bob’s birthday.

 

The kids went a little overboard on gifts.

We recorded a high of 90.3 degrees on our home themometer today.  This winter has started off as a very warm one, but things can change quickly.

Indulgences and Applique Progress

I indulged in snagging some items in a series of recent flash sales by Fig Tree and Company and my box of goodies arrived this week.  It included a bundle of half-yard Christmas fabrics and a set of scissors.  I made a quilt out of Christmas fabrics several years ago and gifted it to my daughter.  Maybe I will have a new one for me by Christmas next year!

I also managed to finish the handwork on another applique piece for my Kim McLean wall hanging project.  If I follow the pattern, I will add a series of hexagon flowers as a border.  I’m still debating whether doing so will make it too large for use in our house.  We have so many windows and an open floor design that minimizes wall space.

 

My Tuesday quilting tribe had a Christmas gathering this week.  I handed out these screwdrivers as party favors.  Most of the gifts I received in return were edible.  Their only remaining evidence can be seen on the bathroom scales.  

One member who is very good at machine embroidery made felt patches for us.  It occurred to me that it might be appliqued to a journal cover, we’ll see.

More About Those 400+ HSTs

A couple of posts ago, I talked about a baggie of triangles that yielded more than 400 half square triangles with no fabric repeats.  The friend who gave them to me told me they were off cuts from a millennial quilt she had made and last week she brought the quilt to our Tuesday group for me to see.  It’s huge, and I couldn’t get all of it into the picture.  

I love how she worked her colors so that the pattern looks like it sparkles. She was in some kind of group exchange.  I'm pretty sure not all the fabrics are 100% cotton, but so far I'm using them all.

 

Meanwhile, I’ve been pairing half square triangles with a white fabric.  This ought to give me lots of mindless, therapeutic stitching for a while.

 

I neglected to post a picture of this 1000-piece puzzle I finally finished.  It was a challenge.  Now I’ve got a 500-piece puzzle in the works, courtesy of my daughter. She also left me with two others that are waiting in the wings. Arrrrgh!

Gotta Love Someone Else's Scraps!

A member of my Tuesday sewing group recently brought a large tub of scraps destined for use in dog beds.  Well, of course I couldn’t let the opportunity pass for harvesting some of them for my own use.

 

Consequently, my collection of light a dark precut 2-inch squares is growing.  I’ve started accumulating neutral two-inch squares in another tray.

 

Our Thanksgiving was a small but joyous one.  It also happened to be my birthday, and I got a lot of pampering.  We opted to have our local grocery store cook everything.  It was an extravagance, but a much appreciated one.  Our daughter and one grandson made a day trip out of the day, but when she discovered she had left her favorite electronic device behind we got a bonus visit Saturday so she could retrieve it.  She even brought snacks for us to enjoy as we watched the Texas and A&M rivalry game.  The right team, in my opinion, won though I believe our grandson who is a senior at A&M would strongly disagree.