The Last Few Weeks

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is over and it's now officially December.  I have this little bit to show in my ongoing trek to finishing these hexies.

They just seem to be growing so slowly.

I was able to do these on the way back from my trip. "What trip" you ask?  Well, it all started like this......

Two weeks ago, our house started filling up with people.  Both our children and their families came to Pensacola for Thanksgiving for the first time in 6 years.

It was our little granddaughter's first visit to Nana and Granddaddy's house :).

It was the first time for my parents to be with all 7 of their great grandchildren.

All 23 of these people spent the majority of the holiday at our house and we ate all our big meals here.  This is quite a crew - we all stayed healthy and had so much fun together!  I'm so glad we had great weather - the kids played outside as much as possible.

A last minute decision found me leaving early Monday morning on a 1,100 trek.  One of the benefits of being currently unemployed is the ability to do things on the spur of the moment.  By lunchtime on Tuesday I got to see this!! 

My little punkin was pretty good for most of those 1,100 miles.  I'm so glad I was there to help her when that car seat got to be too much!

Before I knew it (LOL!!) we were here..... Iowa!!  I've never been to Iowa, but we were on our way to Cedar Rapids.  After 19 hours on the road, we arrived!

My DS and his family are living here - in a Residence Inn.  They've been there 4 months and counting.  My punkin got this stroller for Christmas and was taking her cow for a ride :).

This was parked out front of the hotel.  We got to go inside :).  I guess you never know who will show up!

I flew back to Pensacola yesterday, and my house looks pretty much the way it did after everyone left!  Today I've been trying to get things back in order and start thinking about decorating for Christmas.  I hope to get back into a groove, but the last few weeks have been so wonderful.

Have a great day,

Karen

Recent Road Trip Projects

I forgot to show you what I worked on while we were travelling to Asheville a few weeks ago.  The trip to see our kids usually takes between 8 1/2 and 9 1/2 hours depending on whether we go to Asheville or Charlotte.  So I usually start out working on dishcloths.  I make knitted and crocheted ones.  They are so easy and mindless to make.   And then I have something I can give when I arrive :).  If not, they go home with me to be given away another time.

This is a group of fabric I've been collecting for over 4 years.  It started with finding the batik (on top) at Mary Jo's.  The colors are phenomenal but I just have not been able to find the right pattern. ( I didn't take these, just the book).

I recently checked this book of our Guild's library.  I think I've found the perfect pattern for this project!!  So I took graph paper, pencil and eraser and worked on graphing out a pattern.  More to come...  This is one of Jean and Valori's older books but it's fabulous!

Then of course there's the hexies project.  This is a long term project as the only time I work on this is usually in the car.  A friend gifted me hundreds of hexies all prepped and ready to be joined (oh, and by the way, she's the same one who gifted me the orphan block from the previous post).  While 30's are not my passion, the colors are fun and happy and I'm content to work on this slowly.

I do think it's going to be beautiful. I don't plan on any setting hexies, I'm just going to join them like this.  It's going to be plenty big enough.

Last, but not least, is a big bunch of leftover scraps from my wild Pineapple Quilt.  I also used these scraps when I designed the One of a Kind quilt and I still have a whole tote of them that I'm going to have to find projects for .  I swear, I think these things multiply during the night LOL!!! 

I'm playing around with a variation of a quilt I saw in APQ several years ago.

I took a small cutting mat, rotary cutter and ruler and went to town.  Each center will have this Kaffe fabric, and the surrounding logs are basically anything.

As you can see, it's going to be a happy quilt!!!  Out of the all the pineapple projects, this one is the most like me - I think I'm going to love this one!!  I'm hoping to get some serious sewing done on this project now that I have so many blocks prepped.

Since my DH made some business calls on the way up and back, I did all the cutting in the hotel room (lest you think I tried to rotary cut in the car!!)  All the other projects were done in the car.

The sun is out - I'm lovin' it!

-Karen

The story of my Hexies

I'm thinking it might be time to finish this UFO. I seem to be in the mood to finish some projects that have been buried for a long time. Are these too cute or what?? I know the hexie craze has been all over blogland for quite awhile, but I want to tell you the story about these hexies. In a few days I will be leaving for a place with palm trees and little mice with big black ears :). We will be meeting our grandchildren to spend 5 days with all the characters and wonders of childhood. I have been deciding on a car project (we all know we can't go anywhere without a car project LOL!!) and this project came to mind (Pensacola is about 8 hours from this magical place). Many of you know my PIC (partner in crime) but one thing you may not know about her is that she has MANY (I mean MANY) UFO's. About 5 or 6 years ago she gave me hundreds of these in a bag and said "I will never finish these - do you want them?". Well, being the collector (sounds better than hoarder, doesn't it :)) that I am of course I said yes. The sad part of the story is that they have languished in a box for all these years. But now with the hexie craze being in full swing, these sweet little things kept coming to mind. Being the folk art, Moda girl that I am, 30's fabrics are not my favorite, but who knows?? I seem to also be in a mood to keep jumping out of my comfort zone, so here I go again.

Don't expect miracles, there are alot of these little darlings, and once the car trip is over, I will probably be on to something else. However, now that I've actually committed myself by posting about this, they may grow on me. It's been many years since I've done an ongoing hand project like this. Maybe it's time.....

Until next time, make something beautiful.

-Karen