A Little Beach Vacation

 We're back home after a few days at the beach. Ahhh. We live only 3.5 hours from the shore. But we have never gone much, primarily because we've always vacationed at the family lake house - a different kind of water. But Hubby and I decided a beach getaway would be fun and it was!

The sunsets were glorious!

We stayed a little off the beaten track where it wasn't crowded. Another ahhh.... We didn't have to sidestep around lots of people to find a spot in the sand.

From Hubby's perspective...

And from mine... yes...hex on the beach!

 For us, a trip to the coast means lots of fresh seafood. Oysters and crab cakes.

Firecracker shrimp.

Grilled amberjack sandwich. Not to mention the crab claws. And flounder.  And fried shrimp. Yes, we ate our way though our trip. Yes, I've gained a few pounds. Time to get back on track, but oh, it was fun to splurge!

This morning I already have the laundry going. I have a small meeting with a friend at 9:30 and then coffee with other friends at 10:30. Nothing like coming home to a full schedule! Haha! But I do hope to hexie this afternoon.

By the way, over on Facebook LOTS of people have been joining Hexie Love Open Studio! Yay! We're over 1100 member now! If you've asked to join and have not been accepted yet, please try again. I think I hit the 'Ignore' button for one or two people accidentally instead of the desired 'Accept' button - my bad!

Have a great day!

Slow Day

I sat on my bum yesterday. Whenever I'm machine quilting a project, I hit it hard. So this past week was hard! Haha- as hard as it gets for me anyway. Which is not very...

Yesterday I didn't do much at all. Okay, one load of laundry. But little else. I read a bunch though - does that count for anything? And a tiny bit of hexie sewing. Tiny bit.

What are your plans for the week? I'm thinking it will be a hexie week for me. Lots of hexies, I hope!

Stay tuned - tomorrow I should have a fun picture to share...

Ain't No Sunshine is DONE!

I'd planned to finish this while watching college football. But I finished it BEFORE football even started!

And I have to admit...even though I don't like the color purple, I do love the quilt!

I'll be throwing it in the wash to soften it up and make it nice and crinkly. And it will go in my new cabinet, on display. This one might be gifted to someone who needs a pick-me-up. I like to have some quilts on hand for gifts. I have no idea who will get this one, but it's nice to have it done. It looks pretty in the backyard, doesn't it?

Since this was complete....I worked on hexies during the games. After I went to bed I had an idea. Do you have your best ideas while falling asleep? I do! So according to my falling-asleep-idea...I need to take apart the individual hexies and sew them in a different configuration. Okay, I will!

Have a nice day, everyone!

That Final Corner

Yesterday morning I finished quilting the final corner. Then I trimmed it and stitched the binding around the corner. And last night and hand stitched approximately half the binding down on the backside. This baby might be finished today!

This is what I had handy when I wanted to make a grocery list - a used curved hexie paper - haha! Groceries were bought, laundry done, dishes put away. Plus the corner of the quilt was completed. All before lunch!

Today will not be so busy. I'm glad.

Have a relaxing day!

Quilting, Quilting, Quilting....

I hit it hard yesterday! I just kept going and going and going on the machine quilting. I pushed myself longer and harder than I had intended. Finally I knew I needed to just stop for the day.

But I wanted to work on the quilt a bit longer. I realized I only had one little corner left to quilt. What to do?

I decided to put off the final bit of quilting (my shoulder blade was a bit sore), BUT I did go ahead and trim all the sides of the quilt except for that final corner. Then I decided to make the binding. I sewed the strip together, pressed them in half....hmmm, why not go ahead and stitch them around the trimmed quilt (except for that corner). BOOM!

So now today I can machine quilt that little corner, trim that little corner, and then stitch the binding to that little corner. I'll be ready to work on hand stitching the binding in my recliner on Saturday while watching FOOTBALL! Boom!

I think after this one is done I'll take a little break from machine quilting. I still have more top that need quilting, but I've done the ones that were the highest priority. Yay!

We may go to the lake today to make sure there was no storm damage there. We'll see...

Have a fun day!

My New Acquisition

Forgive the dark photo. I bought this a few days ago from our local Facebook yard sale group. Love it! This glass and metal piece is from Ikea and is PER-FECT for storing many of my completed quilts. Now they can be seen and admired without being stuffed in a closet. Yay! And the best part was that it was already assembled! Happy Dance!

I didn't do any machine sewing yesterday, but today I'm ready to attack the machine quilting again. Hope I can get another chunk of it done today.

Have a good one.

Curved Hexies!

If you've been to Hexie Love Open Studio, you've already seen my recent hexie play. I love my Curved Hexagon Ruler! I was planning to work on this more yesterday, but I couldn't make a decision on what to do next. I'll think on it a bit more...

I'm putting this together a bit differently. It's a combination of English Paper Piecing AND Hand Piecing AND Appliqué. That center piece - I turned the edges to the back side of the paper and stitch basted them. Then I lined up the side pieces, taped them in place on the backside, and then hand stitched/appliquéd them on the front side. No glue. No machine stitching. Easy peasy. Before I removed the papers I marked the seam lines on the back - that allowed me to do hand piecing to stitch the hexagons together along the lines.

I'm using Cherrywood fabrics - I have lots of it on hand. I bought bunches of Cherrywood Scrap Bags once for my students back when I was teaching. I have plenty of them leftover with which to play. I'm using my own version of Fall colors. Having fun!