Vacation Time

I’ve been absent from blogging last week because my husband and I were on vacation. First, we went to New Orleans where my friend (of more than 40 years) from Connecticut flew in and joined us. We had a wonderful time (except the weather was VERY warm—heat records were set that week). We ate our way through New Orleans!

We did go to Whitney Plantation—what an eye-opening experience. The tour is told from the point of view of the slaves on the plantation. It was a very moving experience for us all. I got a picture of the beautiful live oaks.

We also went to several galleries. I purchased a great piece created by artist Tress Turner. It is made from the wood of an 1800s shotgun house from the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans. I just LOVE it; it goes perfectly with the colors of my living room, dining room, and kitchen.

Irene made her way back to Connecticut, and Nate and I drove on to St. George Island, FL. We rented a house and our children and grandchildren joined us there for the week. We have been doing this every two years; this is the third time for us. Could there be a better vacation? Of course, this is my very favorite vacation week of the year. There is nothing as precious as spending time with family.

I have a grandson who will turn one on July 2. This was his first trip to the beach; he LOVED it.

This is my family.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have joined the Kingfisher Stitchalong. I worked on sewing some hexie flowers together while I was gone and am working on preparing more hexies to stitch whenever I can.

Top left—isn’t that a beautiful backdrop for my hexie flowers? That is the view off our deck of the house on St. George Island. Top right—That is my traveling setup. I’m SO thankful I can stitch in the car. Bottom left—I even had time to work on some 1/2” hexies for a different project after I finished all the hexie flowers I had prepared. Bottom right—I REALLY like my rotating mat for cutting and glue basting. 

I am using junk mail (the light card stock pieces) to cut my hexie papers from. You can see that in the pic on the left. On the right, you can see I have several more hexies basted and ready to stitch. I just love that my Butterfinger tin is the PERFECT size for my basted hexies.

I have a small stack of hexie flowers done. (I need 46 for the Kingfisher quilt.) I really like how the finished flowers look in my little basket on my end table. I think I’ll leave them out for decoration. I am really enjoying the hand stitching.

I have a huge list of quilty things that need to get done. I wanted to work on machine quilting a quilt and sewing a back together today, but I wasn’t comfortable turning my machines on since we had a big rain storm today. The lightening makes me a bit uncomfortable—maybe tomorrow.