Love Quilts

Making a quilt is a labor of love. With every stitch of this quilt, I thought about how blessed I am to have this child in my life. I am SO thankful for him. I have spent the last week quilting this quilt for my grandson (Asa Gene) who turns one on July 2. (Gene was my Dad’s middle name—the name he went by. My son, Ryan, named his son after my Dad.) I think this is a great quilt for a little boy. I’m hoping he will love it.

I also finished my June Curtis Boehringer snowman wall hanging.

I have finished all of them, now, except for July, August, and September. I have NO time to work on them in the near future, so I guess I’ll have to find something else to hang in their designated space on my wall. Maybe I’ll get them done for next year…and maybe not! LOL!

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.