Much needed downtime (PICS) and a winner too.

First off Congrats goes to lucky number 3!

Sharon B said...
Mine is a military family:
2 brothers (Army & Marines)
Dad - Navy Seabees
Grandpa - Navy
ME - Navy Seabees - only female in unit
Hubby - Navy Submarines

As soon as I get your snail mail address, I will send the pattern out to you.

I was off work last Thursday, on vacation Friday and Saturday, off Sunday and Monday, on leave Tuesday, Wednesday, and off again tomorrow Thursday. :D We took off last Friday morning and went camping with 4 other trailers full of people. I sooooooooooo needed that downtime.  Saturday morning we got up early and took the canoe up river.

This is how peaceful and quiet it was. Well as quiet as nature can be sometimes. Seen this guy along the way.

At one time I went to get out and get a picture of the big patch of these flowers,

and almost stepped on this pigmy rattler, it was close.

I decided to stay in the canoe to get the pic of the big group of those flowers. Then we just took our time and paddled farther up the river still.

Then farther up the river we went to grab a geocache along the way. Seen a few of these pretty yellow flowers here and there.

So when we got out and there were a bunch of those pretty white flowers again,

I took the oar with me to swish back and forth just in case, well good thing, another snake. This one looked like a cotton mouth water moccasin. It was black and gray, it scurried away under a log when I disturbed him, and on we went to the cache location.

Got back in the canoe and continued up stream.

 Then we seen some crystal clear water coming from this side area, so we turned up that way, and followed the very shallow water, so shallow, I had to get out twice and pull the canoe a little ways before I could get back in it. Followed it all the way to the end where the natural spring was. It was so clear and cold too.

There were cows at the top of the hill next to the house up that way, you could here them Moooooooing.

There were a few bigger fish down in the spring, but I couldn't get good photos of them because the camera kept picking up the reflections off the top of the water, and we forgot the water proof case for the other camera. But I did get this picture of all these little fish hanging out by our feet.

We started back out and I managed to get some pictures heading in the other direction through the very shallow spring waters.

Then we started back to camp.

Followed this bird for awhile downstream.

When we got almost all the way back to where we take the canoe out there was a narrow passage on the river, and 2 feet from the canoe was a 5 foot gator just sunning himself on a log, without a care in the world.

We snapped a few pics, and went to take the canoe out because it was starting to get hot outside. Or should say really, really, really HUMID outside. Everyone else was just arriving to put in their canoes for the day, so we let them know about the gator and wished them a wonderful day. Then we chilled for the rest of the day. Sunday morning we got up and took the bikes for a bike ride down the bumpy trails,

I am so out of shape, the bike ride about killed me. My legs felt like Jello! When we got back to camp we had a visitor hanging  out on the screen tent.

Then we chilled for the rest of the day. Chilled out Monday till checkout time, then drove home and chilled the rest of the day too. Tuesday when we got up though, it was all business on the rental house renovation. Same thing today, and tomorrow too. Then back to work on Friday.

Vacation has begun.........

Ever going on vacation and it doesn't feet like it??? Told my boss remember I am off tomorrow, he replied aren't you off for a whole week? OH YEAH! I AM!!!  I forgot! So lets have a little giveaway.

Late last year I was testing patterns for a few designers out there, and I got a special little package in the mail earlier this week. Kim from Chatterbox Quilts sent me a few patterns of the one I tested out. She has them all printed and ready to be sold. It is a table runner she calls the pattern Tweet-Heart.

 So with it being Memorial Day leave me a comment on this post, telling me if you or anyone in your family has ever been in the Military. I will pick a winner next Wednesday. If you don't win you can go to her blog and click her Etsy shop button I am sure she has them in her shop.

Calling all Moda fans..........

Ok you Moda junkies...........help me out. Which line of fabric did this piece come from???? I need to see if I can find some.

It is all different shades of tan and brown with a washed out turquoise blue.

Oh yeah, remember I am doing the In The Bag UGLY fabric swap. Well I got my fabrics, they aren't all that UGLY. Now to figure out what to do with them.

We have a multi blue with planets and gold glitter, then a black/blue with silver glitter, a brighter blue with sun stars and moons and silver glitter, black and gray skyline print w/touch of blue and more silver glitter, then a black/brown/gray print, navy blue with red very busy design, and then a multi purple fabric. Ok where is my rainbow..............this bunch needs some COLOR. They look VERY dark in person, but look pretty bright in this picture.

Sunday - May 13th

Today isn't just Mothers Day, but it also our youngest daughters birthday too. She turns 20 today. She is the one that is getting married next month. So while she is at work today from 10-2 I will be making carrot cake, her favorite. I am going to try and make it in cupcake form instead of bundt cake form. The main reason being, is that might be what we do for her wedding. She already is thinking of cupcakes, and since the groom doesn't care for cake but loves my carrot cake, I just need to figure out how to get my cake to bake up right as cupcakes.

So to my daughter Stephanie......Happy Birthday!

To myself and everyone else out there......Happy Mothers Day, may you get to spend time with your kids and time to sew as well, if that is your wish.

For me, I am going back to bed @4:30am, since I have been up since 1:30am. Will start my day again in a couple of hours. I did all the dishes already. ;D

Whew, I had to give the machine a break

I have been BUSY in the sewing room this week. On Tuesday all of us guild ladies met up and had a HUGE pot luck dinner and swapped out our Christmas string blocks. Look at all this eye candy, sooo many adorable Christmas fabrics to enjoy. Then the gears started churning in my brain. What to do with them all.

When I got home from work on Wednesday I knew what I wanted to do with them. So I took my stack of 20 blocks.

Started chopping them up........

Added some creamy neutral with some gold glitter to add to the festival of it all. Since there are quite of few fabrics in the strings that have some bling. And an hour or so later I have the center of the top. Now to add a neutral border then some string border and then find a cute Christmasey fabric with all the colors to add a final border and backing too.

That picture is so washed out looking on here, the other squares almost look grey. they are a soft buttery off white with gold glitter.

I was off work today so I had to go to the LQS to see if they had some turquoise and chocolate fabrics in the civil war tones to match the ones my youngest gave me for Christmas last year. She bought them because she really loved them, so I am using them to make her wedding quilt out of. Well they had a fat quarter bundle that matched so I bought that, and then bought some Kona eggshell for the centers of the DWR quilt I am making. Here they are all lined up on the table.

 Then after ironing and stacking them in sewing order, then cutting them all up in strips, they are all ready to start sewing my strips together. I think I have many more than I am going to need. Who knows I might have enough to make 2 whole quilts. We will see, I am just going to start power strip piecing after I wind a bunch more bobbins. Also find me another spool of thread.

Well hopefully I will have most of this done by my next post. I am debating on having guests sign the center blocks at the wedding reception before putting the quilt together, or maybe if I have extras have them sign the extras for a table topper or something smaller, and hang the quilt at the reception.