I’m visiting Mom and Maureen and we worked on a couple projects today.

We fused and trimmed the last of the t-shirts for the third quilt we’re making from my SIL’s t-shirts and fused the name block. This was the one from Emma’s quilt which is ready for me to take home to quilt.

And this is the one for Eliza’s quilt that we were working on today. Mom will sew down the appliqué, finish assembling the top and then mail it to me to quilt.

Maureen wants a butterfly wallhanging so we worked on getting that ready for Mom to stitch down the appliqué. We used the Accuquilt GO butterfly die and changed the size of a quilt I saw on their site for the wallhanging. She likes bright colors!

Neither one of them would look up and smile for me …

I’ll apologize in advance … there are many posts and photos that did not transfer over from the old blog … years of posts … I’ve looked for options for filling in the blanks and I will be posting some old stuff but I’m not sure how far I’ll end up going with it. It’s impossible to rebuild/repost everything that has been lost.

There are over 8 missing years of posts … I have copies of all the photos and monthly PDF files that seem to be too large for the most part to upload. I’ll probably aim for adding in photos of finished tops and quilts and some summarized family and travel posts.

Unfortunately, for those of you that subscribe by email this will result in your getting multiple old posts. I suggest you consider unsubscribing for now. There should be an unsubscribe link in every email you receive.

I wandered back upstairs late this afternoon and quilted this Ohio Star top. Pantograph is Surf’s Up. This is stay at home week #15 for the year and the 15th top quilted – I’m going to continue to try and hit my one top quilted for each week I’m not traveling but I won’t fret if I miss one.

Block close up – I like using a tan colored thread on these that have both light and dark fabrics. It tends to blend in with all of them without being too prominent.

I love the fussy cut star centers and cornerstones! The fabrics for this top were from a Connecting Thread kit that was on sale and since I didn’t want to make the pattern that came with it, I designed an Ohio Star quilt — I’ve posted brief instructions on the website.

I’ve had a lot of questions about the size of the blocks in the 16 patch quilt I’m working on. If using squares, they’re cut 4 inches. If using fat quarters, cut your strips 4 x 18 inches.

I found a free pattern online for this quilt several years ago but that blog is no longer active. After a lot of searching, I found an archived link but I have no idea how long it will be active so if you are interested, make sure you save a copy for yourself.

St Louis 16 Patch – https://web.archive.org/web/20131016220636/http://sewwithsass.blogspot.com/2013/04/quilts-st-louis-16-patch.html

I’m using fat quarters for my quilt so I have a little left over of each one after cutting my 4 strips and since I can’t stand to waste fabric (or the effort it takes to press!) I’m cutting the leftovers into Tumblers for a small doll quilt. No surprise right?

 

I’m trying to change my mindset about what I need to accomplish on a day to day, week to week basis. I’m typically very goal oriented but right now I just need to cut myself some slack. Yesterday, I fretted about everything I didn’t get done but today I’ve decided that it’s OK to just be happy puttering without assigning myself specific goals or tasks that have to be accomplished.

I put my music on, loaded a quilt on the longarm, and pulled out some fat quarters to start a new quilt. I don’t want to have to think too hard so I’m making a 16 Patch quilt, one with oversized blocks. I didn’t finish anything but spent several very happy hours just slowly puttering. Keith’s out of town so I might go up later tonight and work a little more if I feel like it.

This is my favorite fat quarter friendly quilt right now – 12 fat quarters makes a smaller kid size quilt.

And 20 fat quarters makes a nice lap size quilt.

I’ve also decided that it’s fine to take several shorter walks during the day rather than one long one. My step average suffered a little last week but I did a lot of kayaking so I’m OK with it for now but I want to get that average back up over 10,000 a day.

Another Hatteras vacation is coming to an end and everyone will head in different directions tomorrow – Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and Florida but we’re planning to come back next year.

Of course the trip is all about Mom and being able to spend time together as a family.

Time with our girls is precious and this was a great week with them. I’m so thankful that Chris and Becky come each year.

My kayaking buddies — I LOVED all the time spent in the kayak!

You must know by now how much I love being out on the water. Chris joined me tonight after dinner.

It was overcast so the sunset wasn’t that vivid but I was on the water so it was all good!

Dinner was a family affair … doesn’t Mom look thrilled?!