FNSI and more

I am not the most imaginative person in blogland.  So when someone else does something I like, I don’t hesitate to borrow their ideas.  I saw the Shirt challenge on Tracee’s blog, and wanted to join, because I just happened to have a bag of shirts begging to become a quilt.

Then I saw the Charmed Star  QAL on Terry’s blog.  I really wanted to sew along, but I don’t have any appropriate fabric, and I absolutely can’t buy any more right now. 

But then I was perusing Sheila’s blog, and she was combining the two projects, and I totally fell in love with her first block. 

So with Sheila’s permission, I’m copying her idea.  Do you have any idea how long it takes to dismantle 6 shirts?

I spent an entire afternoon/evening taking them apart, and ironing the pieces flat.  I spent another entire afternoon/evening cutting the 5” squares. 

That’s a five inch stack.  I didn’t count all of them, but the first shirt yielded 44 squares, and I’m sure the others were all similar.  Four shirts were long sleeved, and two were short sleeved.  I kept the pockets, and I’m trying to think of a way to incorporate them.  They may appear on the back.

I also harvested all the buttons.  That was a little time consuming, too.

So, not much sewing this week, but I was productive.  Some of those smaller shirt scraps may turn up as mug rugs, but I’m running out of time so not sure about that yet.

I did make a small bag and a few other scrappy mug rugs earlier in the week.

The bag is small, with diagonal pockets inside, and will be perfect for carrying my small cross stitch projects.  I received one of these bags for Christmas one year, and my yoyo making supplies are stored in it. 

Thank you all for your emails and comments about DH.  He continues to be just fine, and we’ve rescheduled our vacation for next week.  We’ve gone walking a few times this week, and we took a daytrip to the northern part of the Chesapeake Bay on Wednesday. 

We discovered a boat ramp at Elk Neck State Park that we plan to visit next summer.  We’ve been to visit Turkey Point Lighthouse in the park in the past, but were unaware that there was a boat ramp.

 Next stop was Chesapeake City, which is located at the midpoint of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.  As we were driving over the bridge to enter the town, there was a huge container ship just below us.  By the time we got parked and ran down to the water, it was nearly gone.

We stopped in a few of the shops and then paid a visit to the C&D Canal Museum.  The canal operates fully at sea level, so there is no need for locks.  Approximately 40% of the container ships at the Port of Baltimore, have traversed the Canal.  Pleasure boats are allowed, and we’d like to kayak here some day, too!

Our travels also took us through picturesque Chestertown and Rock Hall, MD.  We enjoyed sandwiches for dinner while sitting on the beach at Rock Hall, overlooking the Bay.

If you look really hard in the picture below, you can see the Bay Bridge in the distance.

And here are some pictures on the Chester River as the sun prepares to set.

that was our practice day, and now we’re ready for vacation.  Bring it on!!
~~ Sunny~~

Good News….Bad News….

Let’s start with the bad news and get it over with.    I am not on vacation, or anywhere near Nova Scotia as we had planned.  I have not stitched for several days, with the exception of crocheting as I sat in the hospital with DH. 

You see, he had a bit of a medical emergency on Thursday night as we were finishing up the laundry and getting ready to start packing. 

He went off to the hospital in an ambulance, and was admitted for two days for observation after his symptoms seem to have resolved.

The good news is, he’s fine, with no lasting ill effects.  He is now on even more meds, and we were reminded once again that we should be eating healthier and getting more exercise.  So we took a very nice walk in our beautiful city park this afternoon.

The other good news is that because of my job situation, we will be able to reschedule our vacation.  Hopefully in two weeks.  We should still have great weather in Nova Scotia, and we have two dinner dates lined up with fellow bloggers.  Waving to Sheila and Joan!

So, life is good!  Hubby was very fortunate, and we were reminded once again that we need to live each day to the fullest.  Don’t put it off. 

I’m still taking my vacation time off from work, so expect some stitching results soon!   Have a great week.

~~Sunny~~

We will Never Forget

FNWF results

I had a busy night Friday night, ironing, cutting, and sewing.  The results are not exactly pretty.

Because this is what our Saturday kayaking adventure looked like this weekend, I was able to do more sewing.

Click on pictures if you can’t see the rain.  And the lovely rain was part of a cold front that passed through, breaking our heat wave and leaving lovely temperatures today

By the time I went to bed on Saturday night, those not-so-beautiful strips turned into this.

When we went to Lancaster County (Amish country) last month to pick up a few Row by Row patterns, I bought a fat quarter bundle of solid colored fabrics and some black yardage to play around with, and this is what I came up with.  I was thinking that I might actually hand quilt it, but I’m not sure how successful I would be with the black.  Could it be quilted with a thread other than black?  I’m most proud of the second block in the second row.  My first block with partial seams!

The coming week will be spent preparing for vacation!    We’re heading for Nova Scotia, so if you have any tips, please share.  Any must-see or must-do stops?  We’re going to Cape Breton, Halifax, and I’m hoping to meet up with Sheila of Sheila’s Quilt World. We’ll visit Peggy’s Cove, and as many other sites as we can fit into a week.  Beware, many pictures will be coming…..

Sunny

August is over?

Another long weekend comes to an end  And I lived to tell about it.  I have to admit there were a few minutes in the kayak on Saturday when I was a little terrified worried.  We went down to Solomons Island in Southern Maryland.  While checking the weather forecast on our way, I noticed that a Small Craft Advisory was going to go in to effect a few hours later.  Because of that, we stayed on the river and didn’t go near the Bay.  Next time, we’ll stay off the river, too.

I took a couple of pictures when we were first setting out, but there were no more opportunities.  All’s well that ends well!

The reason we chose that location this weekend was so that we could meet up with Jamie from busy bee quilts.  Jamie and I were working on our Farmer’s Wife Quilts together a couple of years ago, and recently, she tracked down some fabric that I needed.  We had a wonderful dinner with Jamie and her DH.

After we left the restaurant, we stopped at the Maritime Museum for pictures of the Drum Point Lighthouse.  Which reminded me that I hadn’t posted pictures from our lighthouse cruise last weekend.

First was Bloody Point, which I’ve never seen before.  The second light was Sandy Point, which can be seen from the Bay Bridge, and which we have kayaked out to.

Next up was Baltimore Harbor Light, which I showed at a great distance a couple of weeks ago when we were on the Bay.

Thomas Point is one of the most photographed lighthouses in the country.  This was my first viewing of this beauty.  It’s a style known as a screwpile light.

And then there’s Sharp’s Island Light.  Sharp’s Island washed away many years ago, and the Light was knocked askew by an ice floe in 1977.  It is listed on the Lighthouse Digest Doomsday List of endangered lighthouses. 

I’ve been working furiously on WIP’s this month, so I really don’t have anything stitchy to share.  Wait – yes I do!  Di’s challenge this month was to use polka dots.  I knew I had some dotty fabric, and while searching for it, my leaning tower of scraps fell over.  Which led to much cleaning and organizing in my sew room.  But I digress.  I stitched one of Jenny of Elefantz’s designs, and made a cushion.  It’s an odd size and won’t fit a pillow form, so I have to buy some stuffing for it.  But I’m counting it as a finish for Di.

They’re hard to see in the photos, but all three fabrics have dots!

Back to work tomorrow……Sunny