Our friend Pam was gracious enough to invite me to spend a couple of days that the condo her family rented for the month in June. It was hot but really nice to get away for a couple of days. Work schedule hasn’t opened up enough I can take more than 2 or 3 days at a time, but it was very relaxing, the condo was stunning and we had a great time. I had to laugh though as we needed step stools to climb in the beds.

I can’t say I realized this quilt was 8 feet x 8 feet until I hung it up. Originally I thought not with the teal furniture but the rug has teal, orange and purple so why not. Boy it came out huge.

This week will be your first birthday in heaven. I know you will be celebrating with Jesus and all your family that have gone one before. After you’ve witnessed heaven, I would never wish you back to this mess we call a world the way it is now, but I sure do miss you. Love you Jillybean my beautiful sister.

I ran across a Loralie Harris flamingo fabric and thought it might be a fun hexagon as I could get some with stripes and some without so I bought it. I had a chance this past Saturday to cut it out and I think it’s going to be fun. In fact, I thought it was so fun I wanted Claudia to make one using that fabric line in chickens so we ordered the chickens. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with. Her peacock hexagon came out stunning. I’ll post a picture of that when she sends it to me.

The flamingo is my hexagon and border. The chicken stripes will be Claudia’s hexagons and the coordinating yellow her border. Can’t wat to see these.

I was noticing each time I pull out another pre-cut one to work on, they all seem to have 200, 300 and 400 or more blocks to sew and trim. I’m working one one that still needs 106 blocks squared up so I decided to pull a second one to sew and give my shoulder a break from squaring blocks. Why am I surprised it is 1,291 pieces and will have 296 blocks to sew and square up?

I made this quilt a few years ago using cream and 2 colors. I had in my head I’d like to make it black with multiple colors so I cut it out an it’s been waiting it’s turn to be made. I made one block and laid it aside as I thought again, I’m starting one that I am not going to love. It didn’t look like I had planned it in my head done in the black with so many different colors. I decided night before last to make a few more and I think it’s going to grow on me. I still have about 285 blocks to make but I think I’ll like it more than I thought after making the first one.

I picked this fabric thinking it will be amazing or it will be hideous. I doubted there was anything in between using 20 shades of purple and orange. I wanted it to look like the sun peeking out from the darkness of a solar eclipse.

It was so large I thought I’d never finish it. Because of the size, I just quilted it with a large all over meander. I even had to put it on a rolling table to move it around to do the hand binding. 96 x 96 and I’m thrilled it’s done, but glad I did because I LOVE how it came out. Even though my furniture is teal it will hang on my living room wall soon since my rugs have teal, purple and orange in them.

Every once in a while I like to blog pics of my fur children, just because they are so cute. Funny I just happened to pick these 2 as I am pretty sure they hate each other. Well, it’s more like Kiljeadean the cat hates baby dog and he is terrified of her.

For some reason she has terrorized that little dog since we got him. She used to walk by him when he was tiny and for no reason would just stop, walk back and smack him right in the head. That was 6 years ago and he still treads carefully around her.

I let a friend stay in my guest room a while and it was a lot longer than I should have allowed and ended up costing me quite a bit to clean and repair the mess left behind. This particular quilt was so upsetting because I made it specifically for that room. When she moved I found it rolled into a ball and stuffed behind the bed, with sheets stained in hair dye. I will be honest, I didn’t hold out a lot of hope for it and decided to toss it out. At the last minute I thought wash it with some oxyclean and see what happens.

It didn’t remove the stains in the sheets so I wasn’t holding out a lot of hope. I washed it, dried it and I was so surprised and happy. It came out stain free. I’m not even sure why I was so happy. It’s not one of my favorite quilts and isn’t that fancy, but it was time consuming to make so I’m excited it turned out so clean.

Funny thing is, I had to order a new rug because the other was stained with filth and trying not to spend more than I already had, I clicked on one I like because it was on sale for 70% off. It came and it’s the wrong color. I called the company and the color I wanted was not a sale item. The price difference was significant so the room will get a new quilt anyway. Go figure. But it looks good till I put down the rug and change it.

In Florida it’s difficult to decide to cut a large oak down, especially if it’s one that shades your house. But after a year or so of dropping some really huge branches, my daughter and son in law finally had this one taken down.

They estimated about 112 feet tall and it took a tree crew a full 9 hours to cut it down, load it and haul it away. They even had to come back to finish the main trunk as the pieces were so large. I should have taken a picture of the hole it left when it hit the ground. Here are 2 pieces of the trunk once it was cut up. Took 4 large trailers to haul off the entire tree. I sure would not have wanted the job of the young man that had to climb the tree all day with a chain saw hanging from his belt.