Butterfly quilt

I began work on this quilt at the quilt retreat I went to in early April. It is for our older granddaughter's 10th birthday, which is this week. How fast they do grow up!


The butterflies are machine appliqued. I paper pieced the Birds in the Air blocks and also the half-square triangles in the border. I machine quilted the quilt on my Janome. The large triangles in the Birds in the Air blocks and the backing are a fabric that is shiny and feels kind of sticky in the machine. Due to that, it was not so easy to maneuver it in the machine, and much harder to keep stitches even when machine quilting. Especially on the butterflies I quilted in those large triangles, I was definitely not successful in the even stitch category.

Good to be home!

DH and I got home last night from CA. We go fairly often to visit his elderly mother. This time, while we were there, we spent one day in Monterey, CA. We hadn't been there for a long time, and what a treat it was to visit again. It is a beautiful town on the coast. We got there at lunch time and headed straight to Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co. Yum, yum! If you get a chance to eat at one of these restaurants, go for it! Monterey has a fantastic walking trail along the beach, and lots of lovely, and at the wharf, funky, cute shops. The Cannery section of Monterey, where Bubba Gump's is, is based on John Steinbeck's Cannery Row.

This is a view of the dock just before we entered the wharf area.









And then there are the sea lions. Talk about lazy creatures. There were dozens of them laying there in the sun.







Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co. What a great concept for a restaurant. It's based on the movie Forrest Gump. This one is right on the beach, and we had beautiful views to enjoy with delicious food! I had a shrimp po' boy, and loved every bite. We walked for an hour or so, and then got dessert from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.




And this is a lovely view from our walk along the trail.

Aaahh, the lost is found!

Well, how is it that things are found in places where it's obvious they would be, but somehow weren't found before? Such is the saga of the lost camera. I found it last night in such a logical place, but no, I didn't find it until we had ordered a new one. The new one will arrive today or tomorrow and we will trek to Costco and humbly ask for a refund, as the lost is no longer lost.

This is the next row added to my Mariner's Compass. I printed out the foundations for the triangles from EQ6, and love how they turned out. I could never achieve the precision without the paper. The cornerstones are Birds in the Air (I think it's called) blocks, also from EQ6. The lovely blue strips at the top are painter's tape, holding the quilt top to the wall.

How 'bout those peonies? They are (or were) so beautiful this year. Unfortunately, they don't last long. We did enjoy them though.

Camera - what camera?

Oh, dear, where can our camera be? Unfortunately, we cannot find it anywhere, and are afraid that when we were out last weekend, that we left it somewhere. Every place we've inquired says the same thing - no, haven't had a camera turned in. So, until our new one comes this week, I will show you a few recent pics. (I had a few on the old camera that I planned to post, so will try to re-take them in a few days.) I had actually made some progress on my Mariner's Compass, and I was going to show you.

The first picture is of our younger son (the fireman) and his family. The occasion for the flowers was a school program, and we had given our DGD a bouquet of flowers after the performance.










This pic is of our older son and his family. We of course are prejudiced, but we thing our kids and families are mighty good looking!












Next is our second grade Princess at the school jog-athon. We got to spend a little time in her class with her. She didn't want us to leave!









These cousins adore each other, and love to be together. Older DGS, age 10, is playing a video game, and the little guy (age 4) is "helping."









Here is our fourth grade Princess in the rose-colored t-shirt. The occasion is the same school jog-athon.









Now, relating to quilty matters, I have very busy quilting on a quilt for DGD's birthday. I will wait until after her bday to post a picture of it, just in case she happens to see my blog open. I also put another border on my Mariner's Compass, and have planned another border, which I haven't started yet.

Project Linus

My friend Patti and I met with the Portland/Vancouver Project Linus coordinator on Monday. Our group (Charity Chicks - isn't that a cute name?) had 13 quilts to give her, and there were six or seven from another group. I just love the Project Linus cause - can you tell? I definitely need to remember to take the camera so I can take pics of all the quilts and post them. There were some really beautiful ones.

I finished sewing the binding down last night on another PL quilt. This one was fun - of course they all are, but this one was made from a jelly roll that I purchased from Connecting Threads quite some time ago. The sashing and backing are made from donated fabric. I just did kind of a wavy meander for the quilting.


We had some surprise rain showers on Monday, and they continued just a bit yesterday. DH and I were out for a walk, and got rained on a bit.

Our poor oldest grandson Tanner - his baseball team is not doing well at all. He generally plays very well, but the team as a whole is doing so poorly. They had a game last night, and the game was called after the other team got a 10-run lead. Our little guys (4th grade) seemed so down, and I just felt so bad for them. Conversely, his little sister Tylee (2nd grade) is playing softball, and their team really is doing well. Those little girls are just too darn cute to watch.