Beach, Boat, Clams

I love it when family comes to visit because it's the best excuse ever to get out and do fun things! The last couple of days have been packed full of fun things. You saw photos yesterday, Wordless Wednesday, of a quilt and the beach. Yes, out of the thousands of people on the beach, I do believe I was the only one sewing binding on a quilt!

The quilt I was binding is going to a cousin in Washington State. I think it's kind of cool that the quilt is going from sea to shining sea - Maine to Washington! The beach we went to is called Ogunquit beach up in Maine. One of the reasons is that one of our visitors, Chris, is in a wheelchair, and Ogunquit is one of the few beaches that has special beach wheelchairs you can borrow. A normal wheelchair would never make it through the sand, but these make it possible to get right up to the water!

We then went to the town of Portsmouth NH, one of the oldest towns in the nation! We went on a boat cruise along the river and out into the Atlantic Ocean. Love these views...

Next up was a stop at a quilt shop, but I'll save my purchases to show you in another post!

One place my SIL wanted to go was Bob's Clam Hut in Kittery Maine which was featured on the Food Network show, "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" with Guy Fiere. You can watch it featured HERE. We got a big basket of fried clams to share...yum!

Of course we had to get a photo of his signature on the wall!

Then tonight my hubby was home so we all went to a baseball game. A highlight for the kids was being able to run the bases after the game. That red blur is our youngest!

Wordless Wednesday

Lemon Auditions

One of the fun parts of applique is auditioning fabrics. Tonight I started the 'auditions' for the lemon block I need to redo. Just because I used certain fabrics in the first one doesn't mean I need to use them in the second one! So here are the original fabrics (nothing is cut - everything is just folded to an approximate size)...

or perhaps a blue bowl...

then add some green for leaves...

or maybe switch the original ones around and add some green for leaves...

I'm still playing around with them and still don't know what I'm going to do...very possibly something completely different, but that's all part of the fun!

Happy 4th of July!

I hope you are all having a great Independence Day! As I write this, I can hear fireworks banging in the sky outside. It was questionable as to whether or not there'd be fireworks tonight. Just an hour before dark this is what was happening outside our house...

We sat in the garage, set up chairs and a card table and played Bananagrams with the garage door open watching the torrential downpour and the kids playing in the rain. It did stop raining in time for fireworks though, so we crashed our neighbor's party and watched their fireworks, then watched the city fireworks. We have a perfect view of them from our street!

Some of my hubby's family is visiting from Salt Lake City so they got to join in the Bananagram fun too! We have a lot of fun things planned with them, but I'm still managing to get some quilting done. My tomato block is all appliqued down now.

I just have to do the strawberry block and redo the lemon block as it's the wrong size. So you haven't seen the end of it just yet!

Seen-It-Sunday

Today's Seen-It-Sunday is all about things that are free!

We all love a bargain and free is the best bargain around!
First up is a free pattern for an I-Pad cover.

I was reading my friend Shannon's blog yesterday and she had posted a pattern she made for an I-Pad cover. Shannon is a whiz at all things technical including computer drawing programs so she even has a fancy instruction sheet you can print out.

You can go check it out HERE.

Secondly, I wanted to share a site I use on a daily basis. It's called Freebies 4 Mom.

Heather, the owner, posts all the free offers out there and I get things in the mail at least weekly that I have signed up for. I receive products in the mail for anything from makeup to laundry soap, to cans of paint, and I get coupons all the time for free things like Hair Dye, (gosh, did I really just tell you that?!), shampoo, and grocery food items. I get nothing for telling you about it - I just get a lot of free stuff and want you to get free stuff too! I have also joined the Freebies 4 Mom Facebook group so I get alerts throughout the day to what is free.

Now thirdly, just because we have family visiting and my sister in law just triple-double- quadruple-dog-dared me, I am going to leave you with this final image. Be warned, you may be offended! But you WILL laugh! Anyone in need of a birthday gift?

Please don't send me hate mail - when you are triple-double-quadruple-dag-dared, you have no choice but to do it.

New Fabric

While my friend Laurie was over the other day, my kids bought in the mail and included was this package...

I think you need a closer look so you can see who it was from...

As soon as Laurie saw the package she knew it was quilt fabric. I didn't even have to tell her. She could smell it out!!

We immediately opened it right there on top of the quilt she was in the middle of quilting to see the goodies...

I ordered half yard pieces (my cut of choice) including some of the brand new Valori Wells fabric which you can see on top in the photo below, and some Anna Maria Horner Loulouthi which isn't visible in the photos. I also got a few good basics that can be used in multiple projects.

A got a few other half yard pieces and also one of their scrap packs which are always great value.

Hawthorne Threads had super fast delivery and great customer service. No they don't know I'm saying that - I just love them!

Tomato Progress

When I posted the tomato block the other day, I had lost the correct background for it. The background they were laid on was a different piece that was too small. I have hunted everywhere for the lost piece to no avail. I wasn't looking forward to trying to piece together another background like I did for the squash HERE. Two days ago we were getting groceries at a supermarket that happens to be next to Joann Fabrics where the Denise Schmidt background is from. (Denise Schmidt is the ONLY quilt fabric I buy from Joann's!) I popped in "just in case" they had some. I went to the aisle with her bolts and was so sad that they still didn't have any. Then I glanced down the the lower level of the aisle and just about screamed! It was there hiding with a bunch of completely different fabrics! 1.5 yards of it! Of course it came home with me, and now I have a new un-pieced background for my tomatoes!

Tonight I appliqued the tomatoes and started on the vine. You can see the difference in how the shape looks before and after the edges are turned under.

First it's a big blob, then all of a sudden it's a tomato vine! I should finish it up tomorrow.