Our hiking/canoeing trip pictures

Before  4th of July we went away for 3 days to the Catskill Mountains. Fiance likes to take photos of the stars, but with our luck it was a day before full moon. We planned on hiking and kayaking/canoeing in the area.

We arrived on Monday afternoon to Downsville where we had reservations to the local motel which exceeded my expectations. I'm kind of picky when it comes to accommodations, but kind of had no choice since there are no hotels around. We looked it up online and the motel got some really nice reviews from previous guests. I have to say our room was simple, but very clean, which is the most important thing for me.

After settling down we asked around if we could go somewhere to eat and the owner of the motel told us that there's only one restaurant in town and they're closed on Mondays. Bummer :) We drove over to Walton and found a place to have dinner. By the time we got back the sun was going down. 

The motel is located by the river:

The boys gathered some wood for a bonfire.

Tuesday morning we went to a nice hike, our first stop was the Trout Pond:

I saw some very pretty flowers along the way:

Next we hiked through the hill to Mud Pond (which we did not find at all) and found these butterflies drinking by the water:

Since out of the 3 of us I'm the one in the least shape I was hiking up front and met some snakes along the way:

It was a good 5 miles, most of it going uphill. After a nice lunch (leftover from last night's dinner) we put the canoe and kayak on the water and off we went. 

This covered bridge was about a 1/4 mile down the river:

It was a beautiful 6 mile trip, it took us 3.5 hours, but it was well worth it.

On our way home on Wednesday we   stopped by the Pepacton Reservoir:

All in all we had a wonderful  relaxing time in the countryside, but I was glad to be back home.

50th blogpost and quilt top done!

Yaaaay, it's 50th blogpost time! :) I can't believe I'm at 50 already!  And to celebrate I finished my Dresden plate quilt top. Doing the happy dance right now :) Unfortunately it's too late to take some nice photos so I can only provide one that I took in our bedroom. I didn't even have enough space to hang it without bumping in the dresser, I tried to move it out of the way, but there was so much I could move it... See my little 3-D pinwheels in the corners? I love them!

Now here's the dilemma: how should I quilt this? I was thinking to quilt the sashing differently from the blocks themselves. Should I just make the petals look like flowers or simply outline them and stipple the background? I'll have to figure it out soon to be able to keep moving. If you have any ideas please leave a comment below!

In my last post I forgot to mention one of my new favorite quilt books. I pre-ordered Angela Walters' new book Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters. It came a few weeks ago (a lot earlier than expected) and I started to go through it  right away. A few days later I decided to start reading it. It was the first quilt book that I read from cover to cover without skipping any parts. I also did it in maybe 3 evenings when I was home by myself. I totally recommend it if you need ideas for machine quilting. The illustration is just incredible and I love her explanations, they're very simple and understandable. The quilts are very inspiring. It will definitely be my go-to book. I was even thinking to start practicing her designs after I quilted the Dresden top. 

I've go to run now, but hopefully I'll be back soon!

'Til we blog again! :)

Cape Cod pictures and Dresden blocks finished

It  feels so good to be back! I haven't even noticed until recently that it's almost been a month since my last post. I can't even remember when was the last time I did any sewing. It's been over 90F here for a while and when it was cooler we were away on Cape Cod. I needed  the few days of relaxation and mostly the uninterrupted sleep. We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast (Inn at the Red Oak in   Eastham, MA) for the first time. Our sink had two separate faucets for hot and cold water. It was kind of interesting :)  We were on the beach a lot, Fiance fishing and I was reading and walking. I  took some really nice shots. It was low tide when I was taking the pictures and saw some really cool stuff that the ocean revealed.

The rocks looked like this:

The house on the beach had an incredible view:

I loved the look of these  little "worm"-looking sand pipes:

The beauty of low tide, I adore the rippled effect:

If anyone could tell me what  this is... it's texture is like jello:

Since we got back the weather has been crazy hot and my sewing room has no A/C. Despite everything I did finish  the corner blocks I want to put on my Dresden baby quilt and did the sashing and the border lengthwise. Still have to do the horizontal ones with the little pinwheels.

Yesterday I finally got over myself and after coming home from a 3-day kayaking/hiking trip I dove into my sewing. As a relaxation I watched the 50 something minute video about the July BOM for Craftsy and decided to make the blocks. I turned my TV on and watched Daylight (never realized Viggo Mortensen played in it) and then  Bad Boys. By  the end of the first movie I could feel sweat rolling down my shins. Turning the iron on after that didn't help to cool down :)

Guess what month is it? YES! Dresden month! :) I made a regular Dresden plate block with machine blanket stitching, which I haven't done before.

My traditional Dresden plate  block:

My modern Dresden wheel block:

That's all for now and I'll be back soon with the finished pink and white quilt top.

'Til we blog again! :)

Modern log cabin block

It's AM already so I'll be quick. I finished my Modern log cabin block for Craftsy BOM for May, I still have to do the wonky version. Maybe tomorrow?

I also changed my ironing surface cover because it looked really nasty from all the starching while making the Dresden  plate petals. From now on I'm  putting a scrap piece of sheet under when I starch and iron so it doesn't scorch the fabric. I was watching Memphis Belle while working and realized  how I forgot about one of my all-time favorite movie. And on top of everything it never occurred to me that Sean Astin is the guy with the tail gun. That just made my evening :) I'll watch it again probably tomorrow afternoon since it's on Encore it should be up on On-demand. (For those of you who don't know who he is, he's the guy playing Sam in The Lord of The Rings).

Okay, gotta get some sleep, nighty night friends!

'Til we blog again! :)

Sashing dilemma and another block done!

It's been such a nice weather in the last few days! I love the smell of the cut grass in the neighborhood while I go walking or running. It  inspired me to finally get over myself and get down to make the itty-bitty templates for the next hexagon block for the Craftsy BOM project. I have to realize that I love those blue fabrics. 

This time I used a different technique for the starching. With the other block I just took out the plastic and starched the hexagons and let them dry overnight. This time I left the plastic in while starching and set my iron to nylon setting, then put a scrap fabric on top and ironed them until they dried. It worked beautifully! At the end I just took the plastic templates out and pressed the hexies again to make sure they're all dry at the seams. Then I just had to pin them on the background and applique them on. I had to use 3 different color threads so the stitches don't show.

Now I proudly present my Sunny with a chance of hex block:

Of course I had to alter the pattern since it called for a green stripe on the bottom. I'm making a blue and white quilt and I don't think it would look good with the  green "grass" wanna-be so I just skipped that part! Surprised? :))

I'm still working on the Dresden quilt and can't decide if I should do white sashing with pink corners, or pink sashing with white corners... ideas? I will definitely do pink border with the 3D pinwheel cornerstones. I just don't know if it would be too much pink if I did pink sashing, on the other hand I would like the look of the floating plates on the white background. Sashing, no sashing, and if sashing, what color? Decisions, decisions... :) 

'Til we blog again! :)

Dresden plates and Craftsy BOM update

I  don't have much to show, but what I do have makes me feel pretty good! I've been thinking about how do I want to finish the Dresden quilt top and came the idea that I wanted to make 3-D pinwheels for the 4 cornerstones. Again I went searching online hoping to find a tutorial for it. Unfortunately what I found was different than what I had in mind. Guess I'll just have to do another tutorial! Do I have a magnet for 3-D things? Who knows...

Meanwhile I'm proud to present my very first block that I had to figure out on my own. I had to do some seam ripping and re-sewing (3x exactly) to get the points as close to perfect as possible and I'm satisfied with the result. There's no better feeling than when you keep un-doing stitches and at the  end you get the points matching. Yeah!!

This block is 4.5 inches right now  and will be 4 inches by the time the borders will be sewn.

I almost forgot... I did finish 2 more blocks of my Craftsy BOM for June. They were pretty easy, only squares and half square triangles. Except the fact that I had to remove the tape I have for the 1/4 inch seams on my machine to sew the HST blocks. After I'd put it back it was off... with not just a hair. And of course I only realized it after I took a picture of my  block and wanted to make sure it's 12.5 inches square. Was NOT!! It was about 5/8 inch off. I took the rows apart, adjusted my seam allowance and re-sewed the block. I twisted one of the patches so I had to take it apart again and repeat. I did this 2 more times while watching Game of Thrones on Sunday night. They had a re-run on HBO since it was the final episode of this season. I was at the point of pulling my hair out when finally it came together.


The Greek cross block:

The Octagon block:

As usual, I had my helper, this time #2 who is called Kormi who made sure I can't sit down while I'm sewing so I had to squad to press the pedal and bend down to see what I'm doing. Nice, huh?

That's all I have for now, just wanted to share the excitement!

'Til we blog again! :)

Small blog meet and the letter "D" finished

I was catching up with my blogs, as usual, and found Lynne's post at Lily's Quilts about a Small Blog Meet linky. Since I still haven't reached the magic 50 I thought I link up my blog to meet some people from blogland who struggle with the same thing. Not that I need a huge number of followers, but it would be nice to get a little more feedback on my blog. And the bigger the numbers, the more comments I'll get. Hopefully! Or should I say the more the merrier? :)) If you've been following my blog you know that I prefer quality over quantity anyways. But it doesn't hurt to meet more people :)

If you have less, than 50 followers and are interested in linking up here's her button:

On the sewing department I finally finished hand appliqueing the letter "D" for my Craftsy BOM for May  khm... April :). It's one of the 2 blocks that we're making, haven't started the second one. Bad me, I know!

Here  it is in it's full glory:

As I said in my last blog, I'm working on a Dresden Plate baby quilt and happy to announce that I'm finished appliqueing all 12 of the plates on the background, yoohooo! It took me all week and I worked on them every day. Yes, sometimes just for a half an hour or a little bit more, but finally it's done. I'm lucky because our meeting with our friends was cancelled due to her bad back and postponed it to next weekend. I'm kind of happy about it because it gives me time to finish the quilt next week and will have time to wash it too. And of course to take a picture before I give it to them. I was worried about that part in particular. I'm hoping for some nice weather for the end of next week so I could take my masterpiece outside for some really nice shots. I was kind of disappointed not to make it to the final 5 at Amy's Blogger's Quilt   Festival, but I think it was because I didn't have an outside shot of my quilt since it was raining when I finished it. Or maybe people didn't like it as much. I got a lot of compliments on it and that's what it counts.

Here's a sneak peak about the plates. I only laid out 4 of them since no more fits on the dining table :) Of course as soon as I started to take the pictures helper cat showed up and refused to leave. UGH!

A close-up on one of the blocks:

He's all comfortable now...

And the "rabbit paws" as I call them!

That's all for now, I"ll be back with the progression!


'Til we blog again! :)