Fall Break Comes to an End

 Fall break is over much to quickly!  We had a great but quick vacation to San Francisco with my mom--if I am get a minute I will pick some pictures and post them here.  I miss blogging and reading my blogs but I just trained back at my old video relay job and since we cannot have our phones with us while we work (but we have access to the internet) I will again be reading and commenting on blogs!  I miss them and rarely seem to fit them in with my crazy schedule but it works perfectly to read them while on hold at that job!  I am a good multitasker even though they say people are not!
So on to the sewing.  I sewed a ton with Kathy last night and most of today!  YAY.  She is just done with clue 5 of En Provence (always working til the last second that girl!) and I got a ton of stuff caught up and done! 

 I have had these hexagon trivets mostly ready to go for a long time...you may remember I made a bunch with Christmas fabric then decided I needed to make some regular ones...finally got all 17 done today while watching specials about Prince. 

My online PACKER quilter friend Nancy sent me some leftover spool blocks she had after completing her spool quilt.  I wanted to link to it on her blog but I could not find a picture of it even though I have seen one! Anyways I have two blocks left so if any of you also want to donate your blocks because you had random leftovers or lost steam I will home them in a heartbeat!  I love how all the different fabrics look in these fun leader/ender blocks of Bonnie's.  I did not do this years even though I had big plans to do placemats...it just never happened.  

 My UFO Challenge for this month is my two sets of Bitty Blocks. I did not make a row of each and so I have two different size blocks and so there they sit.  I studied them again today and decided to just put them away for now.  Not happening!

 I FINALLY got out this little kit Barb and I bought about a year ago at a quilt show.  It is not done yet...I accidentally put the wrong size red outer border on (still another border to go) and so I ripped it out while soaking in the tub tonight (multitasker, told you.  Epsom salts, help with the migraines).  So if I get a few minutes to sew this week I will be resewing smaller borders and the cream border.  LOVE this tiny little quilt!

Tomorrow I go back to work (teaching) and the kids come back on Wednesday.  The time went so fast!  I did get alot of planning for the quarter, some lesson planning, test writing, etc. done on break so feeling like I might not be AS overwhelmed as we go.   However, I am now freelancing two nights a week til December and most likely at my new VRS job one night a week too.  Add Pilates to that and I am one busy camper.  Super excited to have insurance though...already used it to pick up meds and get new glasses! 

Spring Quilt Camp with NimbleThimbles

 I went up to quilt camp at Emmanuel Pines last Friday for the weekend.  It started snowing on the ride up and snowed and snowed!  Very little of it stuck, but it was snowing for hours.  I have not seen snow in quite awhile so it was fun--really felt like Christmas on April 1st!  I worked all day Friday and a good bit of Saturday on making Bonnie Hunter's Love Shack!  I love how it came out. It was a super fun project to do at camp because it involves lots of different  blocks.

 I have wanted to make Love Shack for a long time but it involves several patterns on quiltville (maverick stars, strings, happy scrappy houses, wonky hearts and letters) and also lots of size adjustments which are not my thing.  I was so proud of myself for figuring all this out--even though I counted the blocks wrong in the one column and so made the blocks too big and had to eliminate a maverick star or start over!  I will be keeping this one and hanging it in the living room or dining room.

 Saturday Kathy, Kathy, Becky and I took a hike to stretch after all that sewing. We wound up going four a half miles (20 min for each mile) and made it out to the road.  Really good conversation all the way too. So glad to have quilty friends who sneak exercise in too!

 Saturday night Barb helped me make sixteen trivet Christmas presents.  I made them all out of Christmas fabric and will be making more in other fabric too.  They are made from a hexie ruler and lots of fabric folding.  The tricky part is pinning them just so.  That is the part Barb is much better at than me!  You stitch around the outside and flip them out at the center and they look great!  When I was done with all that and the quilt auction I continued working on En Provence.  This quilt A is for Adaminaby from 2012 was my auction quilt and Kathy O (the tall Kathy from the walk picture) won it for 25 dollars.  I ran across this little quilt which I had forgotten I made two of and decided it was a good auction quilt.

 Sunday morning we hung out some of the quilts (some people did not hang anything out--not sure why) and you can see the center of my En Provence on the right top.

I would never have even gotten it out if not for the fact that Marguerite had not brought her finished top and her daughter Laura was busting butt working on hers all weekend (along with other stuff).  Seeing Laura making progress motivated me to get to it!  Not sure why I was dragging my feet on it as I usually am right on schedule with getting the mysteries done but this year the trip to New Mexico to get my my son and his girlfriend and her kids (flat tire, no money and diabetic ketoacidosis and hospitalization was involved) knocked me off track.  This quilt has his hospital gown fabric in it.  Stitching the memories in.  Sunday morning I got the borders mostly made but thought I was four star point units short...turns out I was not.  I got home and discovered I started with the wrong star point color.  Of course I did not figure that out til I made the four star point and attached them.  HAHA!  Last night I fixed and attached the first borders and did some ironing.  So this morning (Monday) I attached the last border, did ironing and made the backing and cut the binding.  I still need to get a picture of it though.