A little late

 I decided to use most of my new fabric to join the quilt-a-long hosted over at Oh Fransson.  I didn't buy the fabric with the intention of joining the quilt-a-long, but I figured, why not? So I spent a large chunk of the weekend cutting my fabric and sewing the first three blocks together.  So far so good.

The simple Block A

The slightly more interesting Block B

And my least favorite and most time consuming Block C

I have really enjoyed the way she is explaining things in her posts.  They're pretty detailed and full of tips that she finds useful while working on her quilts.  I have been learning quite a bit actually.  So far it has been a useful investment of my time.  Can't complain about that!

Vacation

Last week Shawn and I went on vacation to Florida.  We returned on Thursday, but I am just now getting my photos together.  What can I say? I move pretty slowly.


We both have family in Florida so we decided to do the "West Coast Tour" to visit with everyone.  We started off in Port St. Joe which is in the panhandle.  It is very low key place.  We spent some time with Shawn's grandparents there, saw the city, and enjoyed the beach a bit.

A view of St Joe Bay from the boardwalk

Next we drove south to the Sarasota area.  Let me tell you.  This place is beautiful!  I really enjoyed it a lot.  We spent a bunch of time at the beach, checked out the Selby Botanical Gardens,  and had a chance to connect with some of my family we don't see very often as well.   I had a great time taking photos at the botanical gardens.  It was fun trying out the new camerea on the beautiful gardens.

 

Orchids at the botanical gardens

 

Orchids at the botanical gardens

Downtown Sarasota from the botanical gardens

Then we drove a little further south to Englewood to visit with Shawn's other grandparents.  We also had a really nice time there.  We got to spend some more time at the beach, go for a boat ride, and spend some quality time together.

A neat sunset in Englewood

All in all, it was a great week.  Even with all of the driving, it was a super relaxing week.  The weather was PERFECT too.  We could not have asked for anything better.

 

Sunset at the Siesta Key Beach

Oh, and there are a few more pictures on flickr.

New Fabric

 

I recently purchased a bunch of fabric from Sew, Mama, Sew.  It arrived today and it just looked too cute to not show it off. 

It's mostly Katie Jump Rope.  So cute.  I think I have officially joined the bandwagon of Denyse Schmidt fabric lovers. 

Flights of Fancy = Complete

This past weekend I finished sewing the binding onto the Flights of Fancy quilt.  Tonight I took advantage of my extra hour of daylight to take some photos outside.

 

I really love this quilt a lot.  I don't even how to describe why I like it.  I just do.  I think it's great. 

Here's the back:

 

Random Photos

On Friday night Shawn and I went down to a local park so I could play around with the new camera.  The intent was to take pictures of the sunset.  That didn't work out exceptionally well, but we did have some fun.  Here are some of the better pictures.

I enjoyed taking pictures of Shawn by the graffiti covered walls.

The frozen Huron River.

As we were walking down a path parallel to the river we heard a train approaching.  The interesting thing about this park is that it is where there are two separate sets of railroad tracks that intersect.  We hurried over to the tracks where the train was approaching and I attempted to figure out how to get my camera all set to take some pictures.  Unfortunately, it was getting dark and I still don't know how to work my camera very well.  I thought I had everything set to go, but as the train approached it wouldn't take any pictures!  I'm still not sure what happened, but needless to say, I was so disappointed.  Good thing the Amtrak runs daily and I can try again another time.  

update: prepping for lots of sewing

For the past week my sewing machine has been in the shop getting serviced.  In the meantime, I decided to do some cutting to prepare for a sewing spree once the machine returns.  I actually didn't accomplish as much quilting as I had hoped.  That's kind of a bummer, but who really needs all of the fabric cut for 5 quilts?

I did cut all the fabric for a new quilt.  See those little yellow squares?  They're 1.5 inches!  What was I thinking?!

Cut more squares for the christmas quilt and pinned them together to prep for sewing.  I never did post about what I'm planning to do for this quilt.  I will continue to hold off because you may think I am crazy once I tell you.  Let's just say I saw a picture in a magazine and felt I HAD to make it.

I also have been working on getting things together for the black and white quilt.  I think I have changed the pattern for this quilt so many times.  I have been having a difficult time finding something that I really love.  Right now I'm working on something like this quilt by Ashley over at Film in the Fridge.  I really love how that quilt turned out and am hoping that I like mine just as much.  The original intention was to make the black and white quilt into a full size quilt for our guest bedroom, but I am thinking that it may just end up as a lap quilt.  I am just not too thrilled about spending so much time on something I don't LOVE.

Speaking of a quilt I love.  I should have made THIS one into the bed quilt.  I LOVE how this quilt turned out.  No pictures until I finish stitching the binding though.  I intended to finish it last weekend when Shawn and I drove to Wisconsin to visit family, but it didn't happen.  Soon though.  I'm almost done.

Hello, New Friend

This weekend my much anticipated new toy arrived- a Canon Digital Rebel.

And let me tell you, I don't think I could be more excited!

And don't worry little point and shoot. I won't neglect you too much. I promise. You can still come with me to work trips, diving, and anywhere else where I'd need a camera that can fit into my pocket.

In other exciting photo news, Picasa is now available for Macs! Yay! When I got my MacBook about a year ago, the only thing I missed about my PC was Picasa. iPhoto and I don't play well together at all, so I was really left without a program I liked to organize and easily edit my photos. Now if only I could make iPhoto stop opening every time I insert my memory card reader.