Quilt Along Progress, National Park, and More Traveling

There hasn't been much quilting going on in my world so I haven't been posting as much as I had hoped to.  My last post was when we were in Sequin, Washington and where a friend from California met up with us.  We did a lot of visiting, made a trip to Port Townsend, and a trip to the Olympic National Park.  Below is a picture of my husband, Miles, outside the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center.  Hurricane Ridge is an amazing spot with several trails, one of which we walked on for about a half mile.  The views were breathtaking to say the least.

While in Sequim, I finished up the fabric postcard and sent it on its way to New Zealand with a prayer that it will arrive undamaged.

From Sequim we took the ferry (yep, RV and all) across Puget Sound and spent one night in Concrete, Washington.  Our friend, Sage, has a class C RV and travels with her two cats.  After the night in Concrete we traveled through the Cascades National Park, but didn't stop to do any sightseeing as we were on a mission.  The next night we stayed at a National Forest campground and then traveled to our next destination just west of Newport, Washington where we have been for two nights.  We'll part ways with our friend here and meet back up in Libby, Montana in a few days. 

The fabric preparation instructions for the Snowflake Shimmer Quilt Along were posted on Friday and yesterday I got all my fabric cut and labeled so I'm ready for the next link up this Friday. 

I also pulled out my kitty redwork and did a little bit on that.

We have been on the road now for a little over two months and have a little less than a month until my grandson's wedding.  I haven't seen my kids and grandkids since last September at my son's wedding so I'm very anxious to get to the Denver area to see everyone.

A biggie in my life is that I have received the material (at my daughter's in Littleton, Colorado) for the Cloud9 New Block Blog Hop taking place in September.  The participants are creating a block and then posting a tutorial for it.  My first attempt at writing a tutorial.  I have two blocks in mind to create and will be working them up when we get to Colorado.    Be sure to stay tuned to see what everyone creates.

The fabric provided to all participants of the Blog Hop

 



Today we leave for Sam Owen Campground in Hope, Idaho where we were campground managers for the past three summers.  We'll meet up with some good friends while there.

Linking up today with Slow Sunday Stitching.  Hope to work on my redwork somemore today once we get settled into our next campground.

Happy stitching! 

Snowflake Shimmer Quilt Along , 2016 Mid Year Review, and Fabric Postcard in the Works

The Snowflake Shimmer Quilt Along hosted by Yvonne @ Quilting Jetgirl, which began the first of July, is now having it's first link up.  Being the wishy-washy person that I am, I've still not completely decided on my fabric choices, but I do believe this might be it.  The only questionable fabric is the middle one.  I have a darker purple for it, but I don't think there isn't enough contrast with the background fabric for me to use it. 

Another thing that popped up this week from Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl is the 2016 Mid Year Review so here I go with mine.

• Complete my Midnight Mystery quilt.  I hope to donate this to QOV.  I just joined this group through my local quilt guild and it is such a worthwhile organization.  If you'd like to know more about this organization, click here.
• I finished my Midnight Mystery Quilt and it was donated to QOV. 
• I want to learn more about blogging so that I can get better at it and be more consistent in my posting.  I've been flopping along on this and I know there is a lot I need to learn to be successful at it. 
• I was so fortunate to be included in the 2016 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop led by Yronne @ Quilting Jetgirl, Stephanie @ Late Night Quilter, and Cheryl @ Meadow Mist Designs.  I have learned so much being a part of this group of wonderful people.  Thank you Yvonne, Stephanie, and Cheryl.  I highly recommend it if they do it again next year.
• Get a tote made for my aunt as I'll be visiting her this winter in Florida.  I already have cute kitty material and the pattern for this, just need to do it.
• Not done, not even started.
• I had planned to make a banner for each month to hang outside.  I got September and October done and then the holidays hit and November is still in the works.  I want to start in January and make one for February and finish Novembers and then in February make the one for March and so on. 
• Yep, November is still in the works, exactly where I was when I added this to my list.
• I started collecting material for Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt for this year which started on Black Friday.  I'll save all the clues and get working on it once I get all the material I need.  I plan on this being the only mystery quilt I do this year.
• I decided not to take part in this.  :(
• I plan to make another QOV quilt as I have collected a lot of red, white, and blue material.
•  I completed another flimsy and it was also donated.  You can read about that one here.
• I also plan to make two baby/child quilts to donate.  I have the material for two quilts.
• I finished and donated one baby quilt and have another one that just needs backing, quilting and binding.  Here is my post about the one I finished.  The other is back in Nevada and I hope to get it finished before the end of 2016.
• I plan on using a lot of my stash that I've been building up as you can tell by the above.
• I've used some and I've added some. Opps!
• I want to complete one Rosette each month for the New Hexagon Stitch Along.  I ordered the paper templates for this as I was printing them out and going through ink like there was no tomorrow and that stuff isn't cheap.
• I'm way behind on getting these done and I'm sure I won't have twelve done by the end of the year.  Another Opps!
• Practice, practice, practice my embroidery stitches weekly.
• About all I've done in the way of embroidery stitches is some redwork which is only backstitches.  Maybe next year.
• Make two cross-stitched stockings, one for my granddaughter and one for my granddaughter-in-law to be (August 27th).  These, of course, need to be done by next Christmas.  I've bought all the floss they had available at Walmart recently and hope to get the rest while in Las Vegas with family over Christmas.
• I have the cross-stitch done my granddaughter which will need to be made into a stocking.  I have started the one for my granddaughter-in-law.  Unfortunately, I left it behind in Nevada and will have to work on it like crazy when we get back in mid-September to get it finished in time for Christmas.
• I hope to do more wool applique.
• I haven't done anymore, but have been saving the monthly  Mystery BOM from Buttermilk Basin so hope to work on these when I return to Nevada.
• I would love to create a tutorial for my blog, but not sure what in the world I could do one on, but will be thinking of this a lot.
• I have applied to create a block and tutorial via our 2016 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop and hope the material provided arrives at my daughters so I can get busy creating it.  I have a couple designs in mind and have drawn them out on graft paper.

I have been working on a fabric postcard swap this week and hope to finish it up today so I can get it in the mail Monday.  It is going all the way to New Zealand.  Here is what it looks like so far.  I'll need to print out the back then zigzag around it.

Linking up with Snowflake Shimmer QAL, 2016 Mid Year Review, and Slow Sunday Stitching.

Happy Stitching!

Repeat QAL Flimsy is Done, Maybe

Being on the road has finally caught up with my schedule as my blogging posts have gone south while we are traveling north.  Currently, we are just north of Rockaway Beach for those of you who are familiar with the Oregon coast.  I'm loving the beaches and the small towns along the coast. 

On my down days I worked on my Repeat QAL mini-quilt and it is sort of done.  I had used Kona Snow for the background and when I got to the outer border I didn't have enough of what I had pulled, but thought I had bought two yards at another time.  It looked right in the RV, but after I had the border on and went outside and took pictures, it isn't Snow, but White.  ACK!!!  It is really noticeable too.  All the pictures were taken at the RV park we are now in.  The railroad tracks aren't used anymore, thank goodness as we were parked right above them.  Many thanks to Patty at Elm Street Quilts for the quilt along.  She also has her alphabet for sale here if you're interested.  Her instructions are very well written.

We were able to meet up with some friends, that spend their summers in Garibaldi, for lunch on Thursday which was a lot of fun.

On Friday we visited the Cape Meades Lighthouse in Tillamook which we were able to go up in.

Also, on Friday I went to Jane's Fabric Patch in Tillamook.  It is an amazing store with a great row-by-row pattern so check them out if you get to Tillamook. They had some Transfer-Eze that you can print an embroidery pattern on then stick it onto your fabric and stitch away.  It is water soluble and washes away.  One of their customers was in the sewing room and showed me what she was working on with it.  She has been using it for quite awhile and raved about it so, of course, I came home with some.  Can't wait to use it as I hate tracing the patterns onto my fabric.  You can find it here, but it was $6.00 less at Jane's.

There is another great quilt shop in Cannon Beach by the name of Center Diamond Fabrics.  They didn't have any of the Northcott Sandscapes, but did have some Kona Snow so I bought three yards as I love it.  I also snagged their row-by-row pattern.  Now to decide if I want to rip out the outer border of my Repeat mini-quilt and add the border in Snow.  I'll be thinking on this for a bit. 

Monday we went up to the quilt shop in Astoria as I'm still looking for the Northcott Sandscapes collection which nobody seems to carry.  After that we visited the Ecola State Park in Cannon Beach where you can see the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse.  As you can see by the picture, you can't visit it.  We have now visited all the lighthouses along the Oregon coast and I have magnets for all but this last one. 

Not a lot of stitching going on, but that is okay.

Linking up with Freemotion by the River.

Happy Stitching!

It has been awhile since my last post.  Why you ask?  Well, we went a week without electricity and wifi and then another week of being sick did it.  I'm back to feeling better so plan on getting some stitching going.  Not very much progress made other than some quilty shopping, sightseeing, and a little rework done.

I finished up the first kitty redwork block and have started a second one.  Here is what I have so far.

 

We also visited a couple more lighthouses.  The Yaquina Bay Lighthouse we went into and it was interesting to see how small the rooms were in the house portion.  You couldn't go up to where the light was or would have been.

 Yaquina Bay Lighthouse

The second one was the Yaquina Head Lighthouse which we didn't tour.  We had actually been to it four years ago when we were campground managers at Detroit Lake in Detroit, Oregon.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

Today we moved to our next RV park just north of Rockaway Beach and it is the last week we'll be in Oregon.  We hope to visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory tomorrow.  Next Wednesday we'll go to Sequim, Washington.  I hope that we'll be able to go over to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada as well as a few visits to the Olympic National Park.  So be sure to stay tuned to see where Jennifer has been.

I've taken on two new projects.  What, no surprise there?  One is the Snowflake Simmer Quilt Along with Yvonne over at Quilting Jetgirl.  The quilt along has just started so be sure to check it out and join in.  I have my fabrics all picked out and ready to start cutting.  The next post for it will be on July 22nd.  The picture of the quilt is from Quilting Jetgirl. 

 

The next is a mystery quilt from Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs and called Meadow Mystery.   It is also just getting started so check it out.  I hope you will join in on this one too.  I made her mystery quilt last year and was extremely happy with it.  I donated it to my local Quilts of Valor.  You can see a picture of  it here.  Because it was raining yesterday and we had finished up with the laundry for the week, I went back to the quilt shop in Cloverdale and purchased all these goodies.  Five of them will be used for the Meadow Mystery quilt.  I'm having trouble deciding which ones to use. 

Well I tried to post this early today, but my MiFi didn't have a strong enough signal to load the pictures.  I tried a half dozen times and nothing.  GRRR!

I'm kind of late to the linky party at Let's Bee Social, but hope you'll hop on over to Sew Fresh Quilts and check out all the blogs that are linked up.

Happy Stitching!



Quilt Shops, Lighthouses, and Redwork

Wednesday we left the RV park in Florence and headed south (yep wrong direction but the only place we could get reservations for over the very busy 4th of July week). 

We are at the Eel Creek Campground which is a National Forest Service campground and very nice.  We are about 2 1/2 miles from the beach and have yet to get down there.  We got all settled in and I did manage to do some slow stitching on my new redwork project.  If you have been following me, I left my Christmas rework project at home in Nevada and was forced (HA!) to buy a new project to work on.  It is the first time I've used the pearl cotton instead of embroidery floss and I'm sold on it.  I only had one ball (not sure if you call it that or not) of red and will need to find more while we are on the road. 
 

Site 13 at Eel Creek Campground

 



Redwork Kitty Project

Lola and I walked one of the trails from the campground and it took us across Eel Creek to a trailhead off the highway.  I was beginning to think we were lost, but backtracked and found our way back to the campground.  There were a few signs along the way that kept saying sand dunes, but none that said campground. 

Eel Creek

Thursday was a trip down to Coos Bay to the Thread that Binds quilt shop and it was a great one.  They actually had some bolts of Northcott Fabrics Sandscapes collection.  I had a newsletter from Northcott that told of a contest/challenge using it, but hadn't found enough to able to work something up.  I'll still need to find a couple more colors if I'm going to enter it.  I also found some more of the lighthouse block patterns, their Row-by-Row pattern, and I green fat quarter for my EPP project. 

Friday was spent searching out quilt shops and lighthouses.  Went down to Port Orford first as it was the farthest away.  Very windy, but loved seeing the Cape Blanco Lighthouse.  We took the tour up it; Miles went all the way up to the light and enjoyed hearing all the stories the volunteer shared about the light and all the various lighthouses he had been in all over the world.  I went up to the top landing and about three steps up the ladder to the light so I could get a picture of the light. 

Cape Blanco Lighthouse

 

Also found a quilt shop there, but only got their pattern for their Row-by-Row. It was a very nice shop, but I was mainly searching for Northcott's Sandscapes fabric and pearl cotton which they didn't carry. 

 

Next was the Coquille River Lighthouse in Bandon.  The lighthouse is closed off to the public, but there is a gift shop in the building connected to it. 

 

Coquille River Lighthouse

 

Had lunch and ice cream at The Creamery, yummy!  You'll never guess what was next door to The Creamery, a quilt shop, Forget Me Knots, where I found the background fabric for the Snowflake Shimmer QAL by Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl.  She just posted the picture of the quilt and the fabric requirements so be sure to check it out HERE and join in if you are inspired to do so.

 

Background fabric and Row-by-Row pattern as well as the fabric

license tag from last year.  I liked it better than this years.



Saturday we went back down to North Bend/Coos Bay/Charleston and met up with some friends we worked with four years ago for a wonderful breakfast at the Pancake Mill.  Then off to the Cape Arago Lighthouse which we couldn't see because of all the fog.  You can't get to it as now belongs to a local Indian tribe that has closed it off.  Maybe we'll get back there Tuesday when we go into town for fuel and get the laundry done.  I did get to Jo-Ann's for some purple fabric for the QAL and more pearl cotton for my new redwork project.

Cape Arago Lighthouse somewhere out there in the fog

Today is a down day and I'll be doing some Slow Sunday Stitching along with those linking up with Kathy's Quilts so be sure to join in the fun.

Happy Stitching!