I have had a vacation. It was wonderful. I didn’t have to think about meals, gardening, quilting or any of the other regular chores. Miss Molly went to her favorite place, her wonderful Vet Boarding kennel. She loves it there and pouts when she has to come home. I do feel thankful that she loves it and wants to go right in the door and leave me behind. I know that she is well cared for.

I did take a quilt that needed the binding sewn down, but it mostly stayed in it’s bag.

The first few days were spent at York Beach. I love York. My family went to York when I was very young. After I was married, my husband and I took our children to York. It was like going home. There are so many nice memories there.

We had no set schedule. I stayed with one of my daughters who rented a cottage that was within sight of the beach. We ate out, including breakfast. We found the most delicious orange cranberry muffins in a take out not far from the cottage. Two other daughters and a son in law visited during the day. Sitting on the beach, under an umbrella. and watching the surf and other people was relaxing. I had forgotten what it was like to do nothing.

Of course, we had to go to the Nubble and Browns for ice-cream

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This seagull stood on the monument and posed. It waited until I took the picture before he flew away.

After a few days, I went to Wells Beach to a time share with another daughter and son in law. It was a short walk to Moody Beach. While there, I took my shoes off , rolled up my slacks and walked in the water. It was so much fun.

Now, I’m back home, just in time to go to the VQF virtual show. I’m so glad that I decided to attend. I’ve signed up for two lectures. Kimberly Einmo’s lecture was last week. She talked about sewing rooms. She has a wealth of information. The other lecture is next week. I keep forgetting to see the vendor demonstrations. The one that I did attend was cancelled.

.Therehe show is set up very nicely. You can see the whole quilt, the back, and a close up. There is a larger picture of the whole quilt at the bottom. There is a section with the first place ribbon winners. Also several other exhibits. It took me a while to figure out how to access the vendors. With one click, you can go to their website and order on line. The events of the day are on the home page every morning. The youth group was shown receiving their Janome sewing machines from Dave LaValley from the Bittersweet Fabric Shop in Boscawen, N. H. It is well worth the $5 fee. The show will continue all next week.

Now that I’m home, I have to get back to the garden. The weeds wait for no person. There are still a few seedlings to transplant.

I also finished the June 3D mini quilt. . It looks complicated, but in reality is very easy to make. It’s all straight sewing. It was machine quilted.

Now, on to other things. Tacking down bindings for 3 quilts, quilting a baby quilt and other UFOs . and more Dear Jane. They are all in a big basket waiting to be finished from the top down. Then, I can fill up the big basket again.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

Day 14 of the declutter challenge is furniture. I started quilting with my machine on the dining room table. It had to be removed for each meal. Then I had a very small table where I could leave my sewing machine. As my children left the house, I graduated to a room where I could leave the table. Now in my new home, not so new now, I’ve been here 13 years, I have a very nice sewing room. The carpet was taken up a few years ago and Pergo was laid. It is so easy to clean up now. But, I still had the small sewing table which had a small dropleaf table next to it to hold the larger quilts.

It was time to do something about the sewing room furniture. Many hours later, after lots of Internet search, I chose a Kangaroo Joey. It was the right size, It had a dropleaf in the back that would hold a large quilt. It had four drawers. It was everything that I dreamed a sewing table would have.

I ordered the table online from She Sewing Tables. It is a company in the western part of the USA. I was able to chat with Sheila while ordering it. I ordered a few addons. It was personal shopping. I knew before I ordered that it would arrive in five boxes and would have to be assembled. Before I ordered, I asked my son in law if he would assemble it for me. He agreed to do that so I quickly ordered.

My neighbors brought the big boxes into the house for me. I’m very grateful to live in a wonderful neighborhood.

My son in law and my daughter spent a day assembling the desk. It is a perfect fit for the space in the sewing room.

The little dropleaf shelf on the right side was not listed in the description, nor was it listed in the assembly instructions. It was a bonus. The notion drawer unit that I already had fits under there as is it was made for that space. There are large rollers on the unit. It rolls easily to lift the large dropleaf that is on the back.

I recently got four quilts back from the long arm quilters. One is king size. It was a pleasure to sew the binding on that quilt. The table held it without it dropping on the floor and pulling. It’s relaxing to hand sew the bindings down in the evening.

Now, that declutter #14 is finished, I will do another declutter – notions. That will take a long time as I have boxes of notions in two different rooms. My goal is to confine them all to the sewing room.

This is one of the four quilts that was quilted by a long arm quilter. It is a round robin. In the package that I sent around, I placed two blocks, some fabric and the border fabric. There were instructions to not use the border fabric in the blocks. It was included just for color choices. The small sashing was part of the striped border fabric. I had a 1 1/2″ piece left over after making the sashing. The ladies did a wonderful job piecing the blocks . Gail brought this quilt to life with her quilting. I’m keeping this one.

My climbing rose is outdoing itself this year. The colors are beautiful. I can see a quilt with several shades and tints of green and pink. Also a touch of gold. Inspiration is everywhere.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

We had three days of rain last weekend. It was great for me as I could finally go to the sewing room and not work outside in the garden. I could start a quilt for a new baby girl who was just born into the family. I have known for months that she was coming, but I procrastinated and didn’t start the quilt. I also wanted to make a larger quilt with the same pattern for her older sister. I found a quilt on the Love of Quilting show. It had sixteen blocks which consisted of eight blocks of two different patterns. How hard could that be. I drafted the quilt on graft paper and EQ7. Disaster happened. The blocks on both quilts were different sizes. Nothing matched or went together. Mr. seam ripper and I became great friends. At this point, I’m going to set the quilts aside and take them apart someday when I want to sit outside in the shade. Then, I will figure out how to save them. There comes a time when one just has to stop, put a quilt aside, and do something else. In the meantime, I checked the UFO bin and found two very nice quilts. They will be quilted and sent on their way. I probably should have done that anyway.

In the meantime, the gardens are doing very well. All the seeds are in. Tomatoes and other plants are planted. The bushes that didn’t survive last winter have been removed and new bushes planted. There is still a lot of work to be done, but it can be done in small time frames.

It’s June and I’m planning another 3D illusion mini quilt. The Pandemic Round Robin quilt should be finished. Some UfOs Will be quilted. Three of my quilts have come back from the long arm quilter. The binding has to be sewn on to finish the quilts. I was looking at the Just Get It Done Quilt blog. On the blog was a YouTube video about free things for the sewing room. One of the items was the Magical Rainbow of Binding from geekybobbin.com. It is a chart that tells you how many inches of binding you need. I also tells you how much yardage you need for 2″, 2 1/4″ and 2 1/2″ strips. All the math is done for you. It’s a time saver and worth downloading.

I was doing a little sewing room organizing (decluttering) and moving bins of wall hangings and small quilts from one closet to another. Where I don’t have any new quilts finished to show you, I’ll show a few of the little quilts that I found.

Pineapple Log Cabin. It is 12″ square. The center four dark logs are supposed to look like pineapples.

This is an easy pattern. Squares are sewn together. They are cut apart with a template and resewn. All straight sewing.

The Carolina Lily was started in a class at the Vermont Quilt Festival. I ran out of tan background and had to substitute a lighter tan for the outside row. It was a nice design element that was unplanned.

The Carolina Lily was hand quilted.

Celtic Knots was one of my earliest quilts. I originally planned to make four Celtic blocks, but after making two, decided to quilt the knot in the blank squares. It is hand quilted.

I hope that you enjoyed this little walk down memory lane.

Have a great day and happy quilting.