the beach is calling.......

the Litchfield, SC beach is calling me....and the waves are hollering for me to hop on and enjoy the ride. And so I must follow the sun and the sand................

Actually, I'm going down with my Friday night quilting group, but they already know the process. We sew for a while in the morning (if you get up early enough) and then we must go find sun :) And then sew after dinner...and into the wee hours of the morning. Okay, so that's my routine and that's what makes me happy. And we can all do whatever we want. After they leave, I'll have a week to visit my parents and then my hubby will bring 3 of the oldest grandkids down for a week with us. 2 of them have never been down there with us without Mom and Dad and we have FUN!! So...not a lot of blogging going on....but I'll be sewing no doubt. I have a LONG term project (a Stained Glass quilt) that I would just love to finish. I determined that this is the year to get it done. I had great intentions of doing just one block each time I went there, but that was 5 years ago and I only have 8 blocks done. Wish me luck!

Enjoy your summer!!

Organizing Ted's stash

Ted was so impressed with how Mona got my stash in order and was wishing she were here--me too! I told her I would help her get her stash in order. Here's her newest project fabrics all on the table that used to be crammed into a drawer..

figuring out how to fold her pieces of fabric. She rarely buys yardage, but has much smaller pieces..but how to fold them to get them to fit the size of the drawer...a challenge at times...why is this so hard? LOL.........I got it, by golly, I think I've figured it out! Ta da!And now she can find the exact piece she wants.....introducing the beginnings of Ted's newest quiltHappy quilting!!

Visiting friends and acting like a tourist

Yesterday was a wonderful day meeting up with friends and acting a bit of a tourist, which is okay, because I am! Our first stop was to visit Agnes who was excited to share her newly expanded sewing room! But first....you NEVER visit anyone without first sharing a cup of coffee with them. And don't turn them down, that's almost rude! I'm a tea drinker, so she served me tea. And of course, the little sweet that is always necessary. But she served us little apple tarts--yummy! After catching up on news (she shared the books her husband made for her from her visits to Houston, Paducah and of her OWN Quilt Exhibit), she proudly showed us her new room. It's so nice, full of nice outdoor light and wonderful views and a lot more space to spread out. She also shared her newest quilt project, one that she has spent the last year designing and has just begun the stitching. It's going to be a beauty!

Then we left for the little village next to hers, Oudewater. They have a famous museum that showcased the scales that were used in the 1500's and 1600's to determine if you were a witch or not. I was determined to be a witch! My kids would have told you that already! LOL At least in their teen years. :) And...it was a tricky way to find out how much your friends weigh! A fun place and the gal in charge took great delight in her role as judge. We then had lunch at a quaint little place, sitting outside and watching all the villagers ride their bikes and people strolling along the brick sidewalks. I saw a tile on one building that was from 1617! I'd tell you what I had for lunch, but I can't spell it OR tell you what was in it! LOL It was good and of course, the bread is always so yummy in Europe. After lunch, we bid farewell to Agnes and followed her suggested course to get to the quilt shop. We followed the dijk (dike) along the river and eventually came to Kinderdijk, where you can see 17 windmills (molen) in a row. They were built along a canal to keep the water from the river out of that area. Beautiful area and we saw a family from Staphorst in their traditional costume. Ted said it was unusual for a young family to be wearing their costume out of their area, that they must be really strict. We went on to visit Willy's quilt shop in Brielle. Quick visit to say hi and headed for home. Awesome day!

I'm out of room for pictures...will share more tomorrow.

happy quilting!!

Correction on food

this Dutch stuff should not be this confusing! LOL First--I mixed English and Dutch when I mentioned we were headed to...Den Haag OR The Hague..I just combined the two. Oh well.. And then what we had to eat was Nasi (with rice) that was served Rijstaffel style--with lots of extra additions. I'm sure you are now as confused as I am!! We did make it to Den Haag, our first stop was to a National Sports Team shop for baseball where my hubby wanted a new baseball hat--sold out. Then we took the tram to Schenevihangen (I've totally botched that spelling, but Ted isn't sitting next to me) and had lunch at the Kurhaus, an very old, established and elegant place to eat (it's also a hotel) located on the beach. They must not have been too picky because we certainly weren't elegantly dressed! We moseyed up and down the beach, chuckling at all the kitchsy touristy stuff and headed back to the center of Den Haag. I was looking for a particular thing and we got way sidetracked and ended buying some clothes and found an equivalent to a Dollar Store! We so lost track of time that we ended up missing the quilt store. :( Oh well, at $25+/ yard for American fabric, I probably wouldn't have purchased anything anyway. You have to give the Europeans credit for doing any quilting at all at those prices. You can better believe they don't have the stashes that we have.

On a side note--I brought some hand work to do while I was here. I love the Lollipops (the coolest bias bindings all wrapped up like a Lollipop). I'm doing the quilt called "Circle Games" am using Perle Cotton #5 in variagated colors to handstitch the bindings down. But it's kind of hard to pull through all the thicknesses of fabrics and bindings. Ted reminded me about the needlepuller! I use mine when I quilt to pull a needle that's loaded with stitches (okay--so they are not so loaded on mine). But it works really great on getting that big needle with that big floss through all those layers!

Happy Quilting!!!

Typical Dutch food

Greetings from s'Gravenzande! I arrived yesterday after a rather quick trip and one hour of sleep. I spent the rest of the day in a bit of a haze, but that's okay. We quickly changed into swimsuits and took off for the beach on our bikes, laden with picnic fare, umbrellas, towels, sunscreen and chairs. It was a bit of a sight! It was supposed to be a nice day but after an hour, dark clouds rolled in with thunder in the distance, so packed up everything and came home.

We had a typical Dutch meal last night..Rijsttaffel. I told her that my grandparents were from Holland and we never had anything like this. I guess Indonesion food became very popular in Holland after WWII. Many Dutch soldiers were stationed there and apparently brought back the cuisine. It's a bit like how I make my Fried Rice, brown rice, bacon, a bit of chicken, soy sauce (although she used a sweet version rather than a salty one?) and fried egg. The difference was that she added some herbs and spices (she used Nasi last night) but prefers this (although it has noodles in it as well). She served it with a Rijsttaffel Mix (different peanuts--hot and spicy ones, ones mixed with coconut, a sweet mix and some onions) satey sauce (a peanut sauce-which I normally do not care for, but this one was good), fried bananas with a bit of brown sugar and some little puffy, crispy rice thingy?? (she says it's called Kroepoek). The whole meal was quite tasty.

hey Marne--we're headed to Den Hague--I'll pass on your greetings to the quilt shop owner! And I'll enjoy the sites and food with you in mind! :)

Rescuing clothes from a garage sale

I'm headed to my friend Ted's in the Netherlands later today, so it has been a whirlwind trying to get ready. I promised my hubby a while ago that I'd have a garage sale to get rid of the stuff from the kitchen remodeling, plus a lot of other stuff. Our cars have been outside for a while now and he says it's time to get them back in. Which meant that I had to have my garage sale last weekend or wait until Sept. And guess which option HE chose? LOL My daughter had a lot of baby clothes (hmmm...looked very familiar..seems like I bought most of them!), so I had her bring them to me. They are such a big draw at garage sales. And they were. The sale was good, God showed mercy on me and it didn't rain until AFTER the sale. Thank you God! I was packing everything up to take to the Free Store (a store that's supported by area churches for pre-qualified families to shop for free for necessities) or to Goodwill.


I came across the cutest little cotton shirt worn by my granddaughter and set it aside. I thought--I'll just cut it up into a few pieces and add it to my latest bright scrappy project as a little memory of her. I might end up making a little doll quilt for her out of the rest.








Talk about getting side tracked--instead of bagging up garage sale leftovers OR working on class samples....I'm painstakingly taking apart the shirt to save the buttons, the darling little hot pink tatted trim and making the most of every square inch of fabric!
An hour later I had two little pieces of trim......4 buttons and (2) 2 1/2" squares which






I promptly put into my quilt. I didn't cut up the rest of the shirt yet as I want to figure out the best use of it. I'd sure hate to cut it up and wished later I would have cut them bigger/smaller or whatever.

And the little sweetie who donated to the cause!

so..I got a bit sidetracked..it sure was fun and I don't regret a minute of it. I even caught myself smiling while I was in the middle of all of it. And THAT's what's fun about quilting.....creating memories.

Happy quilting!