Family Fun at the Beach

 Crystal, Mike and kiddos came to the beach for a little vacation before school starts.

So much fun!

 Clella loves to cuddle with my little Jessie,

he avoids her if he can. 😉

But if I put him on her lap and she covers him with a quilt,

he'll lay there as long as she does.

Granddog Sadie refuses to be left out!

Tony dog found his spot too.

Clella learned embroidery and is now working on a stitch sampler.

I didn't mind at all when she asked if she could have some of my threads.

I did make her up a supply bag and boy oh boy,

she picked up the stitches so fast!

Big funny with these two.

It's all about the matching hats.

Kiddos take turns helping with the meals.

Corbin loves to help with breakfast.

He was so proud of how awesome his table looked. 

He id a great job.

Every morning is hot cocoa.

Most every evening is S'mores.

Sometimes if you are going home early,

 S'mores are for 2nd breakfast. 

When Gramma begs and whines,

Elliot caves and gives her the foot massage.

This man child melts my heart!

I love my just sitting back and watching everyone to their thing!

Lots of card games and Yahtzee.

The traditional family camping photo.

I think I need to print and frame this.

I cry when they leave but 

after a few minutes, 

I'm ok but

It sure is quiet!!!

Where Have I Been and What Have I Been Doing?

 Here's a big ole post with all kinds of stuff that happened around the farm.

May is my birthday month and I buy myself all kinds of gifts.

I was in Walmart one day and took a wrong turn looking for thread.

This Brother SE625 sewing and embroidery machine was on clearance for less than 1/2 price

and jumped right into my cart!

We spent Memorial Weekend at the beach with family.

S'mores are a must!

I love our beach time.

I've been loving my wicking tub garden.

Yesterday I harvested my first kale.

We did a major front yard make over.

It all started with asking Ernie to take a walk because

I have a plan and would it work.

I've wanted this to happen for a very long time.

This is only Phase 1 and Phase 2 will happen soon.

While at the beach,

I cut all the parts for a mystery BOM project.

I sewed them all up when I got home.

I'm excited for the final clue.

We went to town to look at a used car.

We came home with a brand new shiny Honda CRV.

This is my very 1st brand new car.

I keep my cars forever.

This was another of my birthday gifts.

Fresh pasta is the bomb!

Hubs cut down a bunch of trees.

They were rotting and dying.

Better he cuts them and lays them down where he wants before

they fall over onto power lines or fences.

I have baby squash!!!

Super excited.

Last Saturday was the annual hunting club picnic.

It's one of their biggest fund raisers for the year. 

I DID NOT make the quilt, but daughter Crystal did.

Her dad was quite proud of her and

the gal that won it was super excited.

So there you have it, 

4 weeks of catch up.

I hope to do better.

Our Christmas Club Block Exchange

Each year at the Christmas Club party, 

we choose a block to exchange each of the member.

The year before we chose to do a 6" calendar block.

One member opted out so I volunteered to make 2 sets of blocks.

Mine are the umbrella for April and the Maple leaf for September. 

I chose to make my little sashings from 1" strips so my sashing sets total 1 1/2" wide.

Skinny little sashings can be a challenge to work with.

I finished my wall hanging earlier in the year and

chose not to reveal until our party.

I still have my 2nd set of blocks.

I plan to put them together for a wall hanging in the motor home.

I'm thrilled with how it turned out.

This year we exchanged 9" Churn Dash blocks.

I cannot wait to work on this project.

This year our block is a barn. 

Any barn, any size.

I'm still thinking about this one. 

Design Wall Monday

This past weekend was our annual Spring Retreat.

My projects were all UFOs.

I had 6 blocks for Reach for the Stars all kitted up and ready to sew.

I made 2 full blocks and for 2 more blocks, I just needed to add the last piece on 16 papers.

I couldn't do it, 

I was just too tired to focus so I came home.

Right after breakfast on Friday,

these 2 were finished.

They don't look like the same size but they are.

Here is a horrible picture of all 6 of my blocks.

Next I got busy building the last of my house blocks for Moda Be My Neighbor.

The bee hives (that's what I call them to honor of our bees) were already sewn.

I took all my rows apart and added sashing between them.

The owner of the quilt I had seen the blocks set that way was there.

She said she was flattered at how much I loved her quilt. 

I love the trees in this quilt.

They were so much fun!

The wonkyness of the purple plaid makes me giggle.

And it wouldn't be fun and games if there weren't some whoopsies. 

First those darn chevron!

They were mocking me in every way!

I told myself to be careful because 3 went one way and 3 the other.

Yacking and laughing and carrying on makes a person not pay attention.

I started on the last block and got to a point and darn! 

Where are my other pieces???

So I when I came home that night, 

I recut the 3 chevrons and the extra red pieces.

Before leaving yesterday,

I sewed my chevrons, and when I went to sew them to the house,

Well, you can see what I did!

Time to pack up and come home.

I had to lay finished On Ringo Lake over the fence for a quick photo shoot.

I love how it turned out!

Before leaving for retreat, I started quilting the baby quilt.

I can't wait to get in there and get back to work on it.

We play the greedy gift game.

I made this tote bag for my gift.

As I was making it, I pulled fabrics for 2 more.

One for myself and one for a gift.

The pattern is Fiji from Pink Sand Beach Designs.

They have such cute, cute patterns!!

Of course there was lots lots of new quilting ideas.

I had to rush to the computer one night and order a pattern pattern because I loved it so much!

It was a wild, wild, productive week

and I had a blast every single day!

I'm really glad I went.

I really missed being with my favorite retreat partner.

Can't wait until fall for the next one!

Check out all the fabulousness that is happening in Blogland at

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts Design Wall Monday.

Be sure to drool Judy's new adorable puppy!!! 

Design Wall Monday

The only sewing that happened this past week looked like this.

I made parts of 9 patches, 

lots of parts and pieces, blocks and framed blocks.

All for Garden Party #2.

Except that one piece by the Tootsie Roll! 

That is my Oklahoma Backroads leader/ender.

 2 more blocks went into the l/e box.

(***The advantage of blog photos is seeing where you need to unstitch.

That dark green on the left is sooo wonky!)

After last Monday's blog post, 

I packed my car and headed to Crystal's house to stay with 4 kiddos while they vacationed.

Let me tell you,

after 4 days, I was one tired Gramma!

But we had lots of fun.

Saturday I spent most of the day in my sewing room.

At the end of the day,

I had a good pile of pieces and parts sewn.

In my basket I have 30 framed 9 patches,

30 more waiting to be framed and

the bed of my machine has a lot more ready for the next steps.

These tools are usually on the bed of the machine.

I call them the tools of my trade.

I buy the seam rippers and thread snips in bulk from Amazon. 

I can't live without my reverse tweezers for pulling threads.

The stiletto is the skinny extension of  my chubby finger!

Bonnie shared the instructions on her blog here.

Funny story...

I was shopping at Winco one day after she posted this.

I always buy canning lids when I shop there.

As I was getting my lids, out of the corner of my eye,

I saw packages of the turkey lacer things.

Marked down to 25¢ for a package of 8.

I don't remember how many packages there were.

I took them all.

Lots of friends now own stilettos. 😉

Design Wall Monday posts can be found at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

Oh my, there are some fabulous pictures there and I can't wait to go visiting!

Saying Goodbye to Summer

We did a last summer hurrah at the beach.

11 days of family, fun and sun!

One day it was 94 degrees! 

At the beach!

Since buying the lot next door

(our 45th Anniversary gift to ourselves)

lots of brush clearing has been happening!

There is a big pampas grass bush right in the middle.

The plums are about to burst open.

I'm probably not going to see them. 😒

Unless we make a quick 2 or 3 trip next week. 

Over Labor Day weekend, Crystal and Co came to camp.

I can't believe I didn't get one single picture of the campers.

I guess we were having too much fun!

Over the Rod Run Weekend, Dee & Co + Stellie came down.

It's so fun when family comes to stay! 

Makes this Momma's dream come true.

We were ready to watch the cars as they headed from Ocean Park to Longbeach.

That didn't happen but we had a great time with friends.

We did see quite a few awesome old cars but not the parade.

Next year we will be better informed.

Remember the septic tank that isn't buried in the ground?

(You can see it here in this post behind Ernie in his lounger.)

I convinced him to use the fence boards to make a deck over it.

It can be easily lifted if the tank ever needs to be pumped.

It sure looks a lot better now. 

I want to fill it with flower pots next spring.

And this is how we spent our summer vacations.

Retirement is awesome!

With hunting season starting soon, 

I'm sure our trips will be made around the clam tide.

I am ready to get back to my sewing machine.

I have a list of projects longer than my arm!!

Quilting? What Quilting?

We had a fun time at the beach this past week.

It was only the 2 of us.

We had our own little Eclipse Party.

Ernie is not one to sit around and crochet or knit or sew like I am. 😏

He does take some time off once in a while to just read.

He loves his westerns and when he gets in to one, he's all in.

Lots more weedeating, chainsawing and chipping took place on the new lot.

Isn't it amazing!

There is still so much more to do.

It's a jungle!!!

He got a pretty good path made for the fence line.

You know what they say about fences making good neighbors.

Mostly it's to keep our dogs in.

I was determined to finish my Virus Shawl.

I started this in December 2016 after seeing a picture on Facebook.

You know what that's like...ooohhh, I must have one of those!

I can't believe I didn't blog about it.

I finished it!  It's so cozy.

I've used it several times already.

I used Red Heart Unforgettable yarn. 

The color is Tidal.

I love the feel of this yarn but it is not one I will use again.

I like a smooth yarn, not one with thick and super thin spots.

I brought 3 pair of my knitted socks that needed a little mending.

I am not a great darner but I got the job done.

No one ever gets that close to my feet to notice where these were fixed. 

Once these was finished, I got busy on my Meandering Vine socks. 

These were last shown here in July.

I was about halfway into the heel flap when I put them away.

I got them out one morning when I couldn't go back to sleep and

finished the flap and the heel turn.

I picked up the gusset stitches later in the day 

and on the way home just put my head down and got through the decreases.

Now it's mindless knitting in the truck for the next trip to the beach.

One day I sewed on my Wild & Goosey blocks.

I now have a total of 25 full blocks.

Each full block uses 4 3" blocks.

It's probably time to figure out how big I'm going to make this one.

It's fun just using what scraps I have with me.

There is not going to get more out of the bin.

Once the bag gets down low, I'll bring more.

But until then, it's the use 'em up game!

So that's most of the news from the last week.

Until next time...

We Worked, We Played, We Ate!

We spent most of last week at the beach with Crystal, Mike, Elliot, Clella, Leland and Corbin.

It was their first time tent camping.

I'm not sure about Mike though, he may be a seasoned camper.

Growing up, Crystal camped a lot in a travel trailer.

We never tent camped.

But after seeing Dee's tent set up, 

she went home and order one for their family.

Camping was a HUGE success!

We laughed and talked and laughed some more.

I don't know if anyone was ever hungry because we had so much good food.

Smores every night.

And because we could, 

one day we had them after breakfast.

We played on the beach.

Kids and dogs ran and ran and ran.

Parents and Grandparents enjoyed the laughter

and the exhausted kids and dogs.

We worked.

See that bamboo in the background?
We found out that belongs to us.

The guy we bought the place from planted it as a privacy barrier 

then built his fence on the back side thinking the owner of the trailer would take care of it for him.

Kind of a big jerk move!

We don't want it,

we want our fence on the property line

and will plant our own privacy barrier.

It will not be bamboo.

It was a huge project to get that stuff cut down.

Weed killer went into the root system.

We had some of it down last time we were there

and saw no sign of any new growth.

We are crossing our fingers that holds true for the remaining root system.

There is always another project for our next trip.

I bet it's a new fence!

Thanks to Mike and the kiddos for all your hard work helping Poppy.

Firepit brush burning is our new favorite pastime.

😏😉😏😉😏