I'm on Staycation

It's been kind of a nice holiday weekend. I worked my derriere off earlier in the week, so that for the July 4-5-6 holiday weekend, I could have a partial STAYCATION! Apparently, since gas is so costly, more and more people are opting to spend vacation time staying at home. A stay-cation!

I got it down to where I only had a little work for each morning, plus a workout, plus a few chores (floors, or dishes, etc).....and the afternoons were to be MINE!!

Apparently I'm not alone in the "stay at home and cocoon" method of holiday celebration. One person I spoke with wanted to sleep. Often.

Another wanted to do nothing. Slowly!

I was able to use my staycation to make a LittleBlessings quilt. I have wanted to make one of these for quite a while. I even found material online at a reduced price and bought enough for at least four of the smaller version. Plus my quilting buddies Yvette and Karene beat me to making this one, and passed me their leftovers. I may get five made! Of course, my plan was to make them in advance and then when I needed a baby gift.....simply walk to the closet and take one out.

Ahem. Yeah, right.

Well, I have a client with a baby making an appearance soon....so time was a-wastin'...

I had fun laying the pieces out randomly.....

I found a scrap of batting from another quilt that was the perfect size, so I layered, pinned, and tried the loop-de-loop type of quilting for the first time. I need lots of P3 (practice, practice, practice!) but I really like doing it that way! (Once again, the gardening gloves Karen gave me, which have never yet made it out to the garden, helped me grip the fabric while quilting it!)

I mitered the corners. It was the first time I had tried that, but I didn't have a bit of trouble with it. Yay!

All that's needed is the binding, which I hope to finish tomorrow.

And if I can find my notes about how wide to cut my binding for a machine sewn binding....I'll probably print it on a sheet and tape it to the wall in the sewing room. I can NEVER remember binding sizes. It's one size for hand sewn and one size for machine sewn..... sigh.

Also.... in other "staycation" activities, I had a set of coupons for Tall Mouse, and Michael and I hit their 4th of July sale. Wanna guess who's fabric is whose?

Yep! No mystery there! Mine is possibly going to be a purse (and a lining for it), and Michael picked out some fabric for one of the quilts I'm making for him. I've been collecting dog prints and I think I may do a quick Take Five with some of them, or one of those Disappearing-9-Patches that is so cute.

:)