{Hawaii}

Me & the Mr. on Megan's wedding day

We're baaaaack!!!

Oh,... I guess that's old news. Anyway, here are a bunch of pictures from our trip to Hawaii!!

see that person waaaaay out there on the paddle board,...

I'm sad that my baby won't remember this trip, because it was so pretty.

Thanks, Megan, for being my friend.

{3 Months}

LOOK at those baby blues!!! He is such a SWEET baby! He smiles at me when I say "hi" and we can get him to laugh at the craziest noises.

These pictures were taken in Hawaii, Cash was a little older than 3 months, but I forgot to do a 3 month photo shoot, so these should do. AND... since he is now 4 months, stay tuned for that post. :)

I love this guy,... probably even more tomorrow than today.

{Neptune Wild Thing}

Do you remember this??? Well,... almost two years later, here it is in all its Wild Thing, Hawaii glory. :)

I actually brought this quilt with me (maybeeee along with another one) to Hawaii. That's right, I brought quilts with me to Hawaii. I actually finished the binding on this one on the plane ride out there so, on our way to the airport to head home, we stopped for a photo shoot. Why not?? :) It only took me two years to complete, for some reason,... I think it deserves a pretty view (which just so happens to be the view from the wedding we attended,.. uh,.. beautiful much???) I know what you're thinking,... "I've seen better" Yeah, me too.

Please excuse some of the color funkiness in these pictures. I had the white balance all wrong on my camera for every picture I took of this quilt and didn't have the guts to ask my husband to go back out on the golf course holding this pretty pink and blue quilt and start all over.

Anyway, I LOOOOOOOOVE it! It is definitely my favorite to date of those I have kept. It has a home right now on the back of my couch.

{My New, Old Machine}

Well, that is just a lovely sight, no?

Let me tell you a little story of how I acquired this beauty.

When I was young, I used to both babysit for and go to church with a nice nice lady. Her family moved away and I recently re-connected with her on Facebook. I remember sewing with her and the other church ladies on Saturdays to make quilts for donation,... and making homemade ice cream too! :) Anyway, she mentioned that she had a few sewing machines that she never used and I offered to buy one from her.

"Life is too short" she told me and the next thing I knew I was in possession of a wonderful gift! You read that right! GIFT. She gave me this Bernina sewing machine just for no reason at all.

I have to be honest. I have had it for a really long time. It went to my mother's house when I was still living in Maryland and sat there for months until I came back to Texas. My two favorite features of this machine are the hands free foot lifter and the pedal tap needle-down. After using this machine, I wonder how I was ever sewing on anything else. I will save my first sewing machine because I have made a lot of beauties with that little Singer,... but I am loving my sweet gift and am even more eager to get sewing. I will cherish it and create on it in honor of such a sweet lady.

To say a little "Thank you" I whipped up this little mini wonky star quilt.

I hope to make a larger size quilt with these pretty little stars, they were fun and easy!

Friends, I am off to HAWAII for a week! Yes,... Hawaii,... you can be jealous, I would be ;) Looking forward to beautiful weather, some zip lining, swimming, beaches, and a super fun wedding. I will over load you with pictures when we get back.

XOXO

{South Carolina Vacation - Part 2}

Yes,... another one of THESE crazy picture posts. See, and the thing is that I pick pictures that are virtually the same, but in MY mind, they are so so different and I can't choose. I'm a dork,... I'm aware.

Back to the topic at hand. I did mention that my mom and I did quite a bit of crafting while we were at the beach so let me quickly run through what went down.

Below: Dining room turned sewing room.

Remember this quilt post? Well, I just got around to quilting it at the beach. Talk about PUTTING THINGS OFF. (I'm beginning to see a trend with that......)

So, "Simply-A-Bloom" (from Roslyn of Bloom) was basted...

Stippled...

and stippled some more.

Remember this quilt post? I finally finished piecing the "Wild Thing" quilt top. (pattern from Camille of Thimble Blossoms) It too was basted, but not stippled.

Below: Craft Hope dish cloths in the making.

You might recognize those yummy colored cloths below :) (and yes, we did watch The Holiday, its my all time FAVORITE movie! Probably seen it about 100 times,... "totally brill")

Mom decided to get back into crochet and lent a helping hand with some Craft Hope dish cloths as well. (below)

This is the mess that we made,.... and continued to grow throughout the week. Lovely right??

Yummy, Yummy dish cloths.

And, as if I didn't already have enough projects started,.... I got sucked into the Hexagon trend!! I actually really really enjoy hand sewing/stitching/embroidery so I decided to give these little Hexa-squares a try. (my husband made that word up :) These hexies are ALLLLL the rage on the crafty inter-webs,.... and so adorable, I couldn't resist.

Everyone is right too, they are very addicting, and a lot of fun.

The NINE (turned ten) hour drive home was the perfect time to finish hand-stitching the binding on the Bloom quilt...

(finished!!!!!)

AND there was even some time leftover for some hexa-squaring. PERFECT little travel project.

So, there you have it. ONE completed quilt (which I will post about later). One basted quilt, one NEW quilt project started,... yeah. And one Craft Hope project almost completed. It was a great, productive, and still relaxing trip. I wouldn't have been able to get so much done with my quilts if I didn't have my mom there to help me! Thanks Mom!

{South Carolina Vacation - Part 1}

Okay,.... I really love blog posts with tons of pictures and I'm even guilty of sometimes skipping over the story and just looking at the pictures. But I don't like it when I can't pick a reasonable number of pictures for my own posts, so I'm also guilty of the occasional picture overload. I'll try to keep the commentary short on this one. ;)

My husband and I met up with my parents at a beach house in South Carolina for a week of relaxation. We spent a bit of time at the beach every day, some time at the house sewing and watching movies, a little time shopping and a lot of time eating.

I love the picture above and that cute little girl in the background.

My Guy.

My Dad.

I was like a kid at the beach. Every so often the waves would bring in these little tiny clam-ish creatures by the hundreds. They would scatter all over the sand and once the water washed away, they would dig themselves into the sand. It was fun to watch them all wiggle their way into the ground. If I were to collect them from the beach and bring them home (which I didn't) they would have opened up like the ones in this picture that I found on the deck of the beach house,... little butterfly clams. Cute.

Of course, we built a sand castle,... well, kind of. It's one of those drippy sand creations. Turned out pretty cool, it even had its own pond. :)

Under Armour, at the beach.

Beautiful sunset from the house porch. So fun, so relaxing, so great to see my parents. Have any of you ever been to South Carolina beaches?? We were near Myrtle Beach. Do any of you have any exciting summer vacation plans???

Like I said, there was some creating going on at the beach house. Sewing, quilting, crocheting and an overload of movies. It. Was. Perfect.

Stay tuned for South Carolina Vacation, Part 2.