Dave and I recently spent a week in Lubec, Maine, with our friends Marge, Bob and Monica, a reprise of our trip in 2011.  We took advantage of the long ride north to stop on the way up to visit with my college roommate Peg in New Gloucester, and on the way south to visit with my cousin Carole in Camden and with friends and former neighbors Mary and Xavier in Boothbay Harbor.   We had perfect weather, lots of lobster and lots of laughter.  Here are some highlights:

Roomies!

   

The view from our window

A toast to morning in Maine!

On the ferry to Eastport

At the New Friendly Restaurant in Perry

Nobody does lobster rolls like the New Friendly!

Now this is how vegetable keepers should look!

Cigars on the last evening

"We happy few"

Blueberry Land!

Cousins!

Dave and I hadn't seen Mary and Xavier for years, and I FORGOT TO TAKE PICTURES!   Oh, well.  there's always next year!

June: Celebrations and (of course) THE CHALLENGE!

The month of June is a busy one for our family. Emily's birthday is on the 16th, Dave's is on the 20th, Father's Day always falls around then, and Dave's and my wedding anniversary is on the 22nd.  Whew!  We buy a lot of cards and eat out much more often than usual.  All of these dates remind us of how quickly our lives spin past and how important it is to appreciate each and every day. 
 This year was one of those significant birthdays for Dave.  Here's one of my favorite pictures of him, taken when he taught at the Edinburgh Academy.  Except for gray hair and beard, he still looks the same (minus the kilt!)

Thirty-eight years ago, this was the scene......

 And twenty-five years ago, our sweet girl arrived.....

 

 Here she is being greeted by her grandmother, her Aunt Marce, and her cousin Drew.

 

Despite all this celebrating, I did manage to complete my Free Motion Challenge for June. The teacher for this month was Cindy Needham who does exquisite machine quilting on whole cloth quilts.  Her tutorial included several parts in which she explained her choices of tools, her method of beginning and ending and burying threads, and her method of dividing the quilting space and quilting differently in each section, much like the Zentagle doodle method.

For some of my practice pieces I used quilt sandwiches I had used to try some decorative threads for bobbin quilting.  Since those threads were white, I used YLI Rainbows thread so I could see the difference between the two.

After several practice sessions, my final attempt is here.   I have a Bernina  and I have done some of the challenges using the BSR, but I did all of this month's quilting without it, and I am happy with the result.  My stitches are more even than I had expected them to be, and I think Cindy's suggestion about letting the rhythm of your machine help you to keep your foot and hands in sync really worked for me.  This is one lesson I think I shall be trying again and again.

 

 

I quilted the name of the month and a heart in hand, too, and I think I will do this on all the challenges for the rest of the year.

 

 I hope that those of you who are celebrating this month and quilting this month have as much fun as I did!

Escape Velocity Achieved (Almost)

  My trip to Florida was short and sweet and busy!   It was thrilling to see Marce and my brother-in-law, Jack so happy and excited to have begun to fulfill their long held dream of sailing around the world.  They have named the boat Escape Velocity and are blogging about their experiences here.

The boat is beautiful and much more comfortable and roomy than I (the landlubber in the family) had expected.  The berths and heads are in the two hulls, and the living space is in the bridge deck that connects the two hulls.

Before my trip, I did a little crafty business and made t-shirts with the boat name and picture for each of us.  I think they were a hit.

When they sold their house, Marce and Jack pared down their possessions to things they thought they would want or need on the boat.  The moving truck arrived on Tuesday.  We sorted through the boxes to decide what could wait in the rented storage locker and what should go right onto the boat.   Things for the boat included pantry and kitchen and bath items, along with the all-important cases of wine.  We packed the rest into the storage locker without an inch of space to spare.  Marce is the all-time champion packer!

Back on board, we had lots of "stuff" to put away into not very much space.

The previous owners left lots of food that they had acquired during their cruising trip of almost 4 years.  We had fun "reading" labels from different countries.

During all this commotion, Izzy, the "Adventure Kitty," always found a spot for watching or napping.

 We did take time out for some fun.  We even took a ride up to Archie's Seabreeze in Ft. Pierce for dinner one night.

 When I left there was still lots of work to do to prepare for sailing away, but I came home knowing that Marce and Jack are beginning a wonderful new chapter of their life together, and that there's a berth with my name on it so that Dave, Emily and I can achieve Escape Velocity, too.

February Free Motion Quilting

With only two hours to go in the month, I have to post less than stellar attempts at Diane Gaudynski's echoed plumes.  February has whizzed by, even though there is an extra day this year.  So here are my feeble plumes.  I made a promise to myself that I'll do a lot more practicing on the March lesson. (And of course, there are two more days in March, so that will help.)

 

But that's not the only sewing I did in February.  I made this whirligig quilt for a friend's new grandson, using the tutorial from Turtle Hill Quilter.  I had to take the photos in less than optimum conditions, so you'll have to excuse the shadows.  The fabrics are all children's and novelty fabrics, so the wee one can play a little I Spy.

Here's the front:

and the back:

 

 

And finally, I made this quilt top to for my daughter.  I used a charm pack of Kaffe Fassett fabrics for the background and some hand-dyed fabrics for the hearts and hands.  I traced my husband's and my hands and we each drew our own hearts;  I appliqued them by machine using decorative stitches on my Bernina.  The feature that allows you to make one stitch at a time came in handy on all those tight corners and curves.  I'm planning to hand quilt this and have it ready when DD finishes redecorating her room.  

 

We did a little shopping recently at the mall, and stopped for lunch where I snapped DD and her dad.