Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Last Sunday I knew I was likely to be spending some time reading rather than quilting, so my list reflects that. Lately I’ve been listening to audiobooks while sewing, but I had been waiting on this physical book for months. It’s harder to read a physical book while quilting, Lol! I requested Lisa Wingate and Judy Christie’s Before and After  from inter library loan the day the book was released, but something happened with the request so I didn’t get it until my library purchased it this month.  I’ve loved all the Lisa Wingate books I’ve read and especially Before we were Yours, so I knew I would enjoy the non fiction accounts of the Georgia Tann  children.  I read half the book in one sitting.  So with all that reading how did I do with my list. Color it red blog hop hosted by  Carol of Just Let me Quilt  post on Friday-done! I’m blown away by the responses when I do a blog hop.  2. Finish the fire victim top I started this morning-done! Although I may decide to add a border This

Red is not my favorite color to work with so I almost didn't participate in this blog hop.  Then I realized that I was working on a Pinocchio quilt and his pants are definitely red! A young lady in my church got engaged in November of last year. I've gotten pretty close to her family over the past few years so I wanted to make them a quilt, but they didn't give me a lot of time to make a quilt as their wedding was February 2.  The ceremony was for immediate family only, with a reception this past Sunday, so I did have a little extra time to finish their quilt and I was so glad I did!  Her family are huge Disney fans and I had this panel for a while before I figured out what I wanted to do with it.  Because I needed this project to be finished quickly I decided to sew strips of the colors of Pinocchio's clothing and arrange the panel parts around the center.  I actually pieced the entire top in one afternoon.  That night we watched the movie because I wanted a quo

This past week I knew I was going to be busy, so I gave myself an easy list. I should probably do that more often because I actually got things done that weren’t on the list. I also had a teacher wellness in service where I got to learn some embroidery and make a drip painting. So how did I do overall. 1. Finish getting the wedding quilt ready and photograph it for my next blog hop-done expect the post Friday 2. Get the Hospital Sketches quilt at least into a top-done and the other block of the month is  also a top. I started hand quilting and I love the way the back looks. 3. mail my block exchange blocks-done 4. Hand appliqué more of my snowmen-I made progress on the one I was doing last week but no new ones 5. Prepare my penguin blocks and the blocks for the Dust off an Old Quilt Book blog hop.-I made some progress 6. Write that baby quilt post-done! This coming week 1.  Color it red blog hop hosted by  Carol of Just Let me Quilt  post on Friday 2. Finish the fire vict

Red is far from my favorite color, but I love blog hops, so I’m participating in the Color It Red blog hop hosted by Carol of  Just Let Me Quilt  on Friday.  February 17 th Creatin' in the Sticks Websterquilt Vroomans Quilts Hill Valley Quilter Selina Quilts Kathy's Kwilts and More Samelia's Mum February 18 th Ms P Designs USA Podunk Pretties DayBrook Designs Cynthia's Creating Ark Bumbleberry Stitches Sew Many Yarns Karen's Korner Stitchin At Home February 19 th MooseStash Quilting Quilted Delights Everyone Deserves a Quilt Storied Quilts Just Sew Quilter Kathy’s Quilts Just Because Quilts Words & Stitches Scrapdash February 20 th Life in the Scrapatch Songbird Designs High Road Quilter Elizabeth Coughlin Designs Patchwork Breeze Lynn's Blog DesertSky Quilting Seams To Be Sew February 21 st Just Let Me Quilt Quilt Fabrication Beaquilter All Thingz Sewn Karrin’s Crazy

I’ve mentioned on my blog before that when there are new babies in my church I try to make them a quilt. In the past month,  we had a new baby girl born at church as well as one of my coworkers had his first child.  For work, I don’t make for every baby, but this young man and his wife were students when I started teaching, although somehow neither was ever my student.  Because we’ve kind of watched them grow up I really wanted to make a quilt for their little girl.  I’d  been to a yard sale a while back and gotten a box with ice cream blocks fused for appliqué and then the project was abandoned.  I bought it without really knowing who I’d make it for and been stitching on it when I felt like appliqué but didn’t have a block of the month patch to work on.  I think there were probably enough blocks for a full size quilt, but I don’t really have anyone I wanted to make that big of an ice cream quilt for so I decided I’d just keep going until the right project came along.  When my co

This past week I felt like I spent a lot more time watching tv than sewing, but I did surprisingly well with my list! 1. Bind the wedding quilt-done but no label yet. 2. Write a post about the 2 recent baby quilts-I decided to hold off until the second baby is born, which should be this week. 3. Post about the remaining cruise ports-done 4. Continue working on crumb blocks-done 5. Get at least one of my block of the months fused-not only are they fused they are stitched down too! 6. Hand appliqué a snowman for my own flakey friends quilt-I am mostly done with a second. This week I know I won’t be home 3 evenings, and Thursdays we’ve been watching g the new Star Trek Series together so I need more work that I can do in the living room and less on my sewing machine. 1. Finish getting the wedding quilt ready and photograph it for my next blog hop 2. Get the Hospital Sketches quilt at least into a top 3. mail my block exchange blocks 4. Hand appliqué more of m

I've been asking Shawn to go to the beach in winter for as long as we've been together and he has never agreed because he was to Atlantic City over Christmas vacation when he was in school and didn't enjoy it.  Our research for this trip showed that Costa Maya had nice beaches within walking distance of the port so we decided this would be our big beach day.  Walking through the port area we saw areas to swim with the dolphins, a Mayan pole ritual and a small bird sanctuary. The beaches were a little further from the port than we originally thought so we took an open air trolley to the beach area and then walked through beach areas to the lighthouse and got a taxi back to the port area. We probably could have walked it with no difficulty but some areas didn't seem to have a lot of foot traffic so we decided the taxi was safer.  The water was slightly cooler than I expected but still refreshing!   When we got back to the port area we

On one of our previous cruises I remember talking to someone who said Roatan was her absolute favorite port, so I was excited when it was included on this itinerary.  Once again, we probably should have done more research about possible excursions but we decided to do another private tour.  It was a glass bottom boat ride with an island tour and we made stops at several local shops and overlooks. One stop was a popular beach but by the time we arrived the beach was super crowded. We got to sample chocolate and rum at different stops on the tour-the chocolate was so good and on the back of the rum factory there was a deck that looked out over the mountainside. Again we were able to see how poor the area around the port is, but this time we saw much more of the beauty of the area. Next time we visit Honduras I am hoping to visit the wildlife sanctuary, just driving in to drop off one of the families on our tour we saw a sloth and I think capuch

Belize City was our second port of call on our recent cruise.  Neither of us had really read much about what to do in Belize beforehand and when we did start researching we found that one of the biggest attractions was cave tubing, however I was a little worried that I'd get motion sickness cave tubing.  Many of the other tours had restrictions we were unsure of so we decided to get a tour from a private vendor when we got there.  There was certainly not a shortage of private vendors offering tours. Because we didn't have much knowledge about the city we chose to do a city tour and learn more about the area.  The main entrance at the port hides how poor the surrounding area truly is.  There was a college student on our tour who asked a lot of questions about the economy and education in the area and our guide pointed out the local schools. He also talked about the cost of schools and the uniforms, which really showed how different the culture is.  Paying $75 a semester f