Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

After much debate we decided to limit our vacation to one other state this year. Since we were going west  to West Virginia we decided to limit our drive time per day and camp near my friend and her family.  When she got married we found a community park near Shenango Lake with a nice rail trail like walk along the canal bed.  That led us to the Shenango Dam but we didn’t have a lot of time to explore that weekend.  We have discussed going back a few times and when we realized that camp sites were less expensive at the Recreation area than at the PA state parks we decided this was a good time to visit.  We didn’t spend a lot of our time here doing typical tourist activities because we are familiar with the area, given that I went to college less than an hour away, at Slippery Rock.   On our way out we stopped at the Jennings Environmental Education Center and Wendell August Forge. I’ve gone to Wendell August many times as I collect their annual Christmas or...

Carol of Just Let Me Quilt organizes some of my favorite blog hops.  One of the ironies of this hop is that I started my project during a blog hop, in which I discovered Carol's blog.  In 2017 Seams to be Sew  hosted a Christmas Caroling Row along, in which each designer created a quilt pattern based on their favorite Christmas carol and released the pattern for free for a certain time period.  I think this was the first blog hop that I really followed and I downloaded all the patterns.  I was so inspired by all the designs; and still think a bout making a few of them that I haven't made yet (I guess that's part of Christmas yet to come) but I don't think anyone did my favorite Christmas Carol-I guess Silent Night is a challenge to design.  Now probably the biggest other irony is that I was so inspired by that hop but I don't generally like projects that are Christmas specific-except nativities.  When these patterns were released so many used appliqué...

We just got back from vacation.  So I haven’t really thought about what I want to accomplish this week. But I do know I’ll be participating in a blog hop, and have a few definite goals.  So how did I do with the last list?  1.get more of the tulip blocks done-I realized I needed more green strips for leaves so I worked on that a lot 2. put a charity quilt top together-I didn’t get this done 3. I still need to blog about the recent camping trips-done 4. Continue reading my Amish quilt novel and quilt cozies.-I finished the Amish quilt novel and then started The Star Garden because it’s a library book.  It has a quilt on the cover but the quilt isn’t a central part of the story so far...it’s the 3rd book of a trilogy and the second one did get into some elements of a quilt. 5. Have a great vacation-we enjoyed the time away, but I’ll post about that over the next week or so. So what do I want to do this week? 1. My friend is coming to work on the baby quilt she wants to...

My love of camping can definitely be attributed to my parents influence; so what better way to celebrate Father's Day than by camping? (Mother's Day would be equally appropriate if my Mother-in-law were as into camping as my family). Most years we do some sort of camping activity but this year Dad was working so much that I didn't really expect to be able to camp so we didn't reserve anything until the last minute. and by then none of the more local state parks had anything available that met our needs.  Mom works second shift so we needed somewhere reasonably local so I chose a private rv park (Western Village) in Carlisle.  I forgot to check the Carlisle events calendar and was worried when we realized we were going during the rescheduled Spring Carlisle event. I'd sat through horrible car show traffic in grad school and was sure this would be the same but fortunately I was pleasantly surprised.  The first night we had neighbors on both sides of our campsites but ...

My sewing machine was ready to come home this week so I finally got some sewing done!  1. Make reservations for vacation-done!  we'll be heading for West Virginia soon...although I did make a slight mistake and book two different campgrounds for the same nights and had to change campgrounds to have an electric site.  2. Make progress on hand quilting the present-done! 3. Get the rest of the strings pressed for tulip blocks-I got them all pressed, and many partially sewn  4. Baste a machine quilting project-oops I was too busy with the tulips 5. Write about one of our recent camping trips-oops Not too bad!  We'll be preparing for our vacation this week so it's a very short list 1. get more of the tulip blocks done.  I may have more blocks than I bargained for! 2. put a charity quilt top together 3. I still need to blog about the recent camping trips 4. Continue reading my Amish quilt novel and quilt cozies. 5. Have a great vacation-no short list next week.

This week wasn’t very productive.  We needed to get a brake installed for the truck and that took 2 trips, and another day was spent on doctors visits. Our camping relaxation was very needed!  So how Did the list go... 1. Camping for the 4th-done 2. Continue hand quilting a present-I worked on another project instead-oops! 3. My friend is coming to plan a baby quilt-she drew everything out beforehand so the only thing I needed to do was suggest a couple changes in arrangement and calculate yardage to order 4. Make plans for vacation and pray they don’t have to change again-we decided to change from visiting the Great Smoky Mountains to visiting West Virginia so we only have one other state’s protocol to consider.  I’m working on our reservations now.  My sewing machine is done so what’s on this week’s list?  1. Make reservations for vacation  2. Make progress on hand quilting the present 3. Get the rest of the strings pressed for tulip blocks 4. Baste a mac...