Road Trips!

As Damon and I are both on stay-cation vacations this week we decided to do a couple regional road trips. On Wednesday we took the Triumph to Lake Placid. It was a beautiful sunny day so we multi-tasked and got tans while traveling. We loaded up on chocolate at the Adirondack Chocolate shop.
Today we went farther afield and went to Old Forge, NY. That is a picture of me just outside the Life Is Good Store in Old Forge. How can you pass up a picture with a wooden moose wearing sunglasses? It was a great day for traveling, cloudy and cool (low 70s), but no rain. The main stop was the Old Forge Hardware store (its more like5 or 6 stores). We also had lunch and walked around and hit the other shops in town. On the way back we stopped at the Black Bear Trading Post Quilt Shop in Inlet, NY. OK, I stopped, Damon stayed in the car. 

Relaxing in Style

The chaise lounge that dad bought me for my birthday is finally complete. The chair frame showed up last week and I put it together over the weekend. The cushions showed up yesterday and now my summer relaxation can begin in earnest.

In other news Damon bought some fish for the aquarium. We now have two small catfish, two orange fish and one black one. So far only the black one has a name - Gomez. So far (its only been about a week) they are all alive and appear to be doing well.

A New Technique

On my activity list for this holiday week was to try a new quilting technique. I came across the fusible collage idea at the Exuberant Color blog. I didn't follow her idea exactly, but used the basic premise. I grabbed a random piece of batting from a previously trimmed quilt (no it is not exactly a straight rectangle - it tapers a bit) and my bag of scraps. Since I did not have fusible batting, I just added Heat and Bond Lite to the batting, laid out the scraps (this took the longest amount of time as I am fussy about color and placement). And then fused it down. After it was fused I got some backing (again from the scrap pile) and then machine quilted it. The quilting also helps hold down some of the loose edges that are not fused down. The whole thing is roughly 8 inches wide by 29 inches long. I found the four black and white squares in the scrap bag and thought they made nice focus points down the center of the piece. I quilted these down using one of the decorative stitches on the sewing machine.  

Also on the list of activities is to try a new recipe. After a huge meal on the 4th, and the subsequent leftovers the thought of eating again delayed this idea. But I have been digging through cookbooks and Pinterest and have a couple Chicken Curry with Coconut milk recipes (1 and 2) that I will merge and give a try. I was deliberately looking for recipes that did not involve having to use the oven - can't imaging using the oven while the air conditioner is running!

A busy holiday week

It is amazing how much you can get into a week when you are not at work! I took this entire week off and while I am getting plenty of rest and relaxation in I am also moving forward on a lot of projects. I finished yet another quilt - this is the Bloomin Steps pattern that I made to use up some of my scraps. All it needed was the binding. 

I am also trying to get outdoors as much as possible this week. I finally got up to the New Land Trust on Monday. I took Ivan up with me. The bugs were pretty bad so we were there for less than an hour but the trails look pretty good. Unlike other parks most of the trails are not trampled down so they still have to mow them. The signage is good but I would definitely print and take a copy of the trail map. I have also included a picture of their state of the woods facilities.

This week is also my birthday and we had a nice cookout with friends, with the guys doing most of the work. We had chocolate cake and Lemon Monkey Bread. Only four more days of freedom - best get off the computer and get out there and do something active. 

Another Quilting Finish

Yes, I am getting a number of quilts finished lately, but the reason for that is that I sent out 3 to get quilted in April and got them back in June. So here I am with just the binding to do to officially count them as done. This is the second of the three. I already have the binding cut and prepped for the last quilt and will likely post a picture of that one by the end of the week.

This one is about crib sized. Made from purple and lilac fabrics I inherited from Cheryl Patch. This quilt will be donated to the quilt guild for its silent auction in next year's quilt show.