Sewing like crazy!

 I didn't quite no where to begin on my projects after the trip to Costa Rica. 

One afternoon after laundry and groceries and such, I sat and finished my St. Patrick's Day cross stitch.  I only had 2 accent colors to fill in. Now how to frame it.  No decisions???

And in the evenings, I have been cross stitching away at my Quaker Valentine by Primrose Cottage. I am running out of floss. UGH! 😣😣😣   But I am 3/4 done.  😉

And yesterday, I didn't feel like attacking the almost done quilt, so it seemed like a good idea to make 8 inch sampler blocks.  

And now I have 22 blocks made.  And I even found a setting I like from Sharon Craig's book. And then I dug out my Celebrate with Quilts book to find ideas for more blocks. 

Back from a trip to WARM weather

 My dear husband and I went to Costa Rica for a wonderful vacation. Our daughter and her beaux also went down and we had some time together as well. 

We visited 4 locations: San Jose, the capital where our flight landed, 

central mall, a "street" only for pedestrians

National Theater

Monteverde, a cloud forest ( rain forest in high altitudes),  ( lush forest with enormous plants)

La Fortuna near the volcano Arenal that exploded in 1968 when it also created hot springs ,

and then Tamarindo, a beach community on the Pacific side.  

The sights were amazing as was the wonderful change in climate. So glad to be warm and even hot at times. And we all marveled at the incredible flora and fauna of the region after taking several guided hikes. I saw everything from macaws to poison dart frogs, as well as sloths, tarantulas, and more. We ate local food as well as seafood and lots of watermelon, pineapple and papaya. And we spent lots of time traveling from local to local as the roads were difficult to travel on due to being in the mountains on non paved roads with many ruts and washed out areas. It took us over 5 hours to go 160 miles one day, for example. 

But it was beautiful, and a great escape from the snowstorms we had back home. Plus I got to see my daughter. 

Sarah and her dad

Examples of Costa Rican painted art with some statuesque animals.

So there had been no sewing completed being away from my machine and only minimal cross stitching done in airports.  I did see 1 fabric store which had limited space and no quilting cottons. 😞😞😞

But now,  it is kind of like a new year to get things going again.  I am making lists to complete and getting some of them even done.

Too much to do!

 I have felt very busy the last week trying to get lots of things finished and off my plate. That plus lots of meetings for this and that. 

But I have managed to be at the sewing machine: 

So happy to have finished my 12 inch block for Valentine's Day. I pieced and appliqued it last year.  And now I have it quilted and the binding on. I found the pattern on Pinterest.

And I have made 3 more blocks for my sampler quilt; they are fun and easy to accomplish in a small amount of time. 

And I just played around with pink scraps to make valentines.

The first group is stitch along edge and fold over.

The second group are just scraps with all over quilting.

I need to add some buttons and/or ribbons.

Little projects

 Each night, I like to relax in front of the TV with my hubby.   (He sits at the other end of the couch so as not to be hit with my needle and thread when pulling it up. ) But we enjoy sharing the shows together and I get a lot of hand work done. 

Current evening project has been the Valentine Quaker by Primrose Cottage. 

My progress over many days: 

And for other quilting progress: 

I finished my Stash Bee block for February. It turned into several blocks as it was so easy and all my solids were in the bag together. .

I also tinkered with some quilted hearts, but I will show those later.

I finished going through all my old teaching materials: 21 boxes worth.  I donated 12 boxes of children's books and kept only 2 boxes for kids and grandkids.