Freedom

Since I last checked in with everyone, I have been busy celebrating my freedom.  My latest quilt booklet has been finished and is being printed right now.

I have been celebrating that “freedom” in several ways:

1.  I cleaned my studio.  My studio is only clean about twice a year.  Honestly, if it is really clean more often than that, it means that there is no creative work being done.  So, I love when it is clean, but I don’t feel all that bad when it isn’t!  It usually means that there are quilts in progress!

2.  In addition to celebrating my freedom from work deadlines, I am celebrating my last bit of “pre-baby freedom”.  What better way to do that, than to host a quilt retreat in my clean studio?  I have a group of quilters that I have been meeting with once a month for the last 12 or 13 years.  We meet in the evening to do handwork, have dessert, and visit.  Every so often we get together at someone’s house and bring our machines for some marathon sewing.  There are about 9 of us in the group, so we just barely fit into my studio.

All the furniture is moved out of the way to make room for tables. All of the quilts that were piled around as trunk shows have come back from shops have been neatly stacked under the quilting machine to make more room.

New Ikea bookshelves have helped me clear out some clutter and provided some much needed storage.  CD storage towers work great for organizing my fat quarters.  A few favorite quilts are displayed on long poles between the two bookshelves.  We set up an extra ironing board and were ready to go.  I had lots of fun and hope the others did too!

3.  The next week a hosted a sewing day for another quilt group that I hang out with periodically.   They are called the Qui-Knitters, as half of us quilt, and the other half of us knits.  I have been meaning to have them over for a while now, and I really wanted to get that into “celebrating my freedom”.  (I didn’t harass either group by taking their pictures)

4.  The last little celebration was a sleep-over with two of my nieces.  (The guest room where they slept will soon be taken apart and turned into a nursery).  We had a movie night and spent several hours the next morning painting and crafting.  I probably had more fun than they did, as I hardly ever get to do silly crafts like painting rocks or making tissue paper rainbows. (again, sorry – no pictures, but I had paint all over my hands!)

5.  Next, I get to celebrate my freedom by working on the nursery.  I told myself I couldn’t start the nursery until the book was done, and I actually stuck to my rule.  About that book coming – several of you have asked why I haven’t been sharing any pictures of the baby quilts that I have been working on.  In case you haven’t already guessed, the theme of the new book is:

The book arrives Wednesday, so I’ll be back as soon as I have a post put together with the rest of the projects from the book!!!  Can’t wait!!!!!

Edit:  I should clarify that Ethan is not our baby’s name.  We are keeping that a secret until he comes.  All of the quilts in the book feature names of my neices and nephews.  (It will just give me an excuse to make all of the quilts again, this time with our baby’s name!)

Hallet’s Ledge

I am finally putting the last button on this cardigan.  I started it about 6 months ago.  Once I got going with it, the sweater went really fast.  I got slowed down waiting for JoAnns to get in enough buttons for me to finish it!  

Not that I was in a rush to finish it anything  –  I can’t wear it for a while anyways.  It looks relatively normal from the back –

It’s the front that has some issues

Okay, let me re-phrase that –

It’s my front that has issues – though it’s nothing that another 8 weeks or so won’t fix!  The front of the sweater itself is fine, but at 32 weeks, none of my regular clothes fit me.

It isn’t my first choice to show you these pictures of my bulging belly, but somehow showing this picture, just doesn’t cut it! 

The pattern is called Hallet’s Ledge, by Elinor Brown.  It’s a download from the Twist Collective  from Fall 2010, so I have been eying this pattern for a while.  It was a really easy pattern to memorize, yet interesting enough to keep me entertained.

The yarn is one of my favorites – Silky Wool by Elsebeth Lavold.  It has a subtle tweed that adds nice interest to the yarn, but it still shows the texture of the stitches.  It isn’t too itchy or bulky like some tweedy-wools are.  I have probably made 4 sweaters out of this yarn and they have all held up really well (and I am kinda picky about that)

You can find the Ravely link here.

I’ll be back soon with another blue knit – this one for the baby.

Florida

We’ve already been home two weeks and the time has just flown by.  It was probably not a good idea to schedule a vacation right before my book deadline, but I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly about that.  Since I have been home, I have finished quilting and binding 7 quilts, finished writing the book, and have 9 out of 11 of the quilts photographed.  So, I am almost finished.  Yeah!!!  I do my own photography and I don’t have a studio with proper lighting, so I take all my shots outside.  Right now it’s too sunny to finish up those last two photographs, so while I am waiting for a few clouds to roll in, I had a chance to get my Florida pictures uploaded.

I will warn you ahead of time that there are quite a few photographs.  I find if I don’t do a journal like this of what we did everyday, I forget what we did when and the names of the places we visited.  It would help if we didn’t try to squeeze so many locations into one trip, but having to go sit on one beach for an entire week bores me to tears!

Day 1 – We flew into Miami.  We arrived at about 6 pm, so that gave us time to quick drive over to Miami Beach, then make our way down to South Beach.  By the time we arrived, the beach was cleared out.

The huge beaches were so beautiful and I love the sound of the crashing waves coming in.  I liked that much better than the thumping music coming out of all the clubs on Ocean Drive – which was packed with people.  We drove through the area, taking in Little Havana, the Art Deco buildings and all the fancy people.  We were going to eat supper here, but went for a walk on the beach instead.  All the fancy people and loud clubs just makes me crave my quiet life at home, so we decided to move on. 

Day 2 – We traveled down to Key Largo with the intention of doing some snorkeling at Pennekamp State Park.  Unfortunately, 5-6 foot seas canceled all snorkeling or glass bottom boat trips to the reef.  Instead we laid by the beach, read books and knit.

Later that day, we drove down past Key Largo to Islamorada.  We found a beach to do a little snorkeling just off shore.  We also enjoyed a beautiful sunset.  We didn’t see much snorkeling, but at least it was calm enough on the gulf side to get into the water.

Joel snapped a picture of the bump at this beach – Proof that our little boy got to visit the Keys!  (at 28 1/2 weeks)

Day 2 – We traveled further south.  We stopped at Sombrero Beach, a suggestion from one of my blog readers.  It was quiet, beautiful and off the beaten path.   We would never have found it without the good advice!

The further south we got, the more bridges we got to drive over, including the famous 7 Mile Bridge.

 Next, we came to Bahia Honda State Park.  Several of my blog readers suggested this park and it was probably my favorite spot in the Keys.  We did some hiking to take in the views ~

Unfortunately, the winds again canceled all snorkeling in the park, but we still did some swimming.  I never lasted that long with the swimming – I thought the extra baby weight would make me more buoyant, therefore swimming would be a good thing.  But, in reality, all the waves just bounced me all over and it was even more awkward than being on land.  We had a few good laughs over my struggles and Joel compared me to a turtle stuck on my back.  It was a pretty good comparison! 

(BTW – We stopped at the park again on our way back through and the winds were down enough for us to swim on the Atlantic side.  There were several places were we could walk way out into the water on sand bars.  It was really beautiful . . ).

That night, we made it to Key West.  We were advised to skip booking a night at a hotel and try a B & B instead.   At the last-minute, we found a spot at the Tropical Inn.

It was a cute little place, with a tropical garden and pool just outside those french doors.  It was nice and quiet, considering all the activity just outside on Duval Street. 

We did a few of the other things that everyone says you have to do in Key West –

We tried the Key Lime Pie.  Of course I had mine dipped in chocolate and we agreed it was much better than plain version.

We ventured down to Mallory Square for the Sunset Celebration.

There were lots of street performers

And lots of people enjoying the sunset.

The next day we continued our check list of Key West places to visit –

The Southernmost Point (where the lady taking our picture made me turn sideways for the full effect)

We visited the Hemingway House.

I got to take pictures of the 6 toed cats.  Check out those paws!

This cat posed very nicely for me so I could get another shot of the paws.  (There are 40 cats still living at the house)

We also just walked around and enjoyed the beautiful, cottage style houses.  The Old Town neighborhood was pretty interesting.  You have quiet little houses like this just down the road from clubs where clothing is optional.  Guess which one I preferred?

My favorite was this butter-yellow house with the mint shutters. 

When we got tired of all the sight-seeing, we went to the beach at Zachary Taylor Park.  (There was a little snorkeling right off shore, but yet again the waves were pretty big and I got tired of playing turtle.)

 

We also stopped at Smathers Beach on our way out of town.  They Keys aren’t known for their beaches, but as you have seen, we found quite a few.  (It just isn’t like the other places we’ve been to in Caribbean – miles of sandy beaches, calm waters, and great snorkeling)

We drove the rest of the way up the Keys that night, and when we couldn’t find a hotel room anywhere, we drove all the way to Fort Meyers.  We arrived at Joel’s parent’s rental place at 1 a.m., so it was a long day!  We  played it pretty low-key the next few days –

We visited Sanibel Island  and Captiva Island.  This area was just beautiful, especially the houses. 

Joel caught a sting ray – which you can see he isn’t happy about.  Back in Minnesota, you have about 5 choices of what could be on the end of that line.  Not so in Florida!

And, our last beach of the trip – Fort Meyers Beach.

As you can see, it was a busy trip.  We fit quite a bit into our last hurrah before the baby comes!  It was good to get away one last time with just the two of us.  

Or should I say the two and 4/5ths of us  😉