Getting Back to Normal

I have been reacquainting myself with my sewing machine over the past few days.  I decided to get going on quilting the potato chip quilt top I made for our new hospice (opening in the Spring of 2025).  First I quilted two lines in the sashing to get everything stabilized and ready for quilting the blocks. I also added a row of stitching around the entire quilt the width of the walking foot into the beige border and then a 1/8th of an inch from the edge of the border to keep it flat.  I hummed and hawed over what colour of thread to use and finally decided on a beige thread on top and a light blue in the bobbin.  The backing fabric is blue. The picture below shows how each block will look when all of the edge to edge straight line quilting is done.  The second picture is of the back of the same block.

I spent a bit of time each day this week adding some stitches to my cross stitch picture. The bear needs four more stitches in his cheek and there are a few snowflakes to add in the air.  I have added more stitches to the border at the bottom too. 

You may remember that I am making a dozen placemats for Meals on Wheels--an outreach project of the Oxford Quilt Guild.  I had 6 done before my vacation and managed to finish two more this week as well as get another two to the stage of hand stitching the binding. Only a couple more to make to meet my goal!

Finn sent me a couple of pictures today of my daughter's crochet progress...three more "fried egg" (I mean daisy...) granny squares and more rows on her cream coloured blanket. 

I sorted through some of our vacation pictures this week.  The first few are from Antelope Canyon near Page, Arizona.  We did a guided tour of this beautiful slot canyon. Amazing what flowing water will do to sandstone. 

The next pictures were taken on our favourite hike of the trip... The Queens Garden/Navajo Loop/Wall Street combination hike in Bryce Canyon National Park. It was a really hot day but we dressed to protect ourselves from the sun, used sunscreen, wore hats, hiking boots, ate salty snacks and drank lots of water.  Our daughter gave us hiking poles for Christmas last year and they were used on all of our hikes. As you can see below, the scenery was breathtaking. There were lots of ups and downs on this hike.  We hiked up all of those switchbacks in the first picture at the end of the hike. 

We met a little friend when we stopped for a drink and a snack. (we did not share our snacks!)

I'm not sure how this tree is even alive!

Yes, that is the trail down there!

We hiked earlier in the day and we were back to our car in time for the picnic lunch that we had in the cooler bag. We slept well that night (and every night!). 

That's enough vacation pictures for this week.  I will share more next week.  In the meantime, I will link up with Kathy and Frederique.