BOMs Away - Vacation, Family, and some Affairs of the Heart work

                    

Welcome to the Link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Where we share what we're doing on a BOM type project
so they don't stall out in UFO-land!
(Linky at the bottom)

We've been having an eventful couple of weeks! 

Scott and I met up with my folks and their friends to do a Nassau/Dominican Republic cruise. It was a very nice visit that I wasn't sure we'd be able to do, until the latest super-spike of Covid nose dived just in time for us to do this. 

Visited with a sea lion, meandered through a mountain-top botanical garden and fun town streets, saw a historic fort, and did a wee bit of BOM work on my Affairs of the Heart project.

And just 36 hours after getting home to Colorado, our daughter and hubby brought our grandbaby out for a visit! I'm in heaven.  :)

Oh!  Here are those BOM blocks I worked on during sea days - 

Block 9 is finished

blocks 10 - 13 in progress

(using the back-basting technique for needle turn hand applique)

This project was lost for many years, but was returned to me a little while ago. Nice to be able to work on it again. Other hand projects have priority, so it's put away again for now, but this is supremely portable, so it got to come out for vacation time.

~*~*~*~

Did you work on a BOM type project this week? We'd love to see your progress!

Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up, and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

BOMs Away - California Edition

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Where we share what we're doing on a BOM-type project 

so they don't stall out in UFO-land!

(Linky at the bottom.)

Hi! I'm enjoying a sort of survey vacation of southern-to-central California with our daughter, Devon.

We spent two nights in San Diego, where we did a private yoga session on Sunset Cliffs, walked the beach and hiked the bluffs of Torrey Pines State Reserve, and met up for dinner with two of my favorite high school friends!

Then we spent two nights in Big Bear Lake, where Devon rode the 109 mile route in the Tour de Big Bear bicycle event. 

And now we're spending two nights outside Sequoia National Park so we can do some easy hikes to see the biggest-volume tree in the world (General Sherman), climb up Moro Rock, and do the Meadow-something loop.

It's difficult posting from my phone, so I'll put more pics up when I'm home.

*-*-*

Have you worked on any BOMs lately?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

BOMs Away - The Mountain Climber Nutcracker in New Orleans, Garden District

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Where we share what we're doing on a BOM-type project 

so they don't stall out in UFO-land!

(Linky at the bottom.)

Hi there!  We got home from New Orleans today. What a fun week in shorts and sandals, stolen from a Colorado October.  :)    

I finished the applique for nutcracker 9 yesterday from the Sue Garman Classic Nutcracker patterns.  

He's a little fierce looking, eh?!  ha!  I'm pretty sure I'd get right out of his way if I came upon his path and his scowl.  :D

When he was finished, I went strolling around the Garden District for a few "Flat Stanley" type shots of him.

Here the Bavarian Mountain Climber poses in front of Sandra Bullock's New Orleans Swiss-architecture mansion:

A few door down, he poses at John Goodman's home:

A couple blocks away he shows you the front entrance at Anne Rice's mansion (the author of "Interview with a Vampire" and all kinds of other vampire/witch/ghost novels) before she moved to California in 2009:

A couple blocks from there he shows you the Bed & Breakfast we stayed in:

And he just had to show you The Ghost Manor, 3 doors down:

What a fun place! The Garden District shows that the French Quarter doesn't have all the Halloween fun. I missed getting a video of the skeletons' Rhapsody in Blue concert, but here's their Thriller show: 

Super fun private residence where the dad just loves his Halloween fun.  :)

~*~*~

Did you get some BOM work done, too?

Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up,

and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.

BOMs Away - a Nutcracker King at the Lighthouse

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Where we share what we're doing on a BOM-type project 

so they don't stall out in UFO-land!

(Linky at the bottom.)

Despite a ridiculous sunburn, Scott and I had a really nice time this week - we spent several days at a bed & breakfast in a working lighthouse on the south shore of Lake Ontario. 

Braddock Point Light House, originally built in 1893, is now a privately-owned B&B. It is still a working navigation light that is commissioned by the Coast Guard.

It was the perfect get-away in a charming, quiet locale, with wonderful hosts and delicious breakfasts, all in a perfectly-balanced Victorian setting.

It is an old house, without central A/C, but the hosts keep individual units in each of the bedrooms, so our room was nice and cool during the unusual heat wave they had.

 The lake was peaceful to watch, with hardly any human traffic to disturb the wildlife, except on the 4th of July. We were treated to several passings of a small flock of trumpeter swans, some Canadian geese, and many other types of birds and jumping fish.

The dining furniture was amazing. The china hutch, table/chairs, and a matching novelty cabinet were all originally a dowry set for a woman in late-19th century Brittany, but it looks made to order for this lighthouse! Can you see the carved columns that are lighthouse towers with retro-fitted flickering bulbs and everything? The people carved into either end of the hutch and on each chair were all figures from the bride's family tree. I was completely enchanted by it.

We were able to climb up the tower one day for an official tour from the Lightkeeper.

Bit of a duck to get back down!

And they shared their 4th of July barbeque with us.  :)

We took some nice strolls around the area and enjoyed the ambiance of the lighthouse's yards and patios. Keeper Don works hard on them, and it pays off.

 Scott read a lot in the Adirondack chairs, and I did a lot of relaxing applique stitching on my Classic Nutcrackers BOM while we were there. The Nutcracker King is all finished.

He, of course, wanted a photo op fitting of his dignity:

Braddock Point lighthouse is one of the very last to have the U.S.L.H.E. designation. Later lighthouses are U.S.L.H.S. (The U.S. Lighthouse Establishment was replaced with the U.S.L.H. Service.)

I also got a lot of work done on the Shepherd, the Chimney Sweep, and a wee bit started on the Gardener.  (As I highly prefer the back-basting method, sometimes I'll work ahead on another block if I've basted on all the pieces in a given "layer" for my primary block, if I have a lot of stitching time in one day. The needle-turn always works easier if you can let the pieces marinate overnight.) This next guy just needs face details, his beard, and the sheep's head:

It was a very nice visit, and I hope to be able to return to the lighthouse some day in another season, to catch a different feel of the lake. 

I hope you are having a nice summer (or winter, for those in the southern hemisphere).  Have you done any BOM work lately?

~*~*~

Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up,

and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.

BOMs Away - Star Crazy & Fiesta Mexico

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Do you ever start Block-of-the-Months and then not finish them? 

Or maybe you just like doing a lot of them?

This is where you can share what you're doing on a BOM or anything you work on at given intervals. 

Show us what you accomplished in the past week or so!

(Linky at the bottom.)

I had the best personal quilting retreat all this past week up in Estes Park.  :D

Gonna have to do that every year while Scott's getting his CMEs squared away.

Besides all the piecing I finished, I got this hand-applique block stitched up for Fiesta Mexico while sitting on the porch with this view:

And back at home today, I pushed through the piecing for month 9 of Star Crazy - nine of these compound star blocks:

Did you get any BOM quilting done?

Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up,

and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.

:)

BOMs Away - from Estes Park, Colorado

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Do you ever start Block-of-the-Months and then not finish them? 

Or maybe you just like doing a lot of them?

This is where you can share what you're doing on a BOM or anything you work on at given intervals. 

Show us what you accomplished in the past week or so!

(Linky at the bottom.)

I have zero BOM work to show this week, so hopefully Kate does  :)

Stealing the thunder from BOM work: 

We all participated at this year's US Open Taekwondo Handmadang in Denver yesterday. I found that I cannot break 2 inches of pine with my left hand (injured my right one two weeks ago, so I had to try that break with my off side when I knew I could break at least 4 inches normally). I did, however, dent the wood impressively. It was funny. Marissa and I did a mother-daughter team for traditional poomsae, and we won our bracket! 

Today Scott and I drove up to Estes Park. He has to attend a conference here all week, and I, of course, had to accompany him up here to have a personal quilting retreat and hike a bunch of gorgeous trails.

Did you get any BOM quilting done?

Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up,

and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.

:)

BOMs Away Monday - If you're out there :)

Welcome to the Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

We'd love to see the BOM you're working on lately.

This week's link-up is at the bottom of the post.

::Robyn Williams Genie voice from "Aladdin":::  

"Oy! Ten thousand yeeeears will give you such a crick in the neck!"

Well, it hasn't been ten thousand years, but it sure has been a long time that I've been away. I got slammed trying to finish special Christmas presents in time for shipping and for us to leave on a very special extended-family vacation gifted to everyone by my father and his wife (in addition to decorating the house for one person who had to stay home for work and the houseguest they would have, and just plain getting all the rest of us ready for that trip). The chaos of those efforts and a Lupus flare that was compounded with a cold and persistent vertigo kept me spinning until now just to manage normal daily functions. 

Now that I am almost back to normal status, I'll post a linky for BOMs Away in case anyone is still out there and has gotten themselves back to normal operating mode in quilting matters. I sure haven't, so I don't have anything BOMish to share. I don't even have photos loaded into my computer yet to share my Christmas finishes. I'll get back to you in a couple days with that stuff.

Scott and Me

Grandpa & Barbara with all the present grandkids on Christmas Day

But here's a fun pic or two from our Christmas cruise in the western Caribbean that my father and his wife gifted to everyone! It spanned both Sundays around Christmas and stopped at Cozumel in Mexico, Grand Cayman, and Montego Bay in Jamaica. We got to spend time with relatives we rarely see, we basked in a climate that is completely different from Colorado's, and maxxed out our shore excursion fun. It was worth the almost-two weeks of being ill afterward.  :)  

A couple Cozumel shots:

Scott, Heather, Me, Marissa at the ruins of Tulum in Mexico

Marissa and Julia overlooking the sea at Tulum in Mexico

Me and Scott with some Mayans at Tulum in Mexico.
(Yes, that's a real boa, and it was beautiful)

A couple Grand Cayman shots:

Our family & Nicole's at Dolphin Cove on Grand Cayman

Heather with Lucea, who seemed like she was having a lot of fun with us

Marissa and me at Stingray City (a sandbar 1/2 hour ferry ride off of Grand Cayman)

A couple Jamaica shots:

Climbing Dunns River Falls

Our family and Nicole's

Montego Bay from ship's top on Christmas Eve

Thanks, Dad!!!

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I sure hope you all had a nice Christmas. If you're still around and have anything to post that you've accomplished in the last few weeks with your BOMs or other interval works, feel free to link up more than one of those posts.

An InLinkz Link-up