Tide Pools of love

When one of your bestest friends is getting married you have to make a quilt, and at this point, my friends know it's my go-to for gifting because quilting is my superpower!

I started with their colors- sea green dresses and peach in the flowers- and ended up with this range of teal fabrics from the shelves with a pop of the peach. 

I used the wall hanging pattern from "A Quilter's Mixology" by Angela Pingel, and made it 4 times to make a larger sized quilt. I liked the modern feel of the design, and in the teal & peach it felt beachy & calm. Though I did tweak it a little bit to make it a bit more rectangular in size with a little breathing room around the edges.

The little curves in the blocks were fiddly, but not difficult, and I spent weekends and evenings piecing all the different shapes together. Watching each shape come together and planning to quilt different things in them had me thinking of tide pools, which inspired the name for the quilt. I chose quilting designs that were water-like, bubbles/pebbles, ripples, waves and swirls to emphasize the tide pool idea. 

The wedding was lovely, and it was so good to be there in person! I had the joy of gifting this in person and see their surprise on opening it. :) 

The background white is stippled with some hidden messages inside: bees, a bumblee tortuga, hearts, and their names, making a fun search & find for them.

I know it'll be well-loved & enjoyed by C&K for years to come - love you guys!

meanwhile...

This Summer I posted more to Instagram instead of the blog (find me there @bumblybzs) so here's a little recap of the Summer.
 

I run Quilt Camp here at work each June where we have four half day sessions over two weeks. There are three skill levels and we have 60 kids ages 7-17 learning to quilt! As you can imagine, it gets a bit chaotic with up to 20 kids per session but they have a grand time choosing colors & fabrics, using the machines and going home with a finished quilt (about 30"x30") at the end of the week. Our project samples this year:

Samples L-R: Disappearing 9 Patch (Advanced Camp) - Darting Birds (Beginner Camp) - Wonky Plus (Intermediate Camp)

Made it out on the trail for lots of biking, took a Bumblebee Tortuga trip to Lousiville, got to see Pentatonix in concert! Had fun visits home for fireworks, a trip to see the Terracotta Warriors at the Field Museum and surprise Dad with MD crabs for his birthday! Here, summer goes out with the smell of BBQ and good eats at the annual BBQ on the River festival. Ribs, BBQ quesdillas, chocolate-dipped key lime pie, more ribs, tacos & it's always delicious.

Bumblebee Tortuga at Churchill Downs

Terracotta Archer @ The Field Museum

 

If you visit me on Instagram you'll notice I'm participating in the #30daysofquiltdesign sponsored by Rachel at Stitched In Color and Gotham Quilts. We're in the home stretch and I only have 7 more to go. It's been challenging and creative to draw out quilt designs and I'm already looking forward to making a couple of them.

In September we had Victoria Findlay Wolfe at work to teach a Double Wedding Ring Improv class that I got to take too - so much fun! She was a fun teacher, had lots of great tips and really encouraged everyone. I cut into my long-collected stash of music-themed fabrics and love how it came together.

That should bring us up to speed so welcome back readers and stay tuned!

Birthday Adventures Cont'd

Last month Snaps & I took our birthday trip and adventured through New York City!  I flew to B'more on a Thursday night and early Friday morning we caught the mega bus up to NYC - plenty of time to chat and plan that certainly beat driving ourselves up I-95.  The only thing we had set in stone was going to see Newsies on Broadway Saturday night so we had 2 full days to explore - and boy did we! 

overcast times square

We had a list of things we wanted to see/do if possible and added to it as we went.  As soon as we dropped luggage at our hotel we were out to Times Square and stopped in at all the best shops: M&Ms, Hershey's, Toys R Us, etc.  There's so much to see aside from navigating down the street and we kept pointing out different things to each other that caught our eye.  After that we headed up to Central Park and the Bethesda fountain that's featured in many films, like Enchanted.  [pretty much everything we saw was related to a movie!]  

While wandering the park we heard a bagpiper, watched a couple try to make large bubbles for an engagement shoot and had a celebrity sighting!  Whom did we see you ask?  None other than Sarah Jessica Parker!  She was shooting a commercial and a still photo is in People magazine about it.  We wandered and stopped often for photos of street signs, buildings, neon signs and just to look around.  Dinner at the Pig & Whistle pub was followed by cannolis from the Cake Boss cafe - delish.

Saturday morning we wandered by the public library and Bryant Park.  Then onwards to Fifth avenue so we could stop into Tiffany's.  Seriously wow.  Every employee wore some sort of accessory in their signature blue and we looked at all the sparkle in the store from mugs and pens to necklaces, pearls and engagement rings.

Our next stop was St. Patrick's Cathedral, which unfortunately for pictures, is undergoing major restorations and is covered in scaffolding both inside & out.  That didn't matter too much though because I was able to meet up with Sr. Ann Catherine face to face for the first time in several years.  So great to see SAC and explore a little bit of NY together.

Sr. Ann Catherine & me!

Our hotel concierge was fantastic and she directed us to John's pizzeria for a late lunch - yumm.  Excellent pizza and definitely hit the spot.  We walked down to see Macy's on 34th street, got caught in a downpour on the way to see the Flatiron building and walked by Herald Square before heading back to get ready for the show.

This was my first show on Broadway.  Ever since I stumbled across the movie Newsies back in middle school I've been (just a little bit) obsessed with it - the dancing, the story, the songs and it stars Christian Bale & Bill Pullman!  How could it not be awesome?  Needless to say, I was super excited to see the stage version, as was Snaps.  Well it was phenomenal and everything I could want and more.  The songs were great, the dancing was amazing and I didn't stop smiling through the whole show it was that good.  Afterwards I stood outside to get my playbill signed by the cast as it seemed to be the NY thing to do.  It'll probably be framed for my wall soon.  [I may already be planning to go see it when it comes to the Louisville/Nashville arenas]  Then we stopped at Junior's (on the recommend of our concierge) for some amazing cheesecake to top off the night.

top of the rock

had no idea this image was from this building!

Sunday morning dawned sunny and warm after all the clouds and I headed to Mass at St. Patrick's, with a short detour by the Today show for a photo op.  Then we ventured to Rockefeller center and took our trip to the Top of the Rock observation deck.  3 levels of decks offered some amazing panorama views of the city and we also got to have the Empire State Building in our photos.  :)  This is the rooftop from the end of the movie Adjustment Bureau and is also the building being constructed in this historic image. 

today show selfie

Then we took the subway down to City Hall to see the Horace Greeley statue from Newsies and walked halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge.  I wish we'd had the time to go all the way across, but maybe next time.  We took lots of pictures and I crossed off a bucket list item - screaming off the Bridge.  :)   We took the subway back uptown to Grand Central Station for a brief walk through & lunch before heading back to the hotel and departing for home.  

wahoooo!

An excellent way to celebrate 30 in an awesome city with one of the bestest friends I could ever want!  Happy Birthday to us Snaps!

meet me in St. Louis

Snaps & I played tourist in St. Louis the other weekend as that was our 1/2 way point to meet for vacation (by loose standards anyway...).   We fit in as much as possible and had a blast - of course!  I've been there once before in high school, which was during the pre-digital camera days.  crazy.  It was fun to be back with such a good friend & new camera technology.   :]

view of base from the top!

First up was the Arch - photos outside and then taking the tram ride up to the top.  It's only a 4 minute ride up and you get to know the other people riding in your car really well since it's a tiny space for 5 people!  We also took a river cruise on the Mississippi aboard the Tom Sawyer boat.  (I was really hoping we'd get the Becky Thatcher instead).  Tried the toasted ravioli - a signature St. Louis dish - delicious.

  A hot air balloon festival/race was in town which sounds exciting; until we made the mistake of driving into the park to try and find somewhere to park.  There were hundreds of cars parked everywhere, more cars inching around to catch a spot and chaos in our car since we had no clue how to get back out!  It took a bit of time to drive around the park, finesse a 3 point turn and work our way back to the highway.  After catching our breath, we stopped in at The Fountain for ice cream martinis and were not disappointed.  Great recommend for a fun treat and the drinks/ice cream were so so good and much desired after the park chaos.

Day #1 continued as we headed to the City Museum for several hours of sheer fun & amazement.  Thanks Snaps for putting this on the list, by the way.  ;)   This place has indoor and outdoor adventures waiting to happen including 3 story slides, a school bus driving off the edge of the roof and a ferris wheel on the roof!  Check it out for yourself.  We caught a gorgeous sunset as well.  After we tried out the great slide and decided to head out - the fire alarm went off! so we called it a night for sure.

Day #2 included Mass at the gorgeous Cathedral and lunch & catch up with K.  Then we were off to the Budweiser brewery for a tour, glimpse of the Clydesdales and free tastings.  I tried Bud light lime which was good and Shock Top lemon shandy which was really nice too, even though I'm not a big beer drinker.

 Day #3 was our last chance to find some of the other signature dish - gooey butter cake - also delicious.  We found a coffee shop with multiple flavors of the cake to start out the morning before heading for the zoo.  It was overcast most of the weekend with decent temps and no rain - until Snaps packed away her raincoat! Then what started as a light drizzle at the penguin house, turned into a steady rain by the time we admired the big cats & gorillas. 

penguins!

The rain ended our fun at the zoo and then it was time to put Snaps back on a plane home.  On the way back home, I stopped at White Castle for lunch as it's been years since I've had it. Tasty!  A fab weekend adventure and we're already planning ahead to the next one.  :)