Yes, I Still Quilt Occasionally

I'm not sure I even know how to do this anymore! Taking pictures, blogging--it all feels kind of odd after taking so much time off this summer. We left on our trip August 13th thinking we'd be back home again on August 27. haha Life had other plans for us tho as we only got back last night. So good that I had my applique bag all prepped and ready to go or I'd have probably went (more) bonkers.

Getting the project bag ready to go.
No time for details, so I prepped the bias vine,
chose some coordinating fabrics and just went
with a freehand applique look.

We left Washington state, headed east thru Idaho and then Montana. Jumped down into Wyoming and then took a fast road through Nebraska to end up at some cousins in Witchita, Kansas by Saturday night. We left there and headed to Oklahoma where we spent the next seven days, visiting with family and friends and getting to see our son graduate from OSUIT. Woohoo! Big smiley face moment right there, let me tell you! Somewhere in the middle of all that, we also made a flying trip to Missouri to visit some of my mothers family. Whew! The things we do for family and do we ever have a lot of that between my husbands and my own family. We were hopping busy all week long but got in a bazillion good visits and ate way too much good food.

16 blocks down, 4 to go!
I'm making these up as I go along, can you tell?
The plan is to put these with my Baskets Galore blocks

Got our son all packed up, had a nice celebration at a Texas Roadhouse and then back down the road we went once again. We headed out to the panhandle of Oklahoma where we loaded up a 1925 Model-T to bring back to Washington state for some good friends of ours. (My husband is very nice that way.) Anyway......., things went well through New Mexico and then even part way through Colorado when we finally realized that the transmission in our Suburban was dying. Yes, dying. Those good ol' Rocky Mountains totally did us in. Thankfully we weren't terribly far from some cousins in Olathe, Colorado who were very good to come rescue us. Can you imagine being stranded in a resort town for a week without a driveable car, three kids to feed and entertain plus a valuable old car to keep track of and make sure it didn't get stolen?

A little closer look at what I'm doing, all without a pattern.
The only thing pre-planned was the background block size
and the fact that I'm working with a red/green flower theme.

Finally we were able to hit the road again on Friday morning, drive across the state of Utah and then on into the edge of Oregon where we stopped again for the night (only one driver after we started hauling a trailer). My husband and I badly wanted to go straight home, but Saturday evening found us in Creswell, Oregon being the good parents, getting our sons stuff unloaded and temporarily settled into my sisters house. He already has a job lined up in Eugene and lots and lots of family around to help keep him honest. lol  It took a little extra time to line him up with a runabout car before we left town though. His back up car in Oregon wound up with serious problems at the last minute and he needed a way to get to and from work. Gotta be able to make some money to pay back the parents and those lousy school loans!

The 1925 Model-T

Traveling long distance with an antique/vintage car was very interesting at times. Fun, but interesting. We certainly aren't used to all the attention it garners and plus, the road time increased by a serious margin just hauling a trailer up and down all those mountains between Oklahoma and Washington state. We had to make several unscheduled stops just to check straps and make sure parts weren't about to fly off into the ether. So nervy being responsible for somebody else's toy! Also, in our past life experiences, whenever someone passes our vehicle and starts making hand gestures or smiles real big it probably means we have a flat tire/something billowing black smoke or other imminent disaster. This time it meant things like 'cool car' so eventually we were able to stop panicking and just do the smile and wave thing.

I'm not sure how we're going to recover (financially) from this trip, but it sure took our mind off of things back home. I'm raring to get back to my quilting, maybe even catch up on some quilt blog reading if I can find the time between doing endless loads of dirty laundry.  Next time I post, I'm hoping to tell you about all the wonderful quilt stores I got to buzz in and out of on our very long trip!