coast of Maine | Night Quilter

I never wish for rain while I’m on vacation, and this trip isn’t any different. Sometimes, though, you get rain even if you don’t want it. We are on vacation on Hancock Point, Maine, for the week with my husband’s family. The rental house is right on the ocean and has an amazing view of Bar Harbor and Acadia, located directly across the bay.

Acadia and Bar Harbor as seen from our rental house on Hancock Point, Maine.

Until today, we have had gorgeous weather and have spent much of our time swimming (or quickly dipping, in my case) in the ocean or walking along the beach looking for treasures. I don’t think I could ever tire of gazing at the beauty left by the tides.

Today, it is cold, dreary, and pouring. In trying to beat the rainy vacation day humdrums, I decided to pull out my sewing stuff. This morning I tried my hand at English Paper Piecing, starting with the fussy cut center for a Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses. I must say, handwork is quite fun!

I had to unstitch and retry one of the honeycomb pieces since the pattern didn’t even come close to lining up on one side. Admittedly, it wasn’t a whole lot closer after I redid it, but I decided to go with it.

Having never done any handwork before, I felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants. How far apart should the stitches go when joining pieces? How exactly does one “whip stitch” the corners? I think I did two whip stitches, but it seems to have worked for the moment. I can see the stitches a bit, but my mother-in-law said that the slight peek of stitches is part of the charm of hand sewn creations. I’ll take her word for it.

I can certainly see why so many people travel with their English Paper Piecing projects. Progress is made in small bits, so it is easy to pick up and put down as needed. I finished sewing the center four honeycombs together at the breakfast table this morning, and once I figure out what color scheme to go with for the rest of it, I am looking forward to passing the rainy days with stitching.

I also brought my sewing machine with me on this trip. It’s the first time I’ve ever brought a sewing machine on vacation, and I debated for quite a while whether I should take it with me or not. Now, with the next two days forecasted as torrential rain and chilly cold, I’m so glad I did. Not to mention the fact that there is a singer treadle and table right next to my bed in our bedroom.

While this treadle is missing its belt and therefore doesn’t work, I am taking it as a clear sign that I was meant to bring my sewing machine on vacation with me. Perhaps this afternoon I’ll do a bit of machine sewing as well!

My loaner Bernina, ready to go on her Singer table.

Do you take your sewing on vacation with you?

I have been having so much fun with the Palette Builder 2.1 on Play Crafts. Having just finished and gifted my biggest work in progress quilt, I’m looking to start a new one (of course!). I’ve not yet created a quilt focused on a particular color palette, but I’m thinking it may be time to try one!

Check out some of the palettes the Play Crafts Palette Builder 2.1 has created from my photographs:

Can you tell I have spring on the mind? I love the earthy violets that came up on this palette (above). I also couldn’t resist making palettes out of some of the rich, vivid blue photographs from my knitting progress photo shoot.

The busy bee photo didn’t result in as blue-heavy a palette as I would have guessed, but I still like it. I might add a bit of yellow in to represent the bee.

I also love that the palette builder will give you the names of the Kona cottons that match your palette! Talk about making it easy on us quilters!

While visiting New Jersey, I caught up with some old friends. My friend Sara was showing me pictures of her Kitty Cat (I will be honored that she named her cat Kitty, which is also my name), and this picture of hers just screamed to be made into a color palette:

I was serious when I said I’ve been having a ton of fun! Here are some of the palettes I’ve been making from some of my old photographs:

Splash of summer!

I made quite a few palettes for the coast of Maine. For the first one, the palette builder originally chose colors Kona Mushroom and Charcoal to represent the blues, but since I think the blues of the gorgeous mussel shells should dominate more as blue, I moved the color dots around until they landed on Kona Steel and Nautical. This is a great feature of the palette builder; you can tweak your palette until you love it. I really like the resulting palette.