Nestlings --

Betcha you may have thought I dropped off the face of the earth.
I actuality I took myself off to California for some r&r, birthday parties and generally catching up with my west coast buds.

I had a great trip -- that started with sneaking in for an amazing surprise party for my daughter-in-law (Dawn), and staying long enough to celebrate my bestie's (Angelique) 60th. In between there was catching up with a bunch of friends from northern LA through the southern end of the OC. There were walks of my favorite beaches, and eating at some of my favorite eateries and being introduced to some new favorites.

All done while giving my self time to stitch on some nestlings.
Nestlings??? You may wonder.
While participating in the daily word challenge my sketch book became filled with nest like drawings -- so with only minutes to spare I put together some small quilt blanks based on these drawings and through in some stitching stuff to embellish along the way.

Below are 5 of this little stitch-portunities.

These have only made me think of more/different nest inspired designs...

but, they are taking a bit of backseat, for now that I'm home I'm really excited to getting some landscaping projects out of my head and into reality.

gardening or stitching or laying by the pool/lake/ocean....
What's on your list to get done this coming month.

The Hunt Turns to Embellishments

Last Friday I flew into Orange County --
I wanted to sneak in and be there waiting for my daughter-in-law at a  surprise party being held for her on Sat....
it went off without a hitch,
of course with the help of a small number of friends.

Before I left home I worked on a series of small quilt works --
all silk, and all ready for some wild embellishing stitch-portunities.

Since visiting the OC last year there seems to be a new bunch of stores that have moved in. Think Japanese dollar store, then check out the on-line Daiso stores.  Everything in these stores is a $1.50 and fun, so it seemed a great place to find things that may work out as embellishments.

So, along with things pulled from my stash I'm going to try and incorporate some of these finds...

What do you think?
Could you come up with ways to use some of these items?

I'm looking forward to jumping in soon.