Finals Week

A big milestone in the academic year, finals week meant sending students off for the summer, finalizing grades, and beginning a 3-month break for teachers and students alike. Now retired from all of that, I find that I have a new type of finals week. The bittersweet list of Florida's "final time for _____" before returning to Ohio.

We had our final bike ride Thursday afternoon. We had our final shuffleboard games and our final boat ride yesterday. We had our final home-cooked meal on Thursday. The fridge and cupboards are bare; even the coffee pot is stored away until next January. We are either eating leftovers warmed in the microwave or eating out until we leave.

The stitching has reached finals, too.  I ran completely out of neutral shirtings for GFG paths, and needed more fabric in order to have enough paths to finish my quilt. The few in the baggie are all that remain and I know I will need many more to get to completion.

In an effort to have stitching to do on the car ride home, I took that baggie of hexies with me to Quilted Twins in Dade City on Thursday. (Final trip to Quilted Twins. *wink*) I found the two main items I needed: fabric for paths and fabric for additional flowers. Shown below are the colorful FQs I selected for flowers. I will mix-n-match them to fill the remaining corners and outer edge of the quilt. (Click here to see current progress.)

I've got a head start on the first flower. I fully expect to get all the remaining hexies covered, all the flowers made that I can make with the remaining papers, and all parts attached until I can do more.

My packing for the road will have a tote bag with all these essentials plus the quilt, needles, thread and snips for easy access. You can see in the photo below that I have only about a dozen papers left for covering. I imagine I will make path hexies with some of the substitute neutrals I bought.

So, today is the final day in Florida and I will spend most of it packing. We will go out to dinner - Texas Roadhouse - with the two remaining couples here in our group. Then early in the morning we hit the road.

The second full year of snowbirding has concluded. Fun and relaxation and sunshine and warm temperatures, for sure, and it was all great, but I am more than ready to be home and nearer to family and friends.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne