Road Trip Quilt Along Day 21 - Tullahoma, Two by Two Block

Today's block is two by two.  This is a super easy and quick block - and we are making it even easier by strip piecing it. 

This is the day we spent driving to visit my sister, brother in law, and mom in their new home in Tullahoma!  Siri took us on a bit of a frustrating drive there, but it was pretty!

 

It was nice to see the home where my sister, brother-in-law and mom moved to.  We found a furry visitor on their deck!  I've never seen a blond one before! We had a nice lunch together and got to talk for a while.

A picture of us girls!  Joellen couldn't come, but Jovi wanted to, so it was fun to spend the day with her.  She's such a sweet girl.

Jovi took a nice pucture of all of the adults!  Good work, girlie!

And the guys!  Perry is wearing one of his new shirts!  

Back at Joellen's house, I forgot to get a picture of me with the boys, but Perry got one.  They are getting so big!  They are both teen-agers now!

We had such a nice visit with family on this stop.  It was almost a little sad to be moving on, but we had more visiting coming up, so could look forward to that.  We still weren't able to get the shirts from El Reno mailed but haven't given up yet!

3 inch block.

6 inch block

And 9 inch block.  I took some extra care to cut the stripe in this design just right!  You'll see how this block relates to the trip in tomorrow's post!  We'll be starting week 4, so the next week's patterns will be available as well!  We'll be heading northeast next week, destination Massachusetts!

Purchase and download your pattern here!

Road Trip Quilt Along Day 20 - Horseback Riding, Schoolgirls Puzzle

 For today's block we have Schoolgirl's Puzzle.  This is a nice traditional block that features a unit I call Birds in the Air.  It features a small triangle with background triangles sewn to the sides to make it a larger triangle.  Sounds hard, but it really isn't that bad.  You do have to cut those added triangles at the exact size, though.  

On our second full day in Thompson's Station I got to do something I had never done before - horseback riding!  We went to Natchez Trace Stables and it was a terrific experience!  

I was in the middle of the pack, Jovi (my grand daughter), Joellen, Perry, then me and another group of three behind me.  My horse liked to be a little lazy and try to snack on the vegetation.  But she was so sure footed and knew her way on the trail!

The scenery was so beautiful!  We went through meadows, narrow trails, rocky rises, through a stream, and over roots and fallen trees.  It felt like we could have been the first people through these woods!  

We were getting lined up for a photo op here!

My husband tried to keep tabs on me, I think he was concerned because it was my first time, but I totally loved it and had the best time!  

Don't we look happy?  Jovi was so excited she could hardly sleep the night before, (I think she was a little nervous, too!)  

On our way home we got to trot through the meadow!  So bouncy, but it made me laugh!  After our trail ride, we went out to lunch then my daughter had a fun stop planned for us!

This fun bakery (We have five daughters, so Joellen knew we had to stop here for fun picture!)  It would sure be fun to come here with all five someday!  What a great day it was, I'm up for a fun horse riding adventure anytime again!  Are you ready for a quilting adventure?

I've laid out the pieces for the triangles so you can see how they sew together

I sew this one first because you will sew from the flat edge into the point.  Press out toward the background.

Add the second triangle and press out again.

Trim off those dog ears (the points sticking out!).  The point of the triangle should be 1/4 of an inch from the edge of the fabric.  Sew to the large triangle, and lay out your block to sew together.

Looks good so far!

My 3 inch block.

Finished six inch block

And the 9 inch block.  Uh-oh - I think there is a problem here!  It looks like one of my blocks got turned the wrong way!  I had to do a little unstitching to correct it!

Ok, that's better!  See, everyone makes mistakes sometimes - that's why they make seam rippers!  Don't be discouraged if you make a mistake, you can leave it and call it a design change, or fix it and move on.  It's just a bump in the road!

Purchase and download your pattern here!

Road Trip Quilt Along Day 19 - Thompson's Station, Hourglass Block

I chose the hourglass block because it felt like time was steadily slipping by!  We had already done so much on our trip, but had so many more things planned!  

This is a nice easy to make block and it fit in well for a nice easy going day of relaxation and spending time with family.

We enjoyed a nice day with our daughter Joellen and her family - and got to meet the two newest family members!  This is Niko.

And sweet Lumin!  It was really fun to meet them!

And I made a delivery for Mark (my son-in-law). I gave each of my sons in law quilts this year because they didn't have one just for them!  It felt really good to see his reaction and how much he liked it!  My husband got an oil change in the truck, and I got to go to the kids home school co-op for the day.  It was nice to catch up a bit and enjoy a nice day with family! We even sat in the park for a while to watch the boys at football practice.  It went by all too fast!

Three inch block.

Six inch block.

And nine inch block.  This block has a strong diagonal line - I think it would make a great scrap quilt for sure!  

Purchase and download your pattern here!

Road Trip Quilt Along Day 18, Churchill Downs, Lincolns Birthplace and Tennessee Block

Today's block is Tennessee - our destination for the rest of the week, where our second born daughter now lives with her husband and three kids!  This one was pretty easy, but you need to pay attention to where all the triangles are facing!

Before we could head out on the road today, we needed to get those tires checked out.  It's always hard to find a good reliable place on the road that you feel confident in, so we were happy to find a place that was able to check out the issue.  Turns out that when we had the two new tires installed on our truck before we left there wasn't an alignment done.  And the alignment was very bad, wearing out the tires on the front on the outside edges! Those tires were only a couple years old, but now they needed to be replaced.  We were definitely glad that we had them checked out and that we had good tires for the rest of the trip, and the front wheels were properly aligned so these tires should last us for a while now!

We headed back over the Ohio River to Louisville, Kentucky where we had tickets to tour Churchill Downs.  We decided to just do the museum and basic tour, but they have a lot more options where you can go to the backside of the track, or watch workouts, etc.  

My husband is a huge race fan, so this was a big bucket list visit for him!  It was a beautiful place, and we had a wonderful time!

It really is a beautiful place!

On Kentucky Derby day, these stands are packed, but it was all quiet here today as there was no racing.

Imagine seeing the horses run down this stretch in person!  Wouldn't that be exciting?  Don't know if we'll ever get to see that, but we can definitely dream!

I spotted a quilt in the museum!  There was a lot to see here, lots of history and information to take in!

We spent quite a bit of time, just taking it all in.

But eventually, it was time to move on.  One last look to put in the memory banks!

Next on our agenda was a stop at Lincoln's Birthplace.

The national Historic Parks are great educational sites, we enjoyed each one we were able to visit!

This was a beautiful park, which also featured some walking trails.

We wondered where we would find the exhibit, so walked up to this monument to see.

And discovered this log cabin was inside the marble monument!  Now this probably isn't the real log cabin Lincoln lived in, this was most likely a cabin from the area, and it was taken on tour for a while and exhibited as the Lincoln birthplace, but no one can say for sure if it is really it.  It is definitely a cabin of that time period though, so probably close enough, right?

Beautiful detailing on the ceiling!

This is most likely the spring he drank from as a child!

Very nice museum there as well.  We enjoyed talking to the park ranger there, and he recommended a place to eat dinner as we drove down to our daughter's house near Franklin, TN.

We took the road less traveled and enjoyed the scenery and the change of pace from busy interstate highways.  The funny thing is that this road criss-crosses over the boundary between eastern time and central time!  My phone kept going back and forth between the two time zones, so it was hard to know what time it really was!

We ate at Earl G Dumplin's in Jackson TN.  Nice little stop with good southern food!  It was a nice change from our usual fast food stops.

As the sun was going down we arrived in Thompson's Station - just in time for a round of fun with a lizard in the house!  My poor grand daughter did not like that at all, but it was good to finally get to their house and be able to spend a few days visiting!  

My three inch block.  

6 inches.

And the 9 inch version.  Oops, it got a little crumpled in the bottom corner. 

I'm pretty pleased with the way my points came out on these!  I hope yours come out well, too!  

Purchase and download your pattern here!