In an effort to ward off my normal fall lament of, “We’re going into the dark tunnel,” I’ve decided to make a fast lap quilt which I’ll be calling the beach quilt made up of, amongst other things, beach balls on sand. The beach balls are made using 1/3 hexagons. The sand? The sand will be unbleached muslin. I have some ideas for some other little surprises on the beach too.

This wouldn’t have likely come about except on the weekend a new Inklingo collection was released with 3″ hexagons. They’re enormous, 6″ across! Thanks to the size of them, I can have a lap quilt done in next to no time. I couldn’t believe how quickly I stitched the first 3 beach balls.


It’s barely worth showing the back! Only 3 pieces to make each one!!

Here you can see one next to a ruler. Enormous!!

We had an odd storm Saturday afternoon. The sky suddenly got quite dark, the wind really picked up, there was some lightning that absolutely lit up the sky, the thunder rumbled away for what seemed like minutes, then hail and rain and then it was all over in the matter of a few minutes. Mr. Q.O., who was out when it started, said the wind was actually moving parked cars a little. I don’t think I can ever remember a storm like that before. Other than that, it was a typical fall weekend — rainy and gloomy and grey.

That’s the lament beginning. This is what I need to try to ward off with the beach quilt. I have never understood the February blues. To me, that’s a time of optimism. Then the days are getting longer (although it is usually freezing cold here then, no question) and it’s easy to believe spring is coming some day soon. But this time of year, when the days get shorter and shorter and the skies are grey and the leaves are falling, spring seems like it is very, very far away.

Smudge curled up on the chair.

And Lester: