Project Quilting 12.3 - Virtual Vacation

 Vacation!  That sounds so wonderful right about now.  It's cold and it's snowy, and the weather forecast for the weekend has the temps diving into the single digits.  I can't wait for the weather to warm up!  

But unfortunately, Punxsutawney Phil just forecast another 6 weeks of winter.  Don't know who that is? Click here for the Wikipedia article about him, and click here for the Punxsutawney Groundhog club's homepage where you can watch the video and read the annual proclamation.  If you grew up in Pittsburgh, like I did, it is a given that you know all about Phil, and maybe you even have driven to Punxsutawney to participate in the early morning festivities.  Said festivities start before dawn. Being a night owl, I have never even been tempted to join in the fun!

I would guess that most people outside of Western Pennsylvania didn't know anything about Punxsutawney Phil until the movie "Groundhog Day" was released. The movie is set in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, a small town about an hour and a half northeast of Pittsburgh.  It's all about a disgruntled Pittsburgh weatherman who is assigned to cover the Groundhog Day events, along with his producer and a cameraman.  When they get snowed in, he wakes up the following day only to find out that it is still February 2.  And he keeps waking up to February 2 over and over and over again, until he finally gets everything right, whereupon time continues and he can leave Groundhog Day behind. 

In the real world, we don't have to put up with the same cold snowy day over and over again, but now that Phil has called for another 6 weeks of winter, I am even more anxious to get away from the cold!  

I was trying to figure out how to depict a "virtual vacation" in a quilt when my daughter showed me some pictures that she had taken of her "Panda Slipper Vacations".  One day last spring, while we were in COVID lockdown, she was surfing the internet and came across an article that mentioned that many places have links to virtual tours, train rides, and all sorts of other ways to see the world without leaving home. She has always loved to travel so she decided to do it virtually since she couldn't do it in real life.  The first "tour" that she chose was the National Zoo in Washington, DC. where she found the panda-cam. While she was watching the pandas, she realized that she was wearing her panda slippers and thought that it would be fun to have a picture of her feet in the panda slippers in front of the computer screen showing the pandas.  She has a souvenir cup from the National Zoo that has the pandas on it, so she ran to the kitchen to get it and she put that in the picture, too.  That one picture launched a series she calls her Panda Slipper Vacations.  Each picture shows her feet in the slippers and an interesting destination on the screen with something related to what was on the screen in the picture.  For example, the Disney World photo has a stuffed Mickey and Minnie beside her panda slippers.  What a creative daughter I have!

A castle in the UK, along with a cup of tea - English Breakfast, of course!

A fjord in Norway, along with a troll

Disney Land, with Mickey and Minnie

The one that started it all.

You're probably wondering what the heck all that has to do with this week's challenge.  Well, when I saw her feet in the slippers, I was thinking about what I usually wear on my feet when I'm on vacation, and the answer is flip-flops!

I knew that I had seen a pattern for a flip-flops quilt but knew that I wouldn't have time to make even a small quilt this week.  So I started thinking of other options.  

Over the last few years, I have been making table runners and covers for my living room throw pillows for each season or holiday.  I had just put out the Valentine's Day table runner and my heart pillow covers (including one that I made for PQ 11.3 last year!) and I realized that I don't have anything for summer. 

I dug in my patterns and in my stash and found a seashell print and an appliqued embroidery design for a pair of flip flops.  Since summer to me means vacation, I decided to make a nice new summer vacation pillow cover.  Voila!  Vacation!