Sunday in the mountains

It's amazing how fast the day goes by up here in our rather remote mountain place. With GS#2 here there is a little more going on, though he spends most of his time with his buddies. Tonight they are camping over at a friend's place, no home there yet just the big camper the family brings in every summer. I dived headfirst[ literally] into the big closet under the stairs to find DH's sleeping bag for the camp-out & off L went on the back of friend's quad bike.

I remembered to take the camera along on the evening walk with Button to capture a few pics of the wildflowers. On the way I stopped & picked up Tiki, our neighbor's Aussie terrier, same breed as Button, different blood lines. Button came from a breeder in Boulder,CO. & Tiki from Phx. AZ. Button is blue/tan, Tiki a red, & she out weighs Button by about 8 lbs, I think it's 14 to 22! However they are great pals, it's almost as if they recognize their commonality of breed because they play together, wrestling & play fighting over toys it's a hoot to watch. Tiki has the weight advantage, Button the speed. This breed was developed from Yorkshire, Cairn, Norfolk & one or two other terrier breeds so they have a background as ratters. These two are no exception, they would like to rid the planet of rodents & here you see them trying to get to a couple of "chippies" under the rock.
The lupins are past their best, already going to seed. They make a beautiful show during their short life span, colors from pale blue to blue/ purple & pink.





I don't know the names of these last two white flowers, though the second one reminds me of Queen Anne's lace. I haven't bothered to look them up in my Wild Flowers Of The World book.


They make a lovely show so I had to take photos.


The poppies are glorious, huge red/orange & pink blooms so showy. I guess it's as well the deer do not care for them or we would have some wacked out wildlife!

The weather has been delightful, just enough rain, warm days & cool nights in the 50's.
Yesterday we went down to the River festival of course I didn't have the camera, but the kids all enjoyed the face painting & the river races. The first race was the homemade boats, one had a pirate flag but the kid's favorite was made from styrofoam with a porcelain toilet seat on it. This raft did not make it through the rapids, lol, but pilot & all ended up in the Uncompaghre River!


I think the mountain air is taking it's toll of the Button dog, she is sleeping soundly beside me- earlier I caught her checking email but you won't get a reply, she hasn't learned to type!

Vintage Thingies Thursday

Here I am back in the mountains, I drove up Sunday [500plus miles] with DGS #2, L, & the Button dog, now recovered from her second round of chocolate poisoning. She looks sort of weird with one leg shaved as if someone tried a poodle cut & then she escaped-or they thought better of it. I know that it was necessary to get the hair out of the way for the IV but did they have to make such a hash of it? It doesn't seem to bother her now, though the first few days she kept licking at it in typical dog fashion. She is sleeping peacefully beside me & seems fit enough to run her one hour mountain trek every day.
As vain as I am, I am bothered by my dog's weird appearance,lol!


But I digress, it is VTT again & you can find lots of interesting memorabilia by visiting coloradolady.
I have collected quite a few old prints, some came from flea markets during our sojourn in Europe & those I will show another day.


This one is printed on silk & we purchased it in the charming old town of Rothenburg, Germany, the oldest walled Roman city in that country. With it's cobbled streets & ancient buildings there is much to intrigue any history afficiando.

The second picture is of the actual scene, & the female figure sitting on the post in the center foreground is yours truly. Upon my knee is this silk lithograph that we had just purchased.
This was 1978 I think that counts as vintage?
The blur in the top left corner is probably DH's finger over the lens, lol!

Dogs And Chocolate!

A very bad combination, dogs & chocolate! You probably knew but in case you did not, click here on info. to get some helpful facts.
How do I know? Two veterinary bills in 18 months for a total of $1400, yes that's one thousand four hundred!
Theobromine is the villain in this case found in products from the cocoa tree, & while milk choc. contains small amounts [44mgs./oz] it ramps up as you get to the darker, purer products. Semi sweet/dark choc. has three times as much as milk choc. & baker's choc. has about eight times as much. Theobromine affects the heart & other organs, Button's heart rate was around 2oo the first time & nearly that this second time. It really is a killer & immediate medical response is urgent.
It takes about 150mgms/kilo of weight [2.2lbs] to cause toxicity in your pet[cats & horses too] which equates to an ounce of dark/semi sweet choc. Our Aussie Terrier Button weighs close to 14lbs so her toxic level for the dark choc. is about 4-5 ozs. The first time she ingested three bars of Godiva dark choc. around 9 ozs, she was a very sick puppy that Christmas night. $660 later, EKG, blood work, IV fluids etc. she was through the danger & I said "all chocolate goes in the fridge", if she learns to open that we are in big trouble. Maybe you saw the ad that featured the dog fetching his master a beer from the fridge? In the advert. it was a big dog but inside our 14lb. dog's body is a 300lb.mastiff trying to get out!

You'd think after the first scare we would never see that again? Someone left an unopened 9.5ozs. bag of dark choc. on their desk shelf, no challenge really for a dog that can scale cliffs!
Last night we were late returning home & she was hungry so you can guess the rest. Seven ozs. of dark chocolate & lots of evidence around the house & yard that it did not agree with her.
Another ER veterinary hosp. event & this evening DH picked her up & $700 plus later she is through this second choc. poisoning a bit subdued but thankfully ok. [That chocolate ended up costing nearly $100/oz.]We have to watch her for a day or two because there is a slight chance of further complications but she is a tough little girl, all the "Aussies" are, they breed 'em that way! Any dog that can survive in the Australian outback has to be tough, & even though Button may be generations removed from that kind of life she shows us how strong & durable she is when we hike mountains & run her daily for several miles.

I found some additional info this time around about other toxic foods; six grapes can put your dog into a life threatening situation & of course it follows that raisins are bad [& no doubt wine!] avocados for heaven's sake, nutmeg, coffee, onions & garlic & for dogs, raw salmon plus a few other surprises. Then there are a host of plants...........
FYI it is worth checking out the facts about products toxic for your pets, no one needs to spend their hard earned money unnecessarily on emergency pet care that could be avoided with some extra knowledge & care. And certainly none of us want to risk pain, suffering & damage to our beloved pets.

QOV#2, done!

As promised, QOV#2 is posted. Tomorrow they go in the mail back to my QOV partner in CA. so she can bind & label them for the wounded warriors at LA veteran's hospital.

From the back you can see that this one is quilted with a freehand square spiral design.

Wordless Wednesday

Not tonight dear, I have a headache!

QOV#1

I have two QOV tops here to quilt before I head off to CO. Friday. I finished number one this evening & pinned on number two & got about one third done when the bobbin ran out so I decided it was time to call it a night. After all it was well after 11 p.m. time to pack it in, right, even for a night owl like me!


My QOV partner in CA, Meredith, is a batik afficiando so most of the tops she sends me to quilt are batiks & this one is no exception but I think she did an exceptional job of design, fussy cutting each of the "compasses". It's very graphic & I think some wounded warrior will love it. I used a light aqua thread & quilted freehand echoed swirls.

Here is the back, it's really a much prettier, brighter aqua- blue but I didn't use the flash [so the quilting would show up] perhaps that's why it looks kind of faded.
Tomorrow, QOV#2!
P.S. Anyone know if ants will mess up a laptop? I have a plague of tiny ants on my desk! DH does too...... I am using those traps that supposedly destroy the whole colony but so far the ants are winning the war, persistent little buggers!

Future's So bright

I was hoping to finish piecing this top for "Finished for Friday" but I missed the deadline by about 5 minutes last night! Now it's Saturday & here is a photo, the top has finished larger than I expected, 78 x 100.
It's very pretty I think, eye catching & very feminine. These were stash fabrics but I may have to purchase backing, it's too pretty to just use a make- do fabric for backing when I don't have anything that even faintly "goes with it"! It won't be quilted for a while, there are too many tops in the line ahead of it!

This morning early I took off to the Bernina Connection's Early Bird sale. I had gift cards & I bought all but one little half yd. piece at 75% off so absolutely no guilt, lol!
A few of these purchases I will share with others, some cowboy fabric and some other for my secret sister at the CO. guild.
Here are a few of the fabrics that found their way home with me......just a few of them......they followed me......fair dinkum!



A couple of nice Asians for my collection......


These flamingos were just too cute.......

and more flamingos, it would make really cute aprons don't you think but I need to find some black with a pink dot for the ruffles. I think I will take another photo, the flash washed out the color it looks boring when it's actually pink flamingos.


This one came with me just because it caught my eye & because I make patriotic quilts for QOV it would work into a patriotic colored quilt.


The above I will most likely give away, they are from a collection called "Rosie the Quilter" by Andover fabrics based of course on the idea of Rosie the Riveter. It comes in pink too, I already have that in my stash,

& it's staying with me because the past year I have suddenly become very attracted to pink, go figure why now at my age, aren't I supposed to be doing the "purple dress with the red hat that doesn't match" thing?!
Nah, can't do it, my family would freak if I dressed like that they might actually commit me they would be so horrified!
Once, a friend of youngest DS told me "You don't look like a quilter....."? How is a quilter supposed to look ?

VTT

Here it is Thursday again what the heck happened to my week?! Already! Go check out Colorado Lady's blog because she has all the best blogs listed for VTT.

The vintage things I'm showing this week are not at all related, but just randomly chosen.


I love this old Christmas postcard from 1911, a sister writing to her siblings whom she sorely missed. I can't remember where I found this one........
and as charming as I find the front I really like it mostly because of the message on the back.



Now you all know what this is, use one weekly I am sure-not! Not for me either, sock memding, I used to though can you believe it? I darned my own socks in HS & my kids socks many a long year ago. This darner is older than that, it belonged to my friend's grandmother & it's a bit fancy, has different woods joined to make a pattern. You can see several designs of darners on eBay for $5-10.

This pill box belonged to the same person, I do not remember having pills dispensed in containers like this, do you?

Perhaps it was unique to this pharmacy.

Last is this old wooden coat hanger, a souvenir from our time living in Germany in the'70's. It was another of those items I picked up while "junking", & have no idea why I like it, but I have kept it for nearly 40 yrs so I must be attached to it,lol. It has a trade name on it, Schorpp, the name of the cleaner I guess.
Well that is my odd collection of vintage memorabilia for today, odd, very odd you say!
Why do we save what we do? Why do these strange bits & pieces of the past have such a fascination?
I saw the strangest chair at the thrift store last week & took a pic of it along with another oldie but goodie piece of audio memorabilia but only had the phone to take the pics & haven't yet discovered the means of downloading phone pics to my laptop. Perhaps by next week so I can show these two items to you.
I did get back to my quilting today, working on "Future's So Bright", maybe tomorrow it will be ready for a pic, right now it looks like this!

Graduation!

This is a blatant brag, sorry if it's over the top-just don't read any further, LOL!
JW graduated Magna Cum Laude from Midwestern University with a degree in Biomedical Science-now only four yrs. of Med School, I guess you could look at it as halfway there! The piper was wonderful, goose bumps all over, I have a video clip that I will attempt to load but I think the file is too big.



The only photo I got with his cap on, lol, but he was the tallest person in the entire assembly of grads so, easy to find! I hear that there are official pics coming later that will actually show his face!

Baby Matthew wore his formal tux, but found it all a big yawn!


JW's brothers are very happy for him.......brother Andrew took a quick break from Atwood European to make it for the ceremony........


and we are all very proud of you son!

PS. Baby Matt's cousins wanted in on the photo action too!

What I Am Working On!

This week apart from preparations for the univ. graduation celebration of youngest DS last night [more on that in a later blog] I have been working at readying another eleven HOB quilts for bereaved CO. military families located recently.

I had two quilts still unbound, here's the last one that I finished- the front.......


and back. It's quilted with freehand meandering feathers.

A stack of another ten I had completed earlier - they have all been awaiting identification of NOK, the toughest part of the mission. It can take years to locate the families - just this week I found family of a fallen hero from 2004.
There have been terrific offers of help in plenty for the construction of blocks & tops, but many of the quilts still require quilting & binding & I have a collection on hand in that stage of construction. It is the actual hands on with the quilt construction for these brave families that I do best & really love.
So I will need to get busy this summer finishing up more of them.
HOB State Coordinators are responsible for finding the survivors, contacting them, then final preparation & delivery of the quilts with all the attendant documentation, labels for sewing on the backs of the quilts,

certificates that go with them...........
and a sympathy card. A copy of the certs. goes to the National Coordinator for recording there.
Each coordinator has the freedom to design their own state's documents so you will probably not see any two states with the identical papers. I had a lot of help with the pictorial part of these from friend Loretta, AZ State Coordinator, who has Desktop Pub. on her PC that allows a lot more creative freedom than Word.
Because I am not a natural on the computer [& I dislike what I consider to be the tedium of paperwork] I find the doc. prep is a real headache especially when I have so many to process at one time, I get very confused about names & dates & how many of each I need/have made & so on. I procrastinate as long as I can & feel so righteous when it's done!
When I switched to Mac I got Word for Mac 2008 & all my docs were an older Word version so for some reason the docs transferred in an altered state e.g. format all wrong, two pages instead of one etc.
Although I have tried to re-align the above mentioned docs. in Word 2008 on my Mac, most likely due to operator ignorance I have not been able to do so making it necessary for me to email them across three feet of office space to DH's Toshiba, reformat & print from there!
A really computer literate person will most likely know what's up & suspect that I am a computer retard!
It is my fervent hope that tomorrow I will be able to complete this process & have these quilts ready to go to the recipient families who are waiting for them then I can feel OK about returning to other quilty stuff!
Such as, the project below, one that I have worked on a very little this week when I simply had to take a break from paperwork.

It's called "Future's So bright",

this is the pile of blocks awaiting pressing. Monday is my goal for making more progress on this quilt.

What would be less than a day's work for others on the computer turns into several days, in this case all week for me.
And that is what I have been working on this week!