Quilting Again

The drive from CO. was a bit slow, the first couple of hours it was snowing and the roads were slick. This pic I took soon after we left the house. Once we left Cortez the weather cleared but there was more precipitation around Mt.Humphries, north of Flagstaff when we came by there.

With all the snow and family visiting you might well assume I wasn't even thinking of quilting, but I am always thinking quilting!

At Huggy Bunch Wednesday I bound 4 little blankies for the Humane Society from the small quilt "sandwiches" I keep by the side of the LA for checking tension and trying out new ideas etc. I use up strips of left over batting and fabric and instead of throwing them away I hem or bind them for the stray/lost critters, so much nicer than the floor of the cages they are kept in.

On the drive from CO. today I finished the hand applique on the center circles of the vintage 30's Dresden Plate blocks, all eighteen of them and for someone who avoids handwork that was quite a commitment! Now I can complete the top and add it to my stack of flimsies!

After we got into AZ this evening I began to cut the fabrics for a new project-my dear kind friend Rita has BC; she has completed the first round of chemo and has surgery March 19th. then more chemo and possibly radiation. I want to have a quilt ready for her when we return to CO. in a couple of weeks so I must get busy, no letting the grass grow under my feet,LOL!

These are the three fabrics I chose from my collection for the top........

and I have a really pretty beachy fabric for the backing. It will be a cheerful, spring-like quilt and hopefully a cuddly comfort for her recovery. No decision yet as to borders, I'll see what I have left once the rest is done and what other appropriate fabrics I can find in the stash. It's great to have a collection of fabrics to fall back on, now I rarely run to the QS and buy specifically for a new project, though I am not averse to purchasing additional pieces to complete a quilt if there is no other option!

No idea how I will quilt it, it's my first BQ2. Friend Loretta gave me the pattern a year or more ago and I am finally making use of it. The large floral focus fabric I am using is from one of my favorite designers, Valori Wells. I can see quilting some leafy wreaths in the large [9.5" ] blocks and perhaps leaves in the narrower strips.

The plan is to make this top then get busy on the longarm for the next week or two, I have a pile of tops waiting to be quilted.

VTT

We are packed up to return to AZ for a couple of weeks but not wanting to miss out on VTT I will quickly show a couple of vintage Thrift Store bargains from the Humane Society here in Ridgway.

The first this bowl with the lovely flower decal and gold rim, I use it a lot to serve veges- it reminds me of those that were popular in my youth. No marks on the bottom so I have no idea of it's origin but I thought it was pretty and I think I paid 50 cents or a dollar for it.

And two handy sized little Pyrex bowls, I had nothing like them so I snapped them up for a dollar or two and use them almost daily.
I can't imagine why anyone would give away these treasures,
Can you?
On closer inspection it looks as if I need to soak this to remove whatever is adhered to it- the dishwasher doesn't do detail work!

I photographed the letters from the wrong side, but I'm guessing this indicates the size of the bowl?

And do you find it odd that some of us are so enamored of these simple old relics of a bygone age?!

For more vintage devotees and their treasures visit Colorado Lady's blog.

Wordless Wednesday

Pygmy Nuthatch.




The storm has passed.

Brrrrrrrrrrrr

The kids [twin great niece and nephew] had a great day with their ski instructor and unlike here at the house, ten miles away over the mountain [as the crow flies] at the ski resort the sun shone on them all day!

It kept snowing and snowing up here all day long and the temp. dropped to 13 degrees by 5 p.m. and 2 degrees by 11!

It's up to 3 now, wow, global warming!

Oops, not, just checked it again.........I will update in the morning!

Snowy Days In Colorado

It has snowed pretty much all day every day for the past week. Last night the snow had covered the windows too.

Gorebal warming, LOL!

DH keeps clearing the deck but the snow keeps piling up! Oh well, the exercise is good........

The snow is consistent enough that we haven't been able to see our mountains for days.

This is our porch swing................

Twenty four degrees right now and still the snow falls. This morning DH and company went to Telluride to ski, they had to drive out through a couple of feet of snow.

Our snowplow just now came up to the house but there will be another foot-maybe more- by the time the family returns this evening.

This is typical Colorado mountain winter weather, it's pretty much the same every year the only variable is when it happens not if !

Yesterday we drove into Ouray to see the ice climbers. It was snowing.............?!

Duh, it's winter in Colorado!!





The ice formations are amazingly beautiful but terribly cold and it all looks dangerous to me even though the climbers are fully equipped and use safety harnesses and cables.

The town of Ouray is quite famous for ice climbing, and for the Ice Climbing Festival the first week of January each year.

After that the kids [and the other adults] went sledding but those pics aren't on my camera because I was trying to get my feet defrosted and watching the sledders from the warmth of the truck! I finally thawed out at Mouse's Chocolate house with hot home made cider with whipped cream and caramel sauce[also home made]. OH..........MY! You have to try it sometime, it's a simple enough recipe!

As for me I am going to do a little work on one of my current quilt projects.

Back To The Mountains

I am not posting for VTT this week but instead something more topical.

It's cold up here, low teens at night and 20's-30's daytime. Brrrrrrrrr. It's not as sunny today and it looks rather bleak out so I will be staying indoors.

Yesterday I took advantage of the opportunity to connect with my quilty CO. friends the Huggy Bunch that meets every Wednesday in Montrose.

Then I met our visiting family members at the little airport at 4 p.m. -they had been up since about 1.30 a.m. our time in order to leave Boston, then their flight was delayed nearly three hours, so by the time we had dinner last night here in CO. the twins[5 this May] were exhausted as were their Mom and Dad!

Here's a peek at how it looks up here, no new snow for a day or two and daytime temps just enough above freezing with the sunshine to melt the top layer. DH shoveled part of the deck yesterday[that's our little carved wooden peeping tom bear] though we don't use it much in this weather.

As I write it has begun to snow again so we'll have more fresh snow to plow.

When we came in Tuesday we drove through about a foot or two of the white stuff giving DH a chance to play with the snowblower!

Today the rest of the household have been out sledding on the slopes around our mountain home, towing the kids in inner-tubes behind the snowmobiles so they came back hungry and needing hot chocolate and lunch.

The twins with their Mom ..............

and Button who loves to ride on the snowmobile too.

Leslie's Quilt

The quilting on this beauty was completed late last night, have you noticed a trend of late night finishes? You may get the idea that I am a bit of a night owl and you would be correct!

I guess the block construction was quite a challenge, it was a class project, but Leslie persisted until she got them done. Her points are always so nice and the quilts so square and this one was no exception.

The quilting is hard to see at a distance, the fabrics are busy batiks and the thread is a blue/green variegated in the body of the quilt and a King Tut green/yellow variegated for the border and sashing.

Each block has a leaf wreath and the border is leaves. If you click on this close up you can see some of the quilting detail, it's very "subtle" so as not to distract from the geometry of the quilt.

I forgot to take a pic of the back but the quilting was even less visible there with an olive green Bottom Line thread. I love BL thread in the bobbin, not so much in the top because it seems to shred on my machine [unless I go slow]. I would use Sew Fine in the top when a thinner thread is needed, not necessary in this case.

The quilt is already on it's way back to Leslie but I will ask her for another pic once it's bound.

Finished For Friday, Monet's Wedding Ring Top

This was actually to "flimsie" stage before Friday! It's from Judy Martin's book "Scraps".

There are two extra borders in addition to the original, a three inch white strip and the three-piece blocks left over from the nine patches that sewed up nicely into a finishing border and brought the size to 63". The white on white for the background was an extra purchase but the remainder of the fabrics came from stash. Too late I realized that I had some lovely WOW already in stash, but fortunately this was $2.50/yd on sale so yes of course I bought the rest of the bolt, there may even be enough for the backing. A colored binding would be nice, it may have to be scrappy, I don't know that there is sufficient of any one of the colored fabrics.

I really love this quilt it's so sweet and old fashioned girly-looking it delights my eyes! It would be a lovely baby girl quilt for my first GD-if any of my sons ever produces a girl! Meantime it goes on the bottom of the growing stack for LA'ing. I think I will feather it.

Hostess for Finished For Friday can be found at Litandlaundry.

VTT Signed Lithographs

I almost forgot that tomorrow is Thursday, Vintage Thingies day. We had the baby two days this week and my brain lost a day!

The following are lithographs that came from our three year sojourn in Europe in the 70's. As we travelled I purchased a few signed lithographs from a street stall, flea market or one of the old book stores in various countries. My love of all things botanical and especially flowers, shows in the collection.

They are signed and numbered and some are dated.

I do recall that the one below was a gift from my friend Veronique.

More often than not I have forgotten exactly where I found them, but this one I remember came from Italy, it was a page out of an old book.

The kookaburras I had to have, "Lachender Hans" or "Laughing Hans" the kookaburra is called in Germany. Kookaburras - click on the name to hear them laugh!

Kookaburras are the largest of the Kingfisher family, but they don't fish, they are carnivores, they eat lizards, snakes and rodents. They are often seen smacking their catch against a post or tree branch, I have seen a kooka doing this to a snake! I thought the bird was just making sure the snake was dead but apparently they do it to break up any bones to aid in digestion! Yuck, to each his own but it's good to have them around they help to control the pest population!

They are very handsome birds, the male and female are hard to tell apart they look so similar, and they mate for life. They are also very territorial, and are long lived birds, up to twenty years in captivity. They cohabit well with humans, my Mum used to put out raw meat for them on the fence posts, Aussies love their kookas!

The aborigines believe that the kookaburras laugh every morning to tell the Sky People to light The Great Fire, the sun.

For more vintage delights visit our faithful hostess Colorado Lady.