Productivity!

I got more done today than I thought-I pieced the pink 'cut-up' bargello very quickly & at first I thought I might not even bother to border it-the size is OK, but on second thoughts, it looks a bit unfinished so I guess I'll border with the pink spotted fabric. I then moved on to sash some RW&B blocks donated by Loretta for another QOV -there were 9 of them so I fished around in the QOV box till I located another couple of donated blocks & resewed & resized them to give me 12 blocks, I'm sashing with a blue & will border with red & it will be a nice QOV. I will get a photo added tomorrow. I have one more block that will make a nice label with space for writing.
My red batiks came today, those people at thousandbolts.com are the best! I am soaking it now to remove excess dye & will dry & iron so I can make the piping tomorrow & get going on construction of Lucas' quilt.
The guys had a great time on the ATV's all the way over Engineer's pass, & they brought pizza for us when they came in tonight.They covered over 70 miles so they were all weary. Button & I only covered a couple of miles this evening on our walk! It is just beautiful with all the wildflowers , such a feast for the eyes. One of the other locals warned me this evening that a mountain lion & cub were seen on the road nearby where we walk- we have to be vigilant, we are after all living smack in the middle of these wild animals' territory. I will be even more cautious about keeping Button very close by, definitely no more skunk chasing for her!
I took a moment to pull out my patriotic fabrics to choose some for the new SB mystery beginning 4th.July-it's appropriate that it should be RW&B. I'm re-thinking using my antique treadle-I sort of gave up when I was unable to figure out the thread path & New Home wouldn't respond to my enquiries about a manual. I need to contact the company again. it's a lovely old machine & it has all sorts of original attachments such as a ruffler with instructions for it's use. The cabinet needs some touch up some TLC-it got very scarred in shipment but the machine itself is in good shape if only I could get it threaded correctly!

Sunset and sew on!

Pun intended, LOL.
This was sunset yesterday as I walked, around 7 p.m. I think, that's MST.
Today I had a couple of hours to
sew & finished the borders on the second OC, but every time I lay out a quilt-on the bed or the floor- Button feels that she must lay claim to it! One border may look as if it "waves" it really doesn't but every time I went to take a photo Button had walked across the quilt & in the end I just gave up! The second OC is a little different to the first. I set the blocks on the straight & made narrow stop borders from orange & blue [because I ran short of those fabrics] then I used the leftover blocks in the corners as well as the sides. I only have 4 of the little blocks left, woohoo!
Late afternoon I went into Montrose with DH- he had to pick up parts to repair one of the quads after Madeleine's accident last week- while there I ran into the Pfaff store & picked up a 5 groove pintuck foot-their last one- so I wouldn't have to struggle with the zipper foot to make the rest of the binding for Lucas' quilt. For the moment unfortunately I've "gone about as fur as I can go" [as they sing in "Oklahoma!"] with this memory quilt because I need red batik for piping & applique so had to order from thousandbolts & it won't be here until Monday at the very earliest, probably Tuesday. We are two hours & $35 plus in gas from the nearest quilt shop so ordering online is really the only cost effective alternative.
On the way down the mountain we encountered a doe with a very new fawn, really tiny. She was nursing, amazing, the very first time I have ever seen a fawn nursing from the doe. She was so tiny she could barely reach to nurse from momma doe who was standing. I wanted a photo but DH backed up too close & they spooked. I am hoping I will get another photo op. but the chances are very slim.
We ate at "Siam" in Ridgway on the way home, it's really lovely food & Fridays there is entertainment so we like to dine al fresco & enjoy the music.
This weekend is a "quilting retreat" with my Stashbusters group, so I plan to work on the baby quilt for one of our church families in Phx. who recently adopted a baby girl. I have two pieced strips left from the pink bargello which I plan to somehow work into a baby size quilt.

Summer in Alpine Climes

Our second round of guests departed this morning, youngest DS & his GF plus G'son #1, Daniel whose family acquired a new puppy since he got here so he just had to go back to 115 degree Phoenix see her!
Here are JW & Madeleine at sunset at 9,000ft, & a few photos of the beautiful lupins & other wildflowers now gracing the roadsides & meadows in our alpine development. No more beautiful though than these two young people! Amanda had asked me about the "Choke Cherries" I mentioned on a visit to her blog so here is a photo of them-those white clusters of flowers will be dark red berries that the bears love. They make good jam but the pits are too large to make it worth the effort. We had quite an eventful visit with the young folk especially when Madeleine took a spill from the quad necessitating an ER visit. Damage is minor compared to the disaster it could have been, mostly scratches, minor shoulder separation, soreness & a couple of stitches in her arm.
The same day our little Aussie Terrier was again attacked by the same dog up the road, so another vet. visit, more antibiotic & pain shots & meds. & we're fortunate she likes the peanut butter that disguises the pills. My previous vigilance is now hyper vigilance where our little dog is concerned, this simply cannot happen again. On Saturday we visited the Cottonwood Cellars Vineyard in Olathe for a wine tasting, here we are with a few of the barrels. That was fun & we came home with about a case of assorted wines.
I have all borders on the OC quilt set on point & all but two sides of the final border on the second top. That's a job for this week & then it's on to the memory quilt for Lucas & Matt's birthday July 11. I am currently preparing the photos for printing onto the fabric, that is the slowest part of memory quilt construction.I have decided that this printer we have in CO. is not sophisticated enough to produce decent pics. for a quilt so we're off to Montrose first thing in the morning to buy a new one.

OC Times Two!

Today I pieced my OC blocks into two tops. I had only intended to make one but discovered that if I laid one set out on point & another on the straight I could make two- with a little "finessing" that is! I took 6 of the side setting triangle blocks & sewed them together to make three more album blocks then only needed one more each of the spinning stars & album blocks. If you look closely at the top that is set on point you can spot the three triangle units I had to join. Looking at the pieced tops this evening I think I will make 2" orange & teal borders & a 3 1/2" red or blue border for each top. That will make them a nice size for QOV'S. I'll use the leftover 3 1/2" blocks to insert into the borders to add a little more interest. I had wondered how other quilters were coming up with "twofers" from these mystery quilts & now I see how! I am delighted with the OC results & I don't even notice the "weird & ugly" scraps, in fact I have to search for them, LOL. I doubt I'll get the borders done until next Wednesday at the guild sew-day as our youngest DS & GF arrive Saturday for a week long visit.
The lupins are blooming , everyday when we walk we see more blue blossoms so I must remember to take the camera & capture the sight before it passes for the season. The choke cherry trees too are in bloom & it looks as if we could have a bumper crop, won't the bears be pleased!

Twin's quilts

Our family company from Boston came in last Sunday & nephew & wife are out on the quads riding up to Yankee Boy while we entertain their twins! In fact Uncle Walter[really Great Uncle Walter!] just took them down for a nap & I snapped a couple of pics. of Emily & Daniel snoozing with the quilts I made before they were born. They brought them along all the way from Boston & it's lovely to see the quilts well used, after all isn't that why we give quilts to those we love? When they wake up I will show them how I grind the wheat to make bread-we're having white pizza tonight so I need [no pun intended] to make the crust for said pizza. Then they can watch to see how we make ice cream-home made ginger ice cream tonight over fresh pineapple & mango, yummo!
We actually got a little snow again earlier this week, not enough to stick around the house but definitely making a difference on the surrounding peaks. Ridgway lake has been drained VERY low, lower than I ever saw it because such a large volume of snow melt is expected after a record year for snow here. So much for global warming, it's been the coolest, snowiest spring we can remember!
After step 4 of the OC mystery Bonnie shared a cream cheese pecan pie recipe as reward & it looked & sounded delish so I made one this week & it was a hit! Tomorrow we plan to drive to Telluride & take the kids on the Gondola to the top of the mountain, they will enjoy that & we'll take Button too, Telluride is a very dog-friendly town. Button is doing well after being bitten by a very large bossy dog a week ago which necessitated a trip to the ER.vet. Button is barely 14 lbs & she was attacked from the rear so fortunately the injuries are on her behind! Antibiotics have kept infection at bay & the wounds are healing up nicely.
I haven't done any more to the OC mystery quilt since Wednesday at Guild sew-day when I made a little progress on step 5. I checked out the pics on quiltvillechat from the mystery quilters who have assembled their tops already & I prefer the straight lay out [I think Lurline showed it] because it looks more interesting to me & I like the idea of an orange zig-zag around the border. I will make a decision after I see my own blocks completed & laid out probably not before guild sew-day next Wednesday.

Spring is finally here and more OC!

Spring comes later at 9,000ft. and this year especially with all the late snowfall. The bulbs I planted last fall around Matthew's memorial are coming up & the daffodils & crocus are blooming, along with some little hyacinth I planted inside the deer proof fence. It seems that the deer have no taste for daffodils so it's safe to plant them anywhere. The bluebonnets are still developing their leaves but I found one blooming on the path that leads behind the house & I noticed some beside the road at the lower elevations. In a few weeks they will cover the entire area & everywhere we go up here there will be a sea of blue flowers.I am still working on OC steps 4 & 5, & hope to have them done before Bonnie posts the final clue next week. We have company arriving Sunday, nephew & family from Boston with 3 yr.old twins, so I might not get much sewing time the next week or so & I just don't want this to become another UFO. Here is my step 4 block & one block from step 5, I see a lot of red & blue & of course orange, so I'm thinking it might make a nice Quilt Of valor for a wounded warrior, what do you think? We have a lot of blocks left over but Bonnie has a pieced border in the plan, no doubt where the extras will go. I am pleased that I chose brighter blue & red for the yardage, I think they really help to distract the eye from all the ugly & weird scraps I used in the little blocks.This quilt will be entirely from stash, I have a large piece in the blue family for the backing,but I haven't made a noticeable dent in my stash strips so I must continue to make scrap quilts along with the planned projects.

Kaffe Fasset quilted & ordination pics

This evening I finished quilting the Kaffe Fasset. I thought that I would never finish the floral border, big mistake in my quilting design choice I should have done the same all over design ,as in the middle or a simple panto because with such a busy multi colored floral you can't see the thread so you don't know where you have been or what you have just done! I had chosen a variegated thread & didn't like the effect so I frogged then I had tension issues so I frogged some more, can't stand those railroad tracks & eyelashes! I think I need new tension disks for the bobbin case so I must order a few & some tension springs to have on hand. The black borders in this quilt went quite easily as did the Baby Butt feathers [as Nichole Webb calls them] in the main body of the quilt, but that floral border became tedious after the first side. I hope that Leslie doesn't hate it, I think it will look well on their bed but it's certainly not my favorite work. In spite of Leslie's meticulous cutting & piecing & reworking, there was still some fullness in places which was not too difficult to quilt out but I did spritz the more obvious areas with water then applied the hot hair dryer- that seems to take out a lot of poufiness but of course one must be sure of color fastness before attempting this. I can still see a few areas that aren't as flat as I'd like but probably not noticeable to others.
Here are a couple of photos from Kris's ordination-I love the one of her with Bishop Sandy Greene. Guess I need to get a couple of hours sleep-we are leaving early for the drive to CO. tomorrow-I have a tough time deciding what to pack of all my quilty stuff when we will be away for some weeks. I know that I need to get caught up on the OC Mystery, Bonnie posted step#5 today & I have yet to begin on step#4! I wouldn't want to run short of a project or the necessary fabric & the nearest QS to us in CO. is about 2 hours drive so I would probably order online. Thousand Bolts has a big Memorial Day sale ......I will probably need to get a few little bits & pieces......

Pink bargello

I am pleased to report another project done as I finished up the piped binding this evening. I have to make the label yet, that's a job for tomorrow. In the morning I have to take my car in to Andrew's shop for detailing, it is very overdue so it will be nice to have it spic and span!
Today I went to the Mac store at the Biltmore for a class on iPhoto, that's a great program with a lot of nice features. I took notes, heaven knows how one would ever remember everything otherwise. Next Saturday I am signed up for another Mac class in some of the basics, it may cover a lot of what I know already as the iPhoto class did, but it's all helpful.
Kris's ordination service Saturday was very moving, and Sunday she read the Gospel message for the first time. I wonder if she will ever become accustomed to her new title, "Rev.Kris "!It looks as if we'll be heading up to the mountain house shortly, the weather has to be better there, it was 110deg. in Phx today & the same predicted for tomorrow, that's 15 deg. above normal for this time of year. Supposedly we are to have a cool front later in the week that will drop the temps below 90, seems hard to believe but that's what can happen here, though we know that the triple digits are almost here to stay for the next few months.

Ordination Quilt

This week I have been working on creating this quilt for my friend Kris who is being ordained to the diaconate tomorrow. There are close ups of the quilting on my webshots http://community.webshots.com/user/aussieros
I love watercolor quilts, they are such "eye candy" for me and a very satisfying artistic process. I must have made nearly 20 similar to this for special occasions, birthdays, graduation etc, but most are a little smaller. I try to take pictures of all of my quilts but sometimes I just forget so my portfolio is incomplete.
The pink bargello awaits binding still, I want to do a piped binding as I did on this quilt, Monday I hope to report the bargello completion. Then it's back to the longarm to quilt the kingsize Kaffe Fasset and a Storm at Sea that is all batiks including the backing. Batiks can be a PITA on the LA causing skipped stitches especially when the backing is also batik so I am hoping this one will not be a problem as I need to get both finished before we leave for Colorado for about 6 weeks. One of the most recent QOV's was batiks and I had a lot of broken thread issues but that was during the timing /missing screw period so perhaps that contributed.I still haven't done step 4 of the OC mystery and the next clue is about due. I may not catch up until after we go to CO. -our guild up there meets Wednesdays at a church in Montrose to sew on projects of our own choosing, a weekly mini retreat that can be very productive with no family interruptions.Time for a cuppa then off to bed- I found a wonderful tea shop nearby called Souvia that has an exotic & wide selection of teas of every flavor & style, green tea, black tea white tea & Rooibus which is a decaffeinated herbal tea.We need to be at the church around 9 so I need to get cracking if I'm to get my beauty sleep!

QOV's done!

The QOV's were done a couple of days ago, I'm awaiting the names of three of the AZ Army National Guard from Lucas. There's no point in mailing the quilts out of state when we have combat wounded here in Phoenix.The pink bargello is perhaps 2/3 quilted, I seem to have been distracted by all kinds of other things the past couple of days and yesterday I had to frog a lot of quilting that had less than pleasing tension issues showing on the back. I am still transferring files & working at the set-up of the MacBook, today I spent several hours in a futile effort among other things trying to load the HP printer drivers finally making one of my two free "help" calls to Microsoft & getting some answers about Entourage. iPhoto seems t0 be my other major problem right now & it's a pain working back & forth between two computers, I really want to ditch the Dell! I'm way too weary to do anything more tonight!

Tucson trip

LA friend Debbie[a LA'er for AZ. HOB] drove to Tucson & we met up with Loretta, AZ. HOB Coord. & her friend Cathy. Of course the trip included some quilt shop retail therapy but I only spent what I had planned so I wasn't too bad! It was a long day, over 300 miles round trip plus a major forced detour on the way home, there is always some kind of "work" on the highways. In addition to my fabric purchases I came home with a couple more projects courtesy of Loretta, a quilt top & backing to be completed for donation & enough blocks for another QOV, both off her UFO list & onto mine,LOL! And from Loretta, two more quilt patterns & a book! I have unpacked & petted my purchases, which incidentally were all on sale, & here are the pictures. The marbley pieces with the coordinate are for a WHIMM, aren't they gorgeous? Then these sort of retros are Valori Wells , I love them & want to make a padded computer bag for my MacBook with one of them. Do you see a theme developing here, does it look as if I'm in a "brights" phase, ya think?! Do other stashers also find that your fabric falls into one phase or another of buying trend? As for these last two fabrics, the pink print is replacement for one of the many pinks I used in the Pink Bargello [previous post] & the yellow Ginny Beyer is a good stop border for the small Resurrection water color quilts that I make.
Last but not least here are pics of the two QOV's that I quilted Thursday after I finally got the A-1 retimed & the missing screw replaced. I hadn't been able to use it for a week & boy had I missed it! These are now trimmed & binding in place for final stitching, labeling & laundering before going to a military hospital to offer comfort for a Wounded Warrior.

OC Mystery step 3 and the Pink Bargello

This step was little stress & strain, except that I made way too many of one kind that are now in the orphan block box & that seems to grow weekly! Step 3 is very scrappy, on the eeeuuuwww end of the kitchen sink scale, though I do love using scraps & haven't yet made a dent in mine but it is early days for my focused use of leftover/ignored/rejected fabrics. This is the last step of the OC that will require scraps- Bonnie has told us that in step 4 we begin to use our chosen yardage .

Today I finished piecing the pink bargello & I'm glad because it's a bit boring to piece! I plan to use the backing fabric at the bottom of the picture for borders, I did the math & I have just enough yardage.

I had Andrew & Lana's little Yorkies today, I offered doggie day care when Lana needs to stay for an extended day at the shop so that the little dogs don't have to be shut up for so long. They enjoy the couple of miles we walk in the park & the freedom to go in & out to the backyard with Button through the dog door. There are coyotes & rattlesnakes [& probably Gila Monsters & maybe mountain lions] out where they live so a dog door in their home is out of the question. When we were in the park this morning I took a photo of Matthew's memorial which was placed last week but unfortunately the date is wrong, 2007, it should read 2006 & as yet we are not sure how it will be corrected. We were however very pleased to see that the Palo Brea tree we planted in mid December finally came back to life after lacking leaves or any other sign of life since January. I really thought it was past help but these native desert plants are extraordinary in their ability to survive.

This lovely hybrid yellow rose we planted in our backyard memorial garden last weekend is covered in blooms, it is such a bright splash of color out there. Most of the colorful plantings are very new and they are not so far adding much variety to the garden. Another month & that should change just in time for us to leave for Colorado for a few weeks!

QOV and timing!

I have finished the first of three QOV's on my list to quilt. I had begun on the second when the timing went out on my A-1 & I have been trying for 3 frustrating days to get it back in time, 6 hours today alone. Thursday I discovered that a tiny screw is missing from the shaft, must have vibrated loose, I have searched for it to no avail & I'm wondering if the missing screw is somehow effecting my efforts to time the machine. I have ordered a couple more of those little screws so perhaps I'll wait until they arrive before I expend any more effort on the timing adjustment, I can certainly find plenty of other things to do meantime but I do dislike having the longarm inoperable. Bonnie has posted the third step of the OC Mystery a few days early so I can add that to my to-do list. After church today we went by Ikea & I picked up a set of 6 small storage boxes for the small cabinet beside my DSM, another organizational chore awaiting me.

I am excited that I have been the very fortunate recipient of a preloved MacBook, the last edition of the TiBook. My friend Leslie, maker of that lovely Winding Ways quilt, had upgraded to a new PowerBook & found they weren't using the TiBook so knowing that my Dell is dying she generously gifted the TiBook to me! Wow! I am now in the process of transferring files via Thumbdrive- the Dell has refused my requests to back-up for at least 6 months. I am loving getting to know my Mac & finding all the cool stuff I can do with it.