Friday, May 31, 2019

String Quiltalong Month 5

Here we are on Month 5 of our 2019 Stringalong!

These 4" blocks are finally adding up to some overall size! I have 135 blocks made and I believe this is half of this quilt.
Here are 50 blocks of the basketweave setting with 6" finished blocks.

Please scroll down to add your string quilt to the Linky party!
I mentioned that I love the DMC thread and Merry had a whole bunch that she isn't using more! See all those terrific colors? That's why I like for machine applique. I use a thread to match. 
Thank you Merry!

Got home from lunch yesterday and found this little baby birdie in my back yard. There was no visible nest so the most I could do was to put him somewhere away from my dogs. 
You can see a bit of his blue feathers coming in and the parents were blue jays really raising a ruckus!!

I thought this was the best way for me to transport him. 

I put him inside this little veggie garden area where he stayed for quite some time. Porter was still interested, but he's a good boy when I tell him leave it!

When I got home from work the blue jay parents were coaxing the baby to the neighbors- not a safe place with their bird dog!

When Cory got home he spotted a nest and tried to put him back in. Unfortunately the little guy had a looonngg fall to the ground after about 5 minutes. It was suggested on facebook to get a planter and make a sort of nest, so that is what we did. It is a bit deeper then the real nest so he is still in there for now. The parent birds don't seem to know where their baby is, so we aren't sure what will happen. Our fingers are crossed. That is this weeks drama at my house!

Now, let's see those string quilts!


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Not Spencer Museum Quilt Month 3

 Here is my 4th and final block of this quilt, which I found out has nothing to do with the Spencer Museum! LOL 

I had to play around a little bit, although June will be my assembly month.
Gold?


Blue?
It was a fun quilt to make. If anyone has suggestions for a name, I'm open to hear your thoughts!

Be sure to check out Karen's blog HERE and Rebecca's blog HERE to see there progress.

Anybody else sewing along?? I want to make sure we see your blocks. 


Now, non quilty  blog news.

2 Christmases ago our employees got a gift certificate for the Cowboy Dinner Tree, dinner and overnight stay in a cabin.  (click to read more! So fun!!) We had no idea it was as busy as it is, so just got in this past weekend!

It was seriously rustic and in the middle of basically NOWHERE!

It was fairly high elevation and a bit chilly- Porter was really enjoying the pellet stove. 

We hiked a bit on the way there on Saturday, but were only a few miles from a trailhead to a lookout. Porter is 12 or 13 and has had 2 leg surgeries so we limit the amount of miles. 
We didn't go all the way to the lookout, but it was such a nice morning for a hike.




That's a bit of fresh snow that fell overnight. 


My public service announcement is to be safe if you are even day hiking! Be prepared for any event. 

Two years ago on the Columbia Gorge someone started a fire that spread quickly. A one mile hike for some in flip flops and bathing suits turned into an overnight 17 miles hike out a different path. Thankfully some people were prepared to share with others. I never go hiking without my 10 essentials now. Mine all fits in a small bag. (except the water) 

Friday we will be sharing our string quilts on a linky party!! 


Monday, May 27, 2019

USA Memorial Day

 Yes, Happy to be an American and extremely thankful for all of those who gave their life for my freedoms!



Friday, May 24, 2019

4 Patches

Who doesn't love a simple 4 patch? And a double 4 patch is double the fun!
I'm swapping with my friends Kat and Kevin next month when I go to Ohio. (I won't be seeing Kevin in Ohio, but he is still swapping with us)  I better get busy if I want to get all 200 of them made before then! These will finish at 4" and this will not be the setting . 

I generally don't piece lots of blocks at one time except in these circumstances. 

Oops.... 

 This is what goes on at home most evenings. There is a bed behind Porter but he likes the coolness of the floor sometimes. 
I'm hoping to try out my new 1 person tent soon!!

I hope you all have a beautiful weekend. 

I loved hearing and seeing your first quilts! So much fun!!

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

My First "Real" Quilt

I made a few quilts before taking a class and buying supplies, they mostly consisted of squares and 5/8 seams. My SIL was in Sisters and asked if I'd like to take a beginners class, so we did!
This was in 1993 and Jean Wells was teaching this particular class. I feel so fortunate to have learned from her! She walked us through how to use the basic tools and how to choose fabrics to make quilts that reflect you and what you like. 
My "focus" print was the floral and even back than I like the old fashioned look!

She would show us the blocks and how to assemble them and then we'd go home and our homework would be those blocks. I think it was a 6 or 8 week class. We drove every week during the Central Oregon winters!!


I wasn't able to figure out what the heck I did on the edge. It looks similar to a knife edge, but I know I didn't sew it together on that center portion.


I think I had a small green, wider floral, small green and wider floral, but apparently that wasn't working, so I have this huge seam in the back.

I machine quilted it too! Pretty brave for my first quilt!

It was fun to revisit this one!


We have a local place that delivers organic  produce boxes to my door! This is what I rec'd this week. You can swap out some items and I usually do. I'd rather have more veggies, than fruit. Do any of you have this option near you?


Monday, May 20, 2019

Marvelous Monday

I got a bit of sewing done over the weekend but it is my string quilt and won't share that until next week. 
I started to gather my quilts for next month's lecture. I would like to bring my newer quilts so will be changing up the lecture.  I thought while I was going through quilts I'd hang a few ones too. 


This springy/summery quilt was designed by Cheri Payne. 

We have this old tv stand that I use to store some quilts in. Once when my son's friend came home with him from college, he said "oh a TV" then he opened it and only said "quilts". He was obviously disappointed!! 

I'll be getting more organized this week.

Here are a few I will be hanging up around the house. 


I've picked this handquilting back up for a few nights. Feels good to be working on it again.

The last hike we went on in Zion was full of amazing flowers! I can't help but think that mother nature sure knows how to combine colors!
Those red paintbrush seem to be growing from the rock face!












Always pack your headlamp, because you'll never know how fast the sun will set!!

On May 29th we will be sharing our Spencer Museum Quilt (even if it doesn't have anything to do with the museum! LOL) 
May 31 we will be sharing our string quilts. 

3 swap quilts are in overseas transit. I'm crossing my fingers these last few will make it to their destination. So far on the linky party there are 73 links. I hope you've taken a peek! There are some beauties! Great job this year friends!!

Friday, May 17, 2019

Friday Fun!

As many of you know now if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram I went out of town for a quick getaway. 

We had a little time before needing to get to the airport so we stopped in here: 
 It is in a strip mall but was a really nice shop! I saw the latest Primitive Quilts magazine and spotted the charity article on the quilts for Paradise, CA. Jennifer did a really great job. My backpack was completely jammed but would love to see the article again and show my niece, since it mentions our trip to Paradise. I still think of many of the people we met and wonder how they are doing.
Because I do a lot of machine applique, my favorite thread for that is DMC and it is getting harder and harder to find. These were on the sale rack so I grabbed a couple in colors I knew I could use. The fabric are random finds for my stash. 
I did get inspired for a new small quilt and even have the name chosen- 50 Shades of Brown! You'll have to wait and see. I think I need to get back into my sewing room!

I won this on Jan Patek's blog! I happened to drop by and she was doing a giveaway. The envelope came while I was gone. In the past I have used triangles on a roll- I'm not sure what makes this brand any different, but they are great for accuracy and if you need to make a lot of the same 2 fabrics. 

If you are only interested in quilts you do not have to read any further. 

A friend and I share the same birthday and she asked if I wanted to go hiking at a couple of National Parks to celebrate.  

We met up in Las Vegas and drove to:
The elevation made hiking a bit challenging. 
Bryce Canyon in Utah! On arrival we did scenic stops from the top in anticipation of hiking to the bottom the next morning! I was so giddy!

 We got on the trail about 7:30AM



It was mind blowing, actually! So utterly beautiful!!

A few hours later we were on our way to:
Zion national park! 
 Our first stop was to see "secret" petroglyphs.  

The next morning we headed here on the first shuttle.
If you want to read more about it, you can HERE. 
Michelle was going up, but was going to wait for me at Scouts Landing, about 3/4
mile from the "end". 


Up, up, up with sheer drop offs. 

 I didn't go to the top. Here was a part of the trail I felt comfortable enough to take a photo.  Not as much fun to do this by yourself. It was still pretty exciting.
We hiked just about every trail in the park that was open. We were exhausted that evening!! We had about 38,000 steps on our fitbit!
I was enamored with the variety of cacti we saw!!






This little acrobat was eating leaves. Cracked me up!!

It was a whirlwind trip- left early Saturday morning and returned Tuesday evening. Definitely a memorable birthday!!

Most of the little quilts swapped are on the Linky Party HERE- wow! You all rose to the challenge!!
Check them out! There are 3 pages, so be sure to scroll through.

I hope you all made sure to say thank you to the person who sent your quilt. 
That is the least we can do! 
Have a terrific weekend!!