Will I Ever Catch Up?

Life is so complicated right now it seems. Good and bad. In June I was gone for almost two weeks traveling and having a spectacular time! Here are a couple pictures of my trip to New York. Three days in city area and 3 days in the West Point area where my nephew reported on the 29th. More details on that later. Before that I was on my 25th anniversary trip with my husband in Canada. I have pics of that trip also.Here I am at the Statue of Liberty.One of the many gorgeous views of part of West Point and the Hudson River.

My dad passed away on July 4th so I have been doing a lot with helping with that. We are having a Memorial "party" on July 18th. Dad didn't like funerals (but went to tons of them) and liked parties so that is what we are doing. More of a celebration of life. Dad was ill and had no hope, it just wasn't expected that he would go when he did, but it was a blessing. He is free of the intense pain he was suffering.

I have a new Pfaff Grand Quilter and it's still in the box!

Busy Life!

I have several things to show from the last month or more, but I am still short of computer time so I will just show a surprise gift I made for my friend Deb. I mentioned on my earlier retreat post that I made something else and couldn't show it, this is it. I cut and pieced this at the retreat and finally quilted it last weekend and mailed it Monday. Deb received it Tuesday and was thrilled to pieces! She had fallen in love with the version of this quilt I made last summer for my friend Lynda and I used my batik stash to make her one. I used Thermore batting to be lightweight since she can't have weight on her with breathing issues. As for everything else I will start getting caught up, with school, Brad's graduation, quilt show, 4-H, etc, commission projects, my life is hectic.

Miniature Row Robin

I posted pictures in earlier posts of rows in my miniature row robin group. I have finished the last two rows for the group. This one belongs to Diane and her row is on top and finishes at 2.25" high! Next is Nansi's row, then Candy's then mine which also finishes at 2.25". I really should have put a ruler next to this!
Below is Virginia's grouping. Her fabulous log cabin row is on top and those strips are TINY! Next is Diane's row, then Nansi's string piecing and then Candy's dimensional row, and lastly my row, Dutchman's Puzzle. It finishes at 2" wide, and is paper pieced.This has been a lot of fun and a great challenge!

Fundraiser for a Friend

My friend Jo is raising funds for her husband's heart surgery. Read the complete story here and how you can help and win a quilt! I had a hand in this quilt since I machine quilted it. It is a very wonderful, cheery quilt and I am thrilled to have quilted it for Jo.

Tops from Retreat

My daughter Amy has been here this week and along with self-imposed stress to finish a quilt to enter in the Palouse Patchers show this weekend and doing things with her, I finally got Brad and Amy to hold up some of the quilt tops I finished. The one that is in the show I didn't get a photo of, but I will tomorrow. It is the Prickly Pear from the post here. I had all the blocks done and set it together last weekend and quilted and bound it this week. I tacked down the sleeve on the way to Moscow early Friday morning as Amy drove!
I had Brad's graduation quilt precut and got it all pieced the first evening. It is a bit blurry, but it's a log cabin and you can see the fabrics here. The next quilt was the Canyon Dance quilt that I showed the fabrics on a couple posts ago. This is a large queen size quilt and I got it together on Friday. That's what sewing for 13 or 14 hours will do. These quilts are super easy to piece. I used templates to cut them out and they just sew together quickly and I didn't even pin.
I have another quilt top I pieced Saturday but it's not quite finished yet, it needs borders. Yes, I did get told more than once I was an over achiever!

Back from a Retreat

I left Thursday for a quilting retreat at Palouse Divide Lodge and returned Sunday. My group was small, 11 of us and there was another group in the main lodge. We were there the same weekend last year also and had a joint show and tell Saturday night both years. It's fun watching the two groups intermingle and see all the wonderful quilting and other projects. We have a painter/potter in our group and a jewelry maker. We have the same weekend booked together next year also. I will get pics of the tops I pieced later this evening, but for now I have pics of my walk I took. The retreat center is the former North/South Ski Bowl and when I was there with another group in November I had hiked up to the top of the hill but it was too foggy for pics. I hiked up there Friday in the snow and took some pics. The views are fabulous!This is the lodge. The roof you can see on the right is the old ski lodge and that is where my group was. There is a nice room and rooms to sleep 13 with two bathrooms. The main lodge straight ahead has a large eating area on the left (two meals a day are prepared for you) and the large room on the right is the conference room. Bedrooms are on the main floor and it sleeps 40.Looking east.This is from the mountaintop cabin area, the old chair lift is still there. The cabin on top of the mountain is gorgeous! I went inside and looked around. This is it below, it has two floors of living area.
The view from the deck is where I took the lodge picture.This is the view to the north.

Cutting for a Retreat

I spent Friday evening and Saturday cutting pieces for two quilt tops to take to a retreat this coming weekend. The first one was Brad's graduation quilt. I had posted the fabrics here and decided this would be a great weekend to get the top stitched up. The log cabin strips are cut 2.5" so it will go pretty quickly with only 20 blocks.

The next quilt I cut is a bit more challenging. I am making Canyon Dance in queen size. I had made one in lap size for a friend in a different color scheme shown here. Here is the photo of my selection of fabrics (55 of them needed for this size!) and my piles of cut pieces.

Now I have to get the leftover fabrics put away. It called for FQ's but some of the pieces I had more than a FQ of. My batik containers are already overflowing and I can't figure out how I am supposed to fit more in. I need to stop collecting them I guess. Oh say it isn't so!

I will spend the week working on one of the many commission tops I have here. I am going to spend the rest of the day working on my Prickly Pear quilt and basting one of the commission quilts. I machine quilt them on my Janome 6500 without a frame setup.

Small Project Finished

Friday I am hosting a small group here at my house. Last month one of the members showed us how to do sashiko by providing a piece of fabric with a design traced on it and the thread and needle also. I finished my piece and made it into a 16" pillow top so I have something to show tomorrow!
I chose to NOT take pictures of that horrific snow we have. We had several inches of new snow today again. It's April and my spring break is almost over!