Great Mail Day!

On my A Dozen Done yahoo group we had a bag lady swap. We were partnered up with someone and put fabrics, blocks or both in a bag and sent it to our partner for them to make something. Today I received my awesome top from Sharon T. in northwest WA. I am thrilled with the top as I absolutely love curves and had no clue what to do with those two odd blocks. I sent an assortment of batiks along. I am working on Sharon's and will have it done this weekend. I had changed my mind about 100 times on which fabic went where and finally just had to start in. I had the border worked on long ago, I just need to figure out how to set the blocks she sent!

Goofing off with Journal Pages

Life has been hectic lately. I had 3 potlucks in less than a week, started back to work Monday, with school starting tomorrow. I really do enjoy working at a one room school and thankful that I only work part time. In the meantime I decided to finish up a couple samples I made in workshops at the Western Regional 4H Leaders Forum last March. I was on scholarship as a first time attendee so I took a couple leadership classes and the rest were fun classes. I took one on embellishing and didn't really have a plan so I decided to make a journal page. The instructor had some patterns available and most people brought shirts or something to embellish. I had fabric! The rose is really more lavendar and done with Angelina fibers and a few crystals and stitching. I finished it up tonight, 8 1/2" X 11".

The next class was on felted wool. The instructor had lots of wool and told us how to look for wool items and how to felt it. She had needles, and pearl cotton and said "make something". A lot of women in the class were distressed, I again decided to do a journal page so I just just started cutting and stitching. She let us keep the needle and take extra pearl cotton home to finish our projects. It looks wonky in the picture, it really is, because I didn't have pins and afterall it's folk arty and made without a real plan. I backed it with a pieced of fabric and turned it then added a row of stitches around the outer edge and have another finished project today!


Actually I made this third journal page Saturday. I just got it out of order! My friend Penny gave us all Crystal Light containers and I had been saving leftover thread cuttings for a long time. When I machine quilt I trim threads and throw them over my shoulder! I then scoop up a bunch and put them in the container. I just wanted to play with something so I laid out the threads on a piece of fabric and started stitching them down. That was tricky because they wanted to go everywhere! I could have done something like put tulle over it but I didn't want that effect. if you squint it almost looks like a landscape! I enjoyed the break from bigger things while making these!

American Hero quilt top

I am a supporter of the American Hero quilt project. My friend Deb sent me the star blocks for this along with the strip blocks and layout. She had it for a long time and thought that someone could benefit from the top. My wa-state-quilters yahoo group was doing a sew-in last Saturday to work on projects for this cause and I am a little too far from Tacoma so I got this top together at home. I will mail the top off this week.

Wallhanging for a friend

This wallhanging is one I finished for my friend Debi recently, the same one I made the redwork wallhanging for. She had the 4 big blocks beautifully hand appliqued for several years. The pattern was in an older Quilt Sampler and Deb had ordered a kit for it, called Prairie Rose. I made all the pieced sashing/border and hand appliqued the star blocks and set it together and machine quilted it. I didn't tell Deb I was sending it to her! It's 50" square.

Nothing too Exciting

I haven't had anything very exciting to write about. Just the mundane stuff, like it's too hot, weeding the yard and garden, grocery shopping, you get the picture.

I am working on a couple projects which I will be able to post pictures of eventually.

Let's see do you want to know about my UFO's I have to work on and the fact that I keep wanting to start new projects? Now I know there are some people who can stay more on task than me, I wonder if they give lessons?

I love a clean house and work on that alot. However, my sewing room is another story. It's just so cluttered and out of order all the time it drives me nuts. Yet if I spend time cleaning it up it's hard to work in here. It must be my creative genius at work!

I told myself I was going to keep my blog more active, but I guess I have a dull life! Harvest is in full swing, one of my girls and her boyfriend will be here tomorrow for a few days and school starts the 27th.

I wonder how I am going to manage walking once school starts? I have to be at work before I normally get back. My next fun walk is Sept. 6th, it should be more level than the last one but I am still walking these hills up here!

Finish for a Friend

Last night I finished this wallhanging. It is 20" square. My friend Deb had gotten the machine embroidered center quite some time ago and some Romance in Redwork fabrics. When I visited her this summer she sent it all home with me to make a wallhanging from. The two girls in the picture reminded her of two girls she used to babysit and this will be for their mother. I just started cutting and sewing Saturday and this is what I ended up with. I machine quilted it and bound it and I can check something off my list!

One of these days I need to learn to actually make square things look square in a picture!

Harvest Time

I'm on a roll! 3 posts in one day. I really do intend to spread them out more evenly but I am making up for lost time. This is a picture of one of our combines in our winter wheat. This field is at the lowest elevation of our farm fields and usually the earliest to harvest. It's overlooking the Clearwater River above Lenore and the photo was taken by my 17 year old son.

Quilt Shop Hopping

I have never gone on a quilt shop hop before. They were all too far away and would take too long. I did a couple shops long ago with my friend Nikki but never most of a hop or in this case all of a hop! The hop was called Crazy 8 and there were 12 shops in north central Idaho and eastern WA. Three friends and I went to three shops Friday afternoon, then started early Saturday and hit the other 9 shops. I was our "gps" cutting across on country roads in the middle of nowhere to get to some of the shops. Two of them were in homes and we got some great cool stuff as shown in the picture!

This picture is of all my purchases. It's quite shocking when I laid them all out together! I decided to make a queen size Canyon Circles quilt and it takes 55 FQ's. I got more than FQ's, those are the two piles on the right. I had over 40 pieces already in the blue/purple/green range that would work. The other stuff was all "just because". No, I don't want to add up all the receipts!

It was great fun and I even had a full house in my hand of cards. After 5 shops you could trade a card in to try to get a good hand. I don't know what happens with those, but we had to sign each card as we got it so there was no trading in your carload of quilters!

The Idaho shops were in Orofino, Kooskia, Grangeville, Deary, Viola, Moscow (2), Lewiston (2) and the Washington shops were in Pullman, Palouse and Pomeroy.

My First Fun Walk

I have to face it. I have not been in good physical condition. With all my thyroid problems this past year and then surgery it's been hard to exercise regularly. After surgery in June I started walking. On Sunday, August 3rd I did my first 5k walk in Cottonwood, ID at the Raspberry Festival. My friend Rosan is in much better shape and I told her to go ahead. I had been walking on a hilly road, but hadn't gone 3.1 miles before, the first half all uphill! My time was 54.35, 6 weeks and 6 days after surgery so I am thrilled. I got a cool shirt, although I have never worn yellow in my life!My guild friends do notice yellow in almost all my quilts lately though. I used to say I disliked yellow! I even painted my dining room yellow. I think I will wear the shirt to guild!

Hectic Summer

Time flies so fast, it's unreal! In June I had a fantastic quilt retreat in Leavenworth, WA at Dee's Country Accents with members of my Washington State Quilters internet group. I came home on June 15th and had surgery on June 16th. Time was spent recuperating and then it was gung ho back into quilting, although I was thrilled I had some restrictions and couldn't do heavy lifting or vacuuming!

The second weekend of July I took a class from Terrie Kralik and this is my finished wallhanging, start to finish in three days, complete with binding. I hadn't planned ahead and didn't even have my book so I took fabrics from my stash and winged it. I changed her pattern in the book A Forest of Quilts slightly. She was a delightful teacher who let us work on whatever we wanted from her books or patterns.

Last week I made this quilt, Canyon Circles for a friend of mine. It's all batiks and I loved how easy it was to do. It's taller than my son, so I would say it's a nice lap/throw size. I had lost contact with this friend for about 5 years and she wrote to me at Christmas. We have birthdays two days apart so I thought this would be a great surprise since she doesn't get to spend much time quilting. It's definitely more earthy than my usual color scheme.

The other big news was turning 50 on July 29th. I am proud of it and insisted on no party, but I had two small parties with family. I love my new iPod so I guess it was worth it!