Another Month Gone by

Note, the new photo on my blog title. Description below!

I can't believe it happened again. Another month went by. I have done some painting in my house, put in extra hours at work due to my boss's appendectomy, went to the big quilt show in Spokane or two days and did some sewing. I made my dad two heavyweight flannel shirts for his birthday this week. I am quilting on a commission quilt, but my big accomplishment was an original quilt I finished yesterday and delivered.

It started as a Brown Bag Challenge at Becky's Fabrics in Lewiston. I purchased a bag with three fabrics in it, but of course I couldn't see the fabrics. I kept procrastinating (story of my life) and had to do something. I just started cutting and made a strata using some fabrics in my stash and one of the challenge fabrics.

I then cut 6" squares from different directions on the strata and interspersed some squares of the focus fabric and assembled the top. I added a border of the floral, then cut paper flowers and played with placement and sizes. I did not use fusible web, just put some fusible thread under the edges of the flower shapes I cut to hold them down enough to heavily stitch them. I used batting, but no backing at this stage. I heavily machine quilted the piece and added yarns and beads. Once I was finished I fused a backing onto the quilt and bound it. I didn't have to worry about hiding knots on the back this way! The finished quilt measures about 36 X 41. I got it entered one day before the deadline, I can't wait to get into the shop during the month of November to see all the challenge pieces!

Yuck, painting prep work!

This year we are hosting DH's family for Thanksgiving. Two years ago when we hosted there were about 35 people here counting us. That means it's time for my biannual spruce up the house thing. 11 years ago when we moved in all the walls were painted white. I painted them myself after doing all the texturing on the sheetrock also. I have been adding color here and there, but I have determined I only like one brand of paint, I just hope I can still find it! I used the 7 star Ace Hardware paint initially and that stuff is scrubbable and wonderful. The Behr from Home Depot is tolerable, and don't get me started on that nasty Color Place stuff from Walmart. I even tried the expensive Kilz II paint for the kids bathroom. YUCK!

Anyway today I have been scrubbing and prepping for painting, starting with my bathroom. My grandma had a completely lavendar/purple bathroom, down to purple tile! I am a purple fanatic, so that end I am going to paint my bathroom a pale lavender. I have a cool round robin quilt top in purple, white and turquioise I am going to put white on the back of and quick turn it adding ties for a shower curtain.

Now tomorrow it's off to Lewiston and Moscow for paint and supplies and oh yeah food. I hope I can still spend a day of my 4 day weekend quilting, I haven't done as much of that lately! Oh and I need to buy some some cool new bathroom accessories too!

Walking for Fitness

I'm easily amused. On my daily walk Monday I took my camera along. Too bad it was very smoky that day so most of my view pics didn't turn out well. The first pic is of my house, well kind of, it's way off in the distance about a mile away in those trees in the center of the picture. Just to the left of center you can see a metal thing, that is our grain elevator leg. We have home storage bins for wheat. I have a straight walk, it's just very hilly! Down in the hole to the left is DH's cousin's house, their son and my son are the same age and carpool to school. Then I took a picture of my shadow!

Farming

I just thought this was a cool perspective picture. I saw it flashing across as one of the hundreds of pics my son has as a screen saver on the other computer and said I needed a copy. He is 17 and takes pictures galore. We seem to own three of this type of tractor, that would have been even a cooler picture! The Great Plains drill is in front, don't ask me what the implement is hooked up to the second tractor is though. I can never keep all those straight.

However farmer boy sure knows his stuff. When he was 7 or 8 I had to drive grain truck for several days due to my FIL's medical emergency. I had no clue what I was doing, so Brad would ride along to tell me what to do and when to shift into those lower and upper gears. After several days we had some company and he wanted to play with his cousins and asked if I could drive by myself! Of course this is also the kid who drove a pickup when he was two! DH put the pickup in gear in the field and Brad stood on the seat and steered while DH sprayed weeds from the back!

It's October? Good grief!

So much for being a better blogger! I get behind and think everything is outdated so I don't end up posting. This is a picture of the "bag lady" exchange top the recipient recieved Monday. Sharon made me the gorgeous curvy top a couple posts ago and this is what I made in exchange. We could send blocks or fabric or a combination, but everything had to fit in a one gallon bag. Sharon sent 9 blocks and some fabrics and after much procrastination this is what I came up with. I added green and happened to find some of the same periwinkle blue in some of the blocks. It was a very fun exchange and I would love to get my top quilted up soon!

I didn't even put pictures of my 4 blue ribbons and best of show on my blog! Our county fair was in mid September and I entered 4 quilts in the professional category. It's easier to win where there is no competition! I swear the judge wasn't nearly as hard on my quilts as she was on the others. One should never in a million years have gotten a blue ribbon, but she didn't even turn it over!

I judged a different county fair last weekend and it is tough picking best of show. I gave this little quilt judges choice, although I only gave it an honorable mention during judging. This photo was from last April hanging at the Moscow, ID quilt show and the quilt belongs to Lisa Puckett. It's interesting judging a fair where you have seen quilt , know the maker and she was standing beside you while you judge!