Design Wall Monday and other stuff

Where did June go?  I was so busy until school got out on June 11th, then had several things to get done and our daughter Amy, her husband Nate and their two kids arrived on the 19th.  We left with them on the 26th and came back on the 29th.  It was a great get away.

Now to catch up on the things I did get done recently!

My blog post for Quiltmaker's Quilty Pleasures Scrap Squad went live on June 19th.  I used the Hero's Homecoming pattern in the current issue of Quiltmaker and made Dogwoods in Bloom.  I love this one.  I decided to make a version in patriotic colors to donate to one of the military groups.  It is not quilted yet, but hopefully by the end of the summer it will be!

Dogwoods in Bloom.  Quilty Pleasures Blog for June.

Hero's Homecoming top for Quilty Pleasure blog

Today I finished machine quilting this quilt that I pieced in March for a graduation gift.  It's just a bit 

late!  I have the binding ready to apply and will finish it by machine as well.

Stepping Stones for Lindsay.

I used all the leftover fabrics to piece a back.

 I am very behind on the QuiltmakerIttyBitty blocks.  I only have January done but I have all the rest cut out through June.  July was just posted yesterday.  These are two baskets from February.  I am making two of each 4" block.

Itty Bitty Baskets 4"

 A neighbor asked me to quilt this signature quilt for her.  It was in her family and assembled by her great grandmother.  She knew I would not be handquilting it, but she just wanted it finished to display.  I need to hand stitch the binding but it's been way too hot here and we don't have an air conditioned house!

Antique signature quilt

 We left on the 26th for Boise and visited our daughter Lisa and husband Kevin and seeing their newly purchased house.  Amy and her family went the rest of the way to their home in Utah the next day.  We also went to a wedding on the 27th of one of our son's friends, where Brad was honored as an honorary groomsman.  On the 28th we drove to Oregon.  I should do a whole post on that trip.  We were going to go there two years ago with Brad to see the homestead sites of Doug's great great grandfather and great grandfather.  Brad had been the one who found the locations and Doug had put them into his GPS at the time.  We did see the homestead sites and also the Oregon Trail Intrepetive Center in Baker City where we got to see the actual wagon train ruts that they had actually traveled on.  We also went to Wallowa Lake and went up on the Tram.  The views are gorgeous.  We hiked all the trails, having gotten to the tram shortly after 9 AM when it opened.  We came back home the evening of the 29th.

Me at the top of Mt. Howard.  

Doug looking at the homestead site of his great great grandfather

Wallowa Lake

sign at the summit, we could definitely harder to breathe at a higher elevation

Linking up with Patchwork Times.  I was also nominated for a Lovely Blog Award quite some time ago so I plan to get that post done too if I ever stay home long enough!  

Quilt a Day #48

I keep forgetting to post a picture! I have some down below. You can skip the next couple of paragraphs if you don't want to read about my ongoing medical saga!

Yesterday was a long day, with a 6 hour round trip drive to a new specialist and a long Dr. visit with more tests. The Dr. was great and he has never actually treated someone with my exact diagnosis which is Sarcoidosis with the TINU subgroup. Sarcoidosis is inflammation in the body usually caused by a virus and settling in joints and lungs, hence me going to a rheumatologist. My Sarcoidosis didn't do that, instead it was in my kidneys and eyes which is the TINU portion. Less than 200 people have been diagnosed with this since 1975!

If my SED rate is still headed downwards I will not have any medication, just blood monitoring, if it's gone up they will give me a medicine to take for awhile. I had a chest x-ray to check for glanulomas (I think) on my lungs. After my visit we went across the street to the hospital to visit a 4 yo neighbor boy who got a severe infection from falling off a scooter and had to have surgery. I have his older brother as a student. The boy is doing better and hopefully will be home in a week.

My middle child graduates from college a week from today and my youngest is finishing his first year of college. My oldest is teaching Math in Utah so in honor of them I am posting their graduation quilts all in one group. All three were class valedictorians.

The first quilt is Amy's finished the day of her graduation, May 28, 2005! However, this is just a photo of the top, somewhere I must have the completed quilt, but couldn't find the photo. she is into the country look and we picked up FQ's here and there for about a year before and she picked the pattern.
Next is Lisa's finished a couple weeks before her graduation May 28, 2006, exactly 30 years after her dad and I graduated from the same high school! Lisa loves bright colors and we collected her fabrics and she wanted a star quilt. The cat wouldn't get off the quilt!Last is Brad's quilt. He wanted something simple and outdoorsy. He would have liked a little more blue, but these are the fabrics I accumulated. It has a flannel backing.

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.

My Baby Graduates this Year

My third and youngest child graduates from high school this year. It's also our 25th wedding anniversary three weeks later so it's a milestone year. Brad is following in his sister's footsteps and graduating as valedictorian (how did we get so lucky?) and will be going onto college majoring in agriculture/plant breeding. Doug and I graduated together from the same high school as the kids in the top ten, but we can't remember ever speaking a word to each other and we had a class of 93 students! We met again five years later, courtesy of my sister!

I digress, I stopped in at a little LQS to start collecting fabric for Brad's graduation quilt. We had decided on a log cabin quilt in a "nature" theme. He is an extreme outdoors kid and has studied forestry in 4-H. Little did I know I would walk out of the shop with all the fabric for the quilt including the backing!
Three greens for one side of the log cabin plus the center fabric, ignore my sewing room floor! The carpet was a renmant and is covering concrete!Three browns for the other side of the block along with the center fabric again. Oops this one is blurry, those are pine prints, except the top one which is wheat. The fabrics are in the washer, I will have to replace this photo!The backing. I will be adding a dark green strip and putting the moose piece down the middle and strips on either side of the bear. These are flannel, a request of Brad's since he likes to use my flannel quilt watching TV!

I dug out Amy's graduation quilt photo from 2005. She picked all the fabrics and pattern. I copied it from webshots so it came out small! Amy has already graduated from college and is teaching Jr.High math.
Here is Lisa's from 2006, notice how radically different the color choices are! Smokey the cat loves quilts! Lisa is a college Jr. majoring in Bio Engineering.

I still need to get all my quilt photos off the other computer and onto my thumb drive so I can access them easier.

My other news is there is also a new LQS in my small town of 3,000 people and I also stopped in there and was asked to be featured quilter for March. I am trying to support both shops because I like everybody and I like fabric!