Field Trip, Quilting, Walking

School is out!  Last week was super busy.  Monday we took a field trip to Elk Creek Falls and the largest Western Red Cedar tree east of the Cascade Mountains.  It's a long bus ride and the falls are about a 4 mile round trip walk to see all 3 of the falls, but our class made it! It is a series of 3 waterfalls, the middle one being 70 feet high.  

Upper Falls

Middle Falls - 70 ft

Lower Falls - 50 ft.

giant cedar - hard to get the perspective of size.

We also had field trips Tuesday and Wednesday digging for garnets (Idaho's gem) and a museum for Idaho history.  Thursday was our end of school BBQ and awards. 

I finished quilting my Ultra Violets quilt and gifted it to our music teacher.  This wonderful woman has been volunteering for 15 years in our school teaching music, art, organizing our monthly hot lunches (yes our students normally bring their own lunch) and putting on amazing winter programs.  Her youngest child of four kids was leaving our school this year, moving on to junior high. She will continue to volunteer for music but is cutting down on other activities. She loves purple and has been so generous over the years to myself and the other aides and teachers, giving us gifts for every occasion.  I have an incredible number of quilts and didn't need this one.  I took a couple pictures in my pasture.  She was thrilled to receive the quilt and overwhelmed.  She received some other gifts as well and is so giving as a pastor's wife, it was hard for her to be on the receiving end!

Saturday I participated in the Maniac Dam Race.  I am a walker, not a runner. I took the first picture at the viewpoint where the race started.  This is the highest straight axis dam in North America and third highest dam in the country.  The reservoir is 53 miles long and this dam is just 8 miles from my house.  

 Looking down from the top.

Another view.  For a year in the late 90's we had to drive up and over this dam to get to town while the bridge in the distance was being replaced.  It made the trip MUCH longer!

 Beginning of the lake.

My high school mascot is the Maniac.  I had my picture taken with him after the race!  Normally the top of the dam is closed and has been since 9/11 but for this occasion with ID you can cross the dam and back.

Linking up to Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

Busy Month!

Happy Memorial Day.  I am grateful to everyone who has served this great country.  This is my flag on the front of my house today.  

May is one of my busiest months of the year.  I have squeezed in some quilting, but not as much as I would have liked.  We had a very wet spring, and that caused a huge delay in spring planting on the farm, so May has been go, go, go.  I also had all my end of the year testing for my school, I was in charge of administration of that and I'm glad it's over.

We just have 7 days of school left and although I have a huge list of house projects to get done this summer, generally I do those in the mornings and spend my afternoons quilting!  I have had massive amounts of yardwork to do (and still do, trying to hire help, but having difficulty with that).  I also made a weekend trip to visit my daughters, grandkids and sisters.  It was a lot of fun watching my grandson play t-ball and my granddaughter in a dance recital at age 3!

Now to some things I have accomplished, or tried to anyway!

charity lap quilt I quilted for my guild, it was given to us as a top

backing I had on had

finished tool panel lap quilt for charity

block closeup

backing that was provided, but I had to piece it with some extra to make it big enough

lightweight denim backing I had on hand

printed fabric I added a back to and quilted for charity

all 110 Canyon Dance blocks sewn and pressed, but not squared up

project I am machine quilting to give as a gift

I am linking up to the new home of Design Wall Monday.  Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Getting my Quilting Mojo Back!

I am getting my quilting mojo back and it feels great!  This weekend I was able to get several lap size quilt tops ready for quilting and got three of them quilted as of this evening. I will post photos once they are done.  They will be donated to our local care center or other organizations my guild donates too.  

I realized I had not posted my finished top of leader/ender tumblers.  It is busy, and it took a couple years, but it is a great size for a veteran or injured soldier, depending on which organization I donate it to when it's quilted.  It didn't turn out like I had planned!

 Here is my completed top from the pattern Rhubarb Pie by Madison Cottage Designs.  It is about twin size/large throw.  I added leftover strips for borders pieced together and on person I made the top/bottom and sides different.  I named mine Blue Hawaiian after an adult beverage I had in Hawaii last year.

lumpy yard

on the front deck

back deck with my crazy dog herding a piece of drain tile.  Farm buildings in the background.

Lots of cutting, some piecing

Another month flew by!  How can that be?  I was very busy in April and along with some home dec sewing, hemming a wedding dress with 5 layers, and a lot of cutting of projects.  I had groupings of fabric and I cut 8 projects!  I still have a big mess, but I have made progress. For home dec, I couldn't find the valance I wanted for the dining room, but I found fabric and then decided to do new valances for the family room.  Along with that I made some chair cushion covers for a chair that belonged to my MIL.  My daughter wanted the chair and I had already purchased fabric so I made the covers, complete with zipper plackets. Now I have not been able to find a chair I like to replace it!  I will keep looking.

I went to a quilt retreat this past weekend and made a little progress with some piecing.  For quite some time I have had the pattern Rhubard Pie by Madison Cottage Design.  The pattern showed the quilt and variations made in green and pink.  I LOVE turquoise and black and whites and started cutting.  I ended up with more quilt blocks than I planned (and have strips leftover) and as is this quilt would have finished at 72 X 80 without borders.  I didn't need a quilt that size so I took some of the blocks off.  Here are all the blocks together.

Rhubarb Pie diagonal layout

 This size is better, it would finish at 56 X 72 without borders.

 I chose a couple different layouts for the remaining blocks.  I like the second option best.

My quilt guild is small, but does a lot of charity quilt work. Someone was moving and giving away fabric.  I was given a couple sets of panels of tool fabrics.  I cut them apart and adding a sashing and now have a nice lap/throw quilt for a care center resident whenever it gets quilted!  I have backing for it as well.

I trimmed the panels as well as I could to get a smidgen of black around the panel blocks.  I think it adds a lot to the quilt top.

Several years ago I made a couple Canyon Dance quilts.  I have an exorbitant amount of batiks and these quilt blocks are so easy to piece and are cut with acrylic templates.  I cut up 55 batik FQ's and will have a total of 110 blocks when I am done for a king size quilt.  I have 30 pieced.  I will donate this to charity.... maybe...  I already have one.  The link to it is HERE.   I also made two in earth tones and gifted them and got one back when the friend passed away.  I then used it as a prize in my blog giveaway last year.  Link is HERE. 

That is my excitement for now!

Finished a Quilt!

I still haven't gotten caught up on sharing pics of projects I have been working on, but I pre-entered two quilts in a quilt show that was this weekend.  One was done and the other was just a top!  I worked hard last weekend and into mid week and finished it!  It is a Judy Niemeyer paper pieced pattern called Crown of Thorns.  Nothing like a little pressure!  The other quilt I entered was my green/lime/black quilt shown here.

Crown of Thorns 72 X 72

closeup

closeup

I was surprised to receive a first place ribbon in machine quilting, non-professional!  It matches the quilt!

My daughter's "twin" is having a baby in June.  They met their freshman year in high school and found out they had the same birthday.  Lisa bought this panel (and coordinating backing) and I machine quilted it, going around the animals.

 These are blocks I started at quilt camp in early March.  They are distorted from the camera angle and the brown carpet does nothing for them!  I haven't touched them since, I have some of the arcs pieced.

I did a bit of stash enhancement at the quilt show today, buying some Kaffe fabrics and found a grouping of bright fabrics that I REALLY wanted, but I need to plan a quilt and then drive to that shop.  I came home with lots of inspiration from the show!

Linking up with Patchwork Times.  

A New Bed Quilt for Me!

I have had a very busy March and not as much sewing as usual, but I did accomplish a few things.  This top was actually completed Saturday.  I started it at a quilt retreat at the beginning of March.  It gets added to my HUGE pile of quilts to be quilted.  

Back story on it.... Last fall I was with friends at a quilt shop and the owner was showing us a quilt she was going to make for her granddaughter.  The pattern was Blueberry Granola by Madison Cottage Design.  I already owned the pattern and ran back and got 3 charm packs of the Catalina Ultra Violet line by Marti Michell.  I got home and looked at my pattern and realized 3 charm packs would only make a baby size quilt.  I found a FQ pack online of the entire line (28 fabrics) and eventually cut it all up into 5" charm squares.  I only have 8 squares left out of all those 5" squares! 

I got the border fabric at my LQS, she didn't have the whole line but happened to have a stripe and the black.  This will be new a top quilt for our bed.  I have always loved purple floral fabrics!

I had a closeup, not sure where it went and I have to head to work!


Linking up with Judy L at Patchwork Times.

Where Did February Go?

I can't believe February ends tomorrow!  For being a short month, it has been very long for me.  It has been a sick month but fortunately I am on the mend thanks to a trip to the Dr.  I have never had such ear pain from congestion and infections.  I even took sick time, unheard of for me!  I should have taken more, but it's tough to organize for a sub with my little 9 person zoo, aka Kindergarten and First Grade.  

This was my view this morning on my drive to school.  The school is at the top of this hill.  It's a good thing we didn't take the snow tires off!

I finished the Dr. Seuss quilt and it is hanging at school.  I just did a simple all over quilting.  This is an original design.  I cut the panels and some of the extra fabrics and then started cutting filler strips as I went along.  The word strip in the center was an edge strip on the panel piece.  All my photos seem blurry.  I do need a new phone, but I think I also moved each time!

Dr. Seuss, original design

closeup

backing, leftover scraps, plus additional stash pieces

My other accomplishment was making this Catch All Caddy.  I have had the pattern for a while and will be going to a quilt retreat this coming weekend.  This will help keep my stuff organized.  I am happy with it, the only issue I had was the final binding.  It was too bulky to machine stitch it down so I hand stitched it after it was on.  I look forward to filling it with my goodies for quilt camp!

I previously mentioned getting new floors.  Here is a before and after.  You can see why I wanted to update the old stuff!!!  I absolutely love it!  It's so easy to care for!  I like my new darker gray walls I painted too.  I finally got the house back together this weekend.

I have also been getting things ready for quilt camp. 

Linking up with Patchwork Times.

Not Much Sewing

I have done very little in the quilting department lately.  I hope to fix that soon.  I have sewn some rows on my tumbler quilt and sorted through some things but mostly it's all been time working on our house. We built our house and moved in 20 years ago and I have been slowly updating.  Now it's new flooring on most of our main floor.  That has involved tearing out carpet (and a million staples!) tearing off baseboards, scrubbing and painting.  Thank heavens some of our flooring stays and they just go over top of it with the new. Our flooring is being delivered tomorrow and our contractor is coming up Wednesday!  I don't know how long it will all take, but I'm looking forward to it.   

This weekend I just had to do something creatively so I got out some Dr. Seuss fabric I have had for quite a few years.  I don't even know how I accumulated it!  At school we do a "Read Across America" on Dr. Seuss' birthday in March so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to work on this project.  I had a piece of fabric with 10 panels on it, different sizes and I finally just started cutting to be in increments of 2".  I cut some of the companion fabrics and placed the whole thing on my design wall and drafted it and cut filler pieces.  That is the stage it is in now.  It really will all fit together according to my graph paper! 

Dr. Seuss in progress

check out other projects at Patchwork Times.