A New Toy

Okay, so it really isn't a "toy," it's more of a useful tool...

My original iron died and left us with my old one. We got this one at Costco just last week. Isn't it pretty? Well, it was...

Now it looks like this:

Because of this...

I knocked it off the board when I was laying out a t-shirt quilt. Now the carpet has a tattoo and the iron has carpet fibers baked on.  Please, if you have any idea on how to save it, let me know. Otherwise, it will be the most expensive iron I've ever purchased!!!

Might Snow...

The house and yurt from the barn

Probably not taking the Toter or the horse trailer anywhere anytime soon...

Front porch has a few feet of snow piling up from the roof and coming up past the deck...

Just getting to the yurt was a challenge.














I took this from inside the yurt. The snow is about 2-3 feet above the windows.

Snow never bothers Chloe when the horses are around.

Ba

Bailey's tail has snowballs!

Emma making her way into the barn through the snow tunnel--she practically has to duck to keep from hitting her head on the barn roof!

I think Emma may have been hanging around outside.

Farewell, My Friend

We lost our beloved Hank to lung cancer early Friday morning. Our house is empty and our hearts are heavy. We'll miss you, Bug, more than you'll ever know.

Every Quilter has a Bad Day

With my customer's permission, I'm posting her e-mail message to me:

I have a quilt top (small ~ 40x40) that I'd like to get to you at the guild mtg. It's my quilt from hell and I'm not sure if you want to quilt it.

First off....I love the material -- Katherine's [another guild member] hand-dyed fabrics, and I love the pattern -- Roxanne Carter's "Stars on Parade" but absolutely EVERYTHING that could have gone wrong DID.

I got my first 2 blocks made in the class then put everything away. When I was moving to Susanville, I was going through fabric and cleaning out (throwing out) stuff. Ran across the blocks and pieces (all in individual baggies) and said, "I think I'll keep this and complete it." Didn't happen in Susanville so I moved it to Sac. A couple months ago I was rummaging through my stuff and pulled out the "parts" and said, "I'm going to finish this!"

Well, I start working to complete block #3 and think it's looking a little different than the first two. Of course, the first two were sewn on my old machine and I had the wrong 1/4" marking. So I said, "no problem, I'll just use those two blocks for pillows or something," and continued sewing with the CORRECT seam allowance on the next blocks.

As I'm into block #5, I start thinking I'm missing some pieces. Originally I had pulled out the pieces for the first four blocks and pinned them altogether, but apparently I had thrown out a baggie full of an entire set of cut pieces when I was clearing stuff out in Quincy. In fact I can remember seeing the baggie and thinking, "what's this?" and I must have chucked it. But, I had some larger pieces (triangles) that I could cut down so I figured I'd do that and just end up with fewer blocks. No problem.

Then I get to block #7 and the dyes in the fabric start to bleed. NO problem. I'll just wash it with Retayne or whatever once it's all done.

I get the center of the blocks (only nine now due to my having to recut other pieces) done and start to work on the strips around the centers only to find I cut them incorrectly. NO Problem. I can make this happen. A little stretching [eek] here and there and life will be fine.

Then it's time to think about sashing but WAIT, I didn't cut enough sashing when I was cutting the pieces originally and now I have used all the fabric up in other projects! NO PROBLEM! I'll only sash in a couple places. It'll change the design, but this is my quilt, so I like it. Of course, I need to square everything up first and I CAN'T GET ANYTHING SQUARED!!!!

My blocks look like some wild axman has attacked them, but NO PROBLEM!!!! I'll just put the damn thing together, try to make it as square and flat as possible. Match seams? Are you f****** crazy? The HELL with matching seams, or points, or anything else!

And then I say to myself, maybe Dorothy can quilt it so it looks "ok". Maybe???????

...pretty please with fudgy brownies

If she actually shows up with the fudgy brownies, I think I'll give it a go!!!

After asking whether I could post this, she not only agreed but says she's named the quilt "Humility"--no explanation needed.

Winter Returns for a Day

The weather here has been amazing...its so springlike, I'm loving it. I am hoping for a few more good storms though to stave off fires.

This morning, however, we woke up to snow! Emma was not thrilled with the fact that she'd been left out in the pasture to suffer such a horrendous winter storm. All the ponies were happy when we showed up early with their breakfast.

A picture of Chloe doing her usual fence run and then jumping around with her feet just barely inside the pasture watching us feed. She loves her horses!

And Hank...have you ever seen a cuter dog???

Another Quilt from Jan

Jan, the creator of the beautiful quilt in my last post, also sent along this little quilt that she made for a friend. It was so simple and sweet, that I decided to quilt it that way as well.

I followed the lines in the fabric to create a plaid effect in the background, accented the sunflower and created feathers on the bird. Simple quilting, but anything else would have overpowered the quilt, making it so you noticed the quilting and not the quilt.

My favorite part...the back. Here you can see the feathers in the bird's wing as well as the "seeds" in the sunflower.

A Quilt from Asilomar

Okay, the quilt isn't exactly from Asilomar. Last year when I attended Janet Fogg's class at Empty Spools, I met Jan who was also taking the class.  Jan actually finished her class project, unlike others who shall remain nameless, and sent it to me for quilting.

This is what I received:

After much consultation, this is the finished product. Personally, I thought feathers would have looked good, but since the picture is of her son-in-law and since the quilt is for her son-in-law, she actually thought that feathers would be too girly. Go figure!























I quilted every other yellow and blue pieced ray with a maze design to give the rays definition. Then I quilted the entire mountain with the same maze pattern. On the fabric photo, I used Madeira's monofilament (love that stuff) to quilt around her son-in-law, outlining him and filling in where there were clothing changes and anyplace that would add definition to his photo.  The backgrounds were stitched with Rainbows Waikiki in the sky and Bottom Line Lace White in the clouds and snow.

It was a really fun quilt to work on; hope her son-in-law likes it!