Catching Up on a Rainy Day

Puddles of water on our chairs

It's one of those rare ( for here) rainy, cool July mornings.  I could go out and sit on the porch, but I finally got in the mood to write in my blog and don't want to lose the chance.  I usually get my coffee and sit in the sun and read or watch the wildlife in our little neighborhood or just contemplate the day until Bob gets up and needs his breakfast.  I always have loved this quiet time to myself each morning.  Even when I was teaching and we started school at 7:00 AM I would get up early so I would have quiet time to myself.  Some of my best ideas and  thinking happens at this time.

Base Camp at the cabin.  We had extra beds in the house so many slept outside!

After our big fourth of July week with over 20 people here, I think we have recuperated!  What a great time we had.  All four of my children were here with most of their families plus we had a few extra friends that we love to have come visit.  One person dubbed our front yard "Base Camp".  I prefer that to "Tent City", which reminds me of jail in Arizona.

Some of us played ladder ball after most of the people had gone home.

Carla even brought up a portable potty with privacy tent included!  A real necessity with our one ugly bathroom (Which, by the way, is still waiting for renovations to happen!  Our life just seems to keep spiraling out of control).

Carla's portable potty tent.  Very handy for a crowd!

Even with about $300 dollars worth of groceries (some due to a power outage of the refrigerator and Danny's method of cleaning it--toss absolutely everything out including brand new mustard, Tabasco sauce and other sauces which last forever--so Kathi can scrub it out real well) and all the great food everyone brought up, we were running low on really basic stuff like salt, butter,bread--you get the picture.  Our car had a recall so we had to take it to Ft. Collins for service on the Monday that our last guests left.  While we were there, we went to Sam's and got stocked up on all the basic stuff to the tune of 400 more dollars!  Did I mention we have no grocery store any more in Walden?  (well, it 's bankrupt for the time being anyway).  We were home for a couple days getting groceries put away and me trying to get some embroidery done for the craft fair at the end of the month and then it was time to make our third attempt at getting Bob's driver's license.

One of the favorite hikes is to the lily pad pond.  It is 4.5 miles round trip and not for the wimpy ones!  Steep hills and a roaring river to cross in bare feet over slippery, sharp rocks!  Quite a group made it, though.

 Before I go on I want to clear up the refrigerator incident.  While Bob and I were in Seattle at Brendin's graduation and commissioning ceremony, a transformer was struck by lightning and threw 2 breakers( refrigerator and hot tub--weird but true).  Danny and Kathi had come up to Walden for Rodeo weekend and found the refrigerator off and very stinky.  They called and asked if we really meant to turn off that breaker.  Anyway they got stuck with spending part of their visit  cleaning out the fridge instead of with high school friends.  We are very grateful that they got that opportunity instead of what would have greeted us a week later when we got home! 

Darcy and Chris are cleaning their fish after a successful afternoon at the pond.

Now back to the Driver's license problems!  Back in March while we were still in Texas, Bob discovered that he needed to renew his driver's license before his birthday in late April.  We were not planning on being back in Colorado until mid May, so we went online to see how you get the license renewed when you aren't in state.  I found all the info and we went through all the hoops for people over 65 years old including an eye exam.  We sent in all the the paper work along with a check for $21 and waited for the license to come.  It had said it could be up to 6 -8 weeks so no big deal.  Well at 2 months I thought we should call to see what the deal was but Bob thought he had waited longer than that a couple times so we did nothing but wait for another month.  Finally the day before we left for Seattle, Bob decided maybe we needed to check on it.  I called Steamboat and they cut me short and told me people over 65 could not get a driver's license online and we had been on a fraudulent web sight.  I tried to explain that we had a cancelled check from the Colorado Department of Revenue but she insisted we had been bilked of our $21.  She wouldn't even look at her computer but did give me a phone number for resolving issues.  By the time I got done talking to her the other office was closed so I left our number.  The next day on our way between Saratoga and Rawlins I got a call from the issues department.  Yes, Bob had a license and it had been mailed on March 27.  They were very nice but said it was a Post Office issue and to deal with them. Our feeling was if we hadn't gotten it by then it was time to just say it was lost and get a duplicate.

How can anyone resist taking pictures of the Columbines.  Here's this year's offering.

When we returned from Washington and while we were stocking up on groceries for the Fourth in Steamboat, we stopped  in at the driver's license office only to find out they were not open on Friday 's and Monday's!  OK so the next attempt was on the next Tuesday.  By then JJ and Ozzie were here and were up for a trip over to Steamboat and a nice lunch at Cantina after Bob got his license.  Some of you are already laughing at us, I bet!  We got there about 10:45 and drew number 66.  There were people out on the sidewalk waiting!  They were on 50 and in the next half hour they never called another number.  They closed at 12 for an hour for lunch and still no number called.  We decided the Cantina sounded good so we enjoyed our lunch and got what we needed in Steamboat and headed home.

My latest effort.  A blingy cap.  Carla and I noticed they were all the rage in the tourist shops up in Deadwood.

The next installment of the saga happened yesterday.  We called over to the Hot Sulfur Springs Office and got all the info on what was needed and she mentioned we better come this week because she was going to have to go help them over in Steamboat for the next 3 weeks because they were having issues over there!  DUH!  Well we went over and got in line (1 person ahead of us no need for a number).  We were out of there and on our way home in less than an hour!  My only advice to North Parkers who need a driver's license is to call Hot Sulfur before heading over there!

That's it for today maybe a recipe for tomorrow.

Note to family who were at the cabin:  The baby robins (all 4 of them) just left the nest!  Bob sat there and watched them and the mother who continued to feed them on the porch.  She kept encouraging them until they finally hopped off the porch and went around the corner.  He never called me to come get pictures!

A Scrapbook of JJ's Quilt!

The final quilt!

I took a lot of pictures of JJ's quilt and decided to just post them as a little scrapbook for family and friends to look at.  They should bring back a lot of memories and I really like the embroidery I did on it too!  Now I am kind of sorry I didn't take a picture of each square!  Oh well.....

Samara,Natalie, and Alyssa Easter 2010

Grampa Ran. I love the flamingo, too!

Pug and her flowers.

Danny and Beth's wedding with the woodpecker tree in the background.  Cowboy Joe from Wyoming University.

Gradma Nita and Grampa Al with Erin and Micah.

Mm and Dad's wedding

The Harley Patch! Also Jay and Ozzie with the lovebug!

JJ's first grade picture and I couldn't forget a school bus!

How about that teapot?  Micah and Erin dressed for Kris's wedding.

Micah as a Casper trooper

The log cabin

Erin up in LaMouille Canyon

I think that is Lucho with JJ on the baler.

JJ models her quilt on the bed.

Cute!

The back of the quilt features M&Ms

JJ points to one of the quilted squares in the M&Ms

Our label is the final touch.

JJ's Quilt is Finally Done!

JJ enjoys her new quilt!

 When I got to JJ's house with my fixed sewing/embroidery machine, she was excited to get moving on the quilt that Erin and I had started, I think, seven years ago! It is a memory quilt with 27 different pictures of family and friends from years past!  Erin and I made the squres by doing iron on transfers of the pictures, which we had scanned onto the computer and then printed on special fabric transfer paper (like you do for T-shirts).  We had purchased all different kinds of M&M material showing M&Ms for all seasons.  We framed each picture with various M&M fabrics; and then it quit raining at the cabin so we put it all away and went on to outside activities.

I HAD to get the Harley patch on there somewhere.  Also that cute lovebug!

When Erin got ready to leave we sent all of the squares, extra fabric and backing material with her so she and her mom could get it finished.  Seven years later they still hadn't even gotten it out to look at it again, so it was time for me to get it finished!  I had to add a few more pictures since Micah had gotten married and had 3 girls since we started but it worked out well.

JJ's grand daughters were included.  This was last Easter!

The Woopdpecker picture and (much to her Dad's disgust and Jim and Carla's delight) Cowboy Joe from UW.

After two more trips to Twin Falls to repair the machine (out of time and then my disastrous Miss Fixit needle case breakage) and doing some creative thinking, I started putting it together.  We noticed some spots of rust from irons on some of the squares and I figured I could cover them with cute little embroideries of butterflies or flowers.  Well, they were so cute we decided to put little embroidery all over the quilt!  After that I had to figure out some kind of backing since we had used the original backing for stripping.  We finally thought we would be like the "old timers" and also be "green" so we used what we had of M&Ms material and leftover border fabric along with what was left of the backing to piece together a backing. 

The pieced backing.  Those are M&Ms.

It all worked out well and then it was time to quilt it.  I sewed around each picture, the inside and then the outside of each frame and the borders.  I bound it and made a label and it was done! 

The final touch

Woohoo!  JJ can use it as a coverlet for her bed or just for a cover while she is reading on the couch or watching TV, since Ozzie likes to keep the house quite chilly!

A very cool bed covering!

 I took a lot of pictures of individual squares that will bring back memories to most of our family so I have decided to make a little scrapbook of them on my next blog!

And there it is!

 

 

Thoughts on Quilting

The latest quilt--so far.

Now that we are settled in to Elko, I am ready to get back to blogging.  While I was in Casper Carla and I decided to make a quilt one weekend.  We had it all planned out to go to Hancocks and do our quilt shopping (usually the most fun in the quilting experience for me until cash register time!).  But, Carla got sick so we postponed for a week (that's the weekend the rest of us went up to the Veteran's Museum).  By the next weekend Carla was still not feeling too whippy and it was nasty weather so we got out her stash of cloth and did our "shopping" at home.  Our next task was to choose a pattern.  We had planned to use the one we saw in Creative Home Arts and donate it to Altzheimers research but after looking at it a second time we decided it was very uninteresting so we perused many magazines and finally realized our tastes were not running along the same lines.   Since Carla was sick and weaker than I was, my pattern won out!

It was a combination of some kind of a star and flying geese patterns.  Carla did make the comment that she didn't really like to try piecing since you have to be so exact but I was confident we could do it.  I have to explain here that I am NOT a veteran quilter.  My grandmother was a wonderful one, my mother only made 2 quilts in her life under grandmother's tutelage and that was enough for her.  So I never was around quilting and never did any until I went to Owyhee.  I learned from a master quilter up there and so I guess I got a little overconfident!  I even taught an adult ed quilting class in Wendover but it was just your basic log cabin quilt which was the first one I ever made.

The only star I have quilted so far.....

Back to our present quilt.  It ended up that Carla was sick for the rest of the time we were there so I ended up doing the whole thing!  We didn't have one of the tools used to cut certain parts of the flying geese and I was not very exact so ended up throwing away 108 little triangles that I cut wrong, ripping out and redoing 7 of the 9 big squares, redoing a 13 flying geese border maybe 3 or 4 times until I figured out the math on cutting those pesky triangles, and doing a lot of "aggressive pressing" as my quilt guru called it! Good thing I didn't have other things to do!  I have to proudly say I did not sew any goose beaks off on my final result!

Check it out.  All beaks are intact!

So the top was done by the time we left.  As I might have mentioned in another blog, my embroidery machine was again broken down so I had used Carla's cheap Brother to do this and it did a nice job.  We dropped my machine off at Twin Falls on the way to Elko and I figured I wouldn't see it for a long time since I thought he would end up sending it to Switzerland to find out what was going on with it.  We dropped it off on Saturday and by Monday afternoon Larry was on the phone saying the machine was ready!  Since it was supposed to be bad weather by the end of the week we decided to drive back up to Twin Falls and get the machine.  Now I was back in business!

This is how I decided to quilt the back.

 

The horse is one of four farm animals I used to quilt.

The pig.

The cow from the back.

Here are the hen and her chicks.

I could use my machine for some of the quilting.  I had left my plug-in cord and foot pedal at Carla's so Larry loaned me a plug-in and you really don't need a foot pedal to embroider.  So now I have the quilt almost quilted!  Then it will be time to bind it and it will be done!  WoooHooo!  JJ can hardly wait since she has a quilt Erin and I started one rainy June when Erin was visiting after her freshman year in High School (she is now 22).  It is packed away here somewhere and I guess I will have to dig it out and see what I can do with it next!  I had kind of forgotten about it and it will be a challenge! 

Erin back when we started the quilt.

Erin with her friends Eric and Brent at the cabin last fall.

Making Carla's Jacket

Carla and her dad at the Thai restaurant.  Carla is wearing her new jacket and doesn't Bob look dapper?

About 3 or 4 years ago Carla finally told me what she wanted for her jacket.  I have to go back a little farther to say that several years before, I made myself a teal colored wool jacket embroidered with colorful Jacobean flowers.

My jacket is made from 100% wool I had for my tailoring class in college!  I kept it all those years!

The back and sleeves of my wool jacket.

Then I made Marianne a fleece lined denim jacket with snowflakes on it.  After that Carla and I bought the material for her jacket and decided to think about what to put on it and the style.

The first jacket I made for Marianne using a sweatshirt for fleece lining and denim.

I used snowflake patterns and made up the border.

 Next Marianne called to see if I could make her another quick fleece lined denim jacket with lots of glitz, flowers and fringe, so I did.  Also during the last 5 or 6 years I embroidered pants for Kim and JJ plus a lot of gifts and stuff for my business.

Lots of fringe and crystals on this quilted jacket.

Marianne models the front of her glitzy jacket.

Finally about 2 years ago Carla decided she wanted me to Sashiko the jacket and have cherry blossoms on it.  We got a kind of fitted pattern which I had to adjust to fit her.  I made a muslin jacket and we fitted it to work for her.  I had to make a lot of changes in the pattern in order to Sashiko each piece with the lining, embroider the blossoms, and then sew it together and try to make it so the seams didn't show.

A closer look at the Sashiko pattern on the back.

A closer look at the Sashiko Quilting and the buttons.  Also a look at the cherry blossoms.

It took a lot of doing but I finally got the basic bodice and back parts together and about a year ago she finally got to try it on.  It was a total disaster!  Way too big and very funky looking through the front bodice part.

I decided I had to tear it all apart, and recut the embroidered pieces.  I did get it torn apart but then I was so discouraged and needed to "think about it" for awhile, that I put it away and didn't look at it.  Last summer I finally got it out and just decided to cut out the pattern exactly like the company made it and let the chips fall where they would!  I got it cut out and then my machine broke down and all fall I had problems with it so didn't do any more on it.

This winter when we had to leave the cabin I insisted on bringing my machine with me so I would have something to do while in Casper.  I finally got out the jacket and went to work sewing it back together.  Holding our breaths, Carla tried on the bodice part again.  It fit almost perfectly!!!  At that time we also decided it needed more cherry blossoms so I spent a couple days adding more and then the final fitting test came.

  I had to recut the sleeves, put on all the flounces, bind the front edges, and finally add the sleeves.  Oh, and refinish every seam on the jacket so it wouldn't show!  Carla tried it on and voila!  It fit with just one minor adjustment!  Now to make buttonholes sew on the buttons and figure out how to finish the armseyes (sleeve hole seams).  I think Carla may have a spring jacket very soon!

The back of Carla's jacket shows off  two types of Sashiko.

The front of the jacket.

 A few hours later and the jacket is done!  Carla is planning to wear it out to dinner tonight so I will take pictures.

Carla shows off her new jacket for us.

Lookin' good, Carla.