Momentos from the cabin

Our cabin in the mountains will be a fond memory for many years to come. Not going there anymore will seem strange, but I have many momentos.  Actually we brought alot of "things" back home, and have found uses for a few.  Like the "garage art" that used to hang over our beautiful stone fireplace.  I didn't want to fold it up and leave it in a stack somewhere, so I decided to hang it where no one can get real close to critique it.  It was a quilt I made when I was still just a seamstress.  Probably the last one before I jumped head first into real quilting.  On this quilt I did some hand embroidery, some fusible applique, then pieced the border.  Didn't know I made bear paw cornerstones at the time... it was just a block that fit the theme.  I hand quilted in a few places and used a fancy stitch to machine stitch lines in the outside border.  I had no clue how a binding was supposed to be sewn on.  There was no real plan, it just kind of came together as I progressed along. This quilt is suspended so that you can walk under it without hitting your head.  Our garage is almost two stories high.


One of the bigger items to come back with us is my  cutting table.  It folds up pretty compact, but it still needs to be stored somewhere.  Well last week we found a use for this table. We sometimes enjoy putting puzzles together, but it requires a big table space and you have to be able to cover it up or move it because they typically take several days to put together.  When we first thought to bring it in to temporarily set it up in front of the fireplace we were trying to figure out how we could cover the puzzle in progress so that the cats don't walk all over it and lose the pieces.  I just happened to have an extension for my design board that folds up so I can put it away when I don't need it.  It is flannel covered coraplast board that is 24" by 48" when folded (it has a hinge) and opens up to 8' long... so that means we open it up and spread out the pieces, then when we are done for the evening... close the top down over the puzzle.  The added bonus to this setup is... I'm not going to load it up with stuff like my cutting table gets loaded, so when I want to pin something or have an open table to spread something out... my closed puzzle cover works great.

We even brought back a puzzle we had bought about 10 years ago that we never opened out at the cabin.  The bag inside is sealed and it looks like brand new.  It has 1,000 pieces and the picture on the box is pretty obscure, and there is no picture inside the box, so it looked very intimidating... the reason we never opened it.  My husband did a search online and found the puzzle is selling on eBay for a pretty good price.  I think we have decided that is the best thing for us to do.  It's called Buried Blueprints, and they are definitely buried.  We could probably buy a couple puzzles that we could complete for the price we could sell this one that would be too frustrating.  Puzzles are supposed to be a fun past-time.