Arizona in June

June is always a busy time of year.  Both of my daughter-in-laws have birthdays, then right after those birthdays comes my husband's, then a few days later mine comes along, and a week later is my brother's.  Today is my mother-in-law's birthday and two weeks ago was their anniversary.  I'm really bad about doing birthday cards.  It's not that I'm opposed to sending them out, but time seems to slip away and it gets to be too late. 

My husband and I do not make a big deal about birthdays or any other designated day when you typically give each other gifts.  We buy each other gifts whenever... we don't have to wait for a reason.  Two months ago my husband decided to buy himself the Corvette he had wanted for a long time.  It was kind of one of those things you think you'd like to have one of these days... and he decided that the day had arrived.  We are both enjoying it very much.  I always thought they were pretty cars, but I had heard that the ride was not very comfortable for any long distance driving.  Well, I want to tell you that it is very comfortable, with lots of leg room.... of course I'm comparing it to the Miata we had just prior to the Corvette.  Unlike the Miata's limited storage space, we have plenty of room for whatever luggage we want to take along for a trip.  We plan on doing lots of cruising in this awesome car. This week was our first real trip in the Corvette.  We are currently in Arizona visiting family.  Our grandson really thinks the Corvette is cool.  Our son got to take his wife for a ride in it last night and the stories he had to tell when he got back to the house of their experiences in the car were quite entertaining.

I have enjoyed perusing through a few quilt shops in the last several days.  I have not made any major purchases, but I did find lots of fat quarters.    I used my Quilters' Travel Companion as my guide to find some of the shops along the way.  Cowgirl Up in Benson Arizona was a real treat with lots of western-centric fabric.  We are staying in a little town just outside of Tucson, so I have had the opportunity to visit a couple more shops in the greater Tucson area.  I don't have a picture of the first one we found.  I forgot my camera back at the house... but it was quite a find.  It had more fabric than I have seen in one place in a very long time.  My DIL has driven by the place numerous times and never dreamed it was a real quilt shop.  It is kind of out of town and in the desert. Of course she is not a quilter, so it had not even crossed her mind to go check it out.
 
She did help me find two other shops yesterday.  The Quilter's Market had a really nice baby room as well as lots of area specific fabric.  I was on the lookout for a specific piece of fabric for a friend and the lady at Bella Quiltworks was more than willing to advise me of other places to try.

 

I'm really enjoying the time here with our grandson.  He is 7 and quite the young man.  I went to VBS with him yesterday... his mother was a volunteer so she invited me to share in their last day.  Several people came up to me and told me how happy they were to see that I had arrived safely.  It seems that he had asked everyone more than once to pray for the safe arrival of his grandma and grandpa from Texas.

I know they say it is hot in Arizona, but it is a "dry" heat.  I can't see any significant difference from the hot we experience back in Texas.  If it is hot, it is just plain hot.  When you live in a hot environment, you know how to deal with it, so it really isn't a big deal.... but it is still HOT.  Oh yes, fires and smoke is a big topic lately with all the wildfires in Arizona.  We saw some smoke on our trip coming in, but mostly in New Mexico.  We saw some hazy skylines in various places along the way... but nothing significantly close.

Complete with binding...

A few months ago Ron asked me when I was going to finish a quilt for our bed.  I quilt alot of quilts for friends, but when it comes to mine, I can't make up my mind how I am going to design my quilting, so I put off doing them.  Well, I decided to bite the bullet and put my Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt on the frame and get it done. 

I put it on the frame last week, thinking it would go quickly.  I had put so much time in the piecing of the quilt that I didn't want to short change on the quilting.  I added some special touches here and there.  We were gone for a couple days and lots of things going on, so it wasn't until today that I finally got it done. Boston was the first one to try it out.

Colorado in June

 

Although our trip was very short, we did enjoy a few moments to take in the beauty that was around us.  We drove in one day, loaded up our truck, and headed back to Texas the next day.  No time to just hang around.  Ron is so good about stopping when I want to take a picture or two or three.  

Keep in mind that this in June and there is still a lot of snow on the mountains.  The pass we normally come in through was supposedly open, but we were advised that it was not really stable enough to know an avalanche could not be triggered.  We chose to go the safer route.

 

 

 

 

 

On our trip back home, we made a stop in Alamosa with the intent to visit one of my favorite Colorado quilt shops.  I didn’t have anything particular I wanted to purchase, but I had hoped to take a look around.  It happened that we arrived before the store was open.  It was not a wasted stop, I got to take a picture of the store front, which will become my first picture in my “Quilt shops I have visited” album.  I may modify the name of the album/journal, but I figure I have visited a lot of quilt shops and quilt related events that will just all blend together if I don’t have something to help me remember each one.

Second on my quilt agenda for this trip was to at least drive through Laveta, Colorado to see if I could find Ricky Tims gallery.  We go through part of Laveta on Hwy 160 when we go to the cabin.  It didn’t take much coaxing to get my husband to take a slight detour to drive down into town to scope it out.  Laveta is a neat little town I never would have known was there if I wasn’t on a mission.  I did find Tims Art Quilt Retreat Center, but it was not what I expected.  I at least thought there might be a little gift shop or something.  I walked up to the front door and it was locked.  Justin was walking by and never offered any information… he kind of ignored me.  I walked over to the side door that Justin went in and asked him if the place through the main door was open.  He said no, and it is just a retreat center and nothing is going on right now.  I didn’t want anything from him, just a simple answer to a simple question. His tone was less than cordial…

 

I could have walked away with a nice warm fuzzy… “Boy this would be a neat place to come for a retreat, the setting is so awesome”.   Well, that did not happen.  I’m glad I got a couple pictures. There was a neat train station across the park that dated back to 1876…. and there were some really pretty poppies.  A kitty cat was crossing the park at the same time I did.

 

Change of direction

  
I have completed the applique stage for my 12 blocks, now as I prepare the blocks for the next step, I make the decision whether there needs to be any embellishment.  This block required a couple revisions.  My husband did not like that the bird was swooping down... he said it just didn't look right.  It had to be turned around to be swooping up out of the garden.  Once I made the change he was happy.









Next change was to fix how the center blended in too much with the flower.  I did a chain stitch around the edge, and added some pollen (beads) to the middle.

Overall I think the block looks much better now.












I got busy this afternoon prepping blocks for "quilt-as-you-go".  I had 7 more that needed to be basted before Monday and ready to go with us when we head to Colorado.  Gotta keep my hands busy on the road. I'm really liking this "quilt as you go" thing.  I'm able to be productive while sitting in the living room.  I put my Willcox & Gibbs to work.  This is my treadle machine that is very old and mostly just sitting for looks in my living room.  My husband suggested I use its loop/chain stitch to make my basting easy to remove.  Of course the loop/chain stitch is the only thing it does, but it does it very nicely.  I now have my hand work ready to go on Monday.

It has been a month since my last post.... where does the time go???  I have quilted a few quilts on the longarm, but my focus has been more on my hand applique project.  I have finished all 12 blocks for my Country Cousins quilt and made the decision to hand quilt these blocks using the "Quilt as you go" method.  Of course I still plan on using hand applique in the borders, but I will continue on to that part of the project once I have all the blocks hand quilted.  I took a picture of the layout I plan to use, but it was with my phone, so I do not have one to post here at this time.

I went to a quilt retreat in North Carolina in early May.  I got to spend almost a whole week with my sister.  We had a great time, it was a beautiful, well equipped quilt house and the weather was perfect.  My friend MaryEllen flew with me, so there were two of us from Texas in the Great Smoky Mountains.  Maggie Valley is pretty nice and the ride we took into Gatlinburg gave us some really awesome views.  MaryEllen and I would like to make the trip to North Carolina again, back to some really great quilt shops and the great house, but next time we are taking a car.  Airlines create too many limitations on what we can take, and how much we can bring back.

I had the ladies here at my house for our Thursday quilting group.  The lady who typically has it at her house was not available, so I am the alternative when we can't have it at her house.  Everyone usually brings their own lunch, but I made a yummy key lime pie to have with coffee. It is super simple... and not officially a "key" lime pie, but it works for me.

(Key) Lime pie
1 can reduced fat sweetened condensed milk
2 large eggs
1/2 cup lime juice  -  about 4 limes should be enough
1 T lime zest              for the juice and the zest
1 graham cracker crust
Preheat oven to 350.  Whip the milk and eggs until smooth.  Add the juice and zest.  Pour into crust.  Bake for 15 minutes.
You can also do this with lemons instead of limes.

Garden block done

Today was another busy day.  We typically go into San Antonio on Fridays.  We had to drop the new car off for a minor adjustment.  When we got there, they gave us a loaner car to go do something so we wouldn't be sitting there waiting. We went several places just to kill some time.  I need to find a new hat to go with the new car... did I mention that the new car is a Corvette... Ron's Dream Car.  Still have not found the right hat, but we did stop in several stores, including Bass Pro Shop. 

When we finally got home I was able to get the words stitched onto the last block I completed yesterday.  This block turned out really nice.  I have no intention of hand quilting this, so I didn't feel any need to hand embroider the words... besides my machine does a great job at embroidery and it sits idle way too much since we no longer have the embroidery business.

Forging ahead with Country Cousins

I have been working diligently on my hand applique project.  It was just a little over a month ago that I started my first block, and I just finished block number 8 last evening.  This has been a real learning project. I have dabbled in hand applique over the years, but never focused on finishing a whole quilt.  I have four more blocks to go before I start the applique border, so I still have a long way to go. 

All the blocks have been fun, but the fountain was definitely a challenge.  It looked pretty nice when I had the main elements done, but I did not know how much that bottom "shelf" piece would add to the finish of this block.  This is a block that I would not force on any of the ladies from my quilt groups that are looking to me for guidance.  I would help them through it if they chose to do it, but it does have a higher level of difficulty than any of the other blocks I have done in this group of Country Cousins blocks. 

This block has real thin handles on the urns and points on the reverse applique on the base for starters.  Lots of pointy small leaves, and many little circles.  I actually used a technique that I kind of made up on my own when doing the circles.  I first found a button the size of the finished cherry and another button for the bubbles.  I then cut my circles like 3/16" wider than the button all around. (Wider seam allowance causes too much bulk in the center). I used a yo-yo technique but fine tuned it a bit.  The running stitch I made all around the circumference of the circle was very close to the edge.  Not so close that it would fray the edge, but close.  I left tails of about 2" on the thread - no need to knot the ends.  I placed the button in the center on the wrong side of the fabric and pulled both tails at the same time. When I had it pulled up pretty taut, I tied the ends - twice to secure the knot.  (The threads can be clipped now, or when you are ready to stitch the circles down).  I now pushed the fabric opening to one side of the button and maneuvered the button out of the opening.  I straightened the opening back to the center and with my fingers pinched and smudged the pointy areas smooth.  When you are sewing these circles down you can use the needle to fix any stubborn points.

I have been really busy, but I guess that really isn't anything new.  I sometimes don't get to posting or reading messages on my computer much when I get real focused on my quilting.