Vacation

I am on vacation...have I already said that? We, Nick & I, transitioned from my parents' to my aunt's and uncle's. The next two weeks will probably be even busier, and internet access isn't quite as good as it was at my mom's. So.....I may not be posting again until I return to the hot and dry land from this wet land that's living up to its reputation ;) because I'm on....

VACATION

Salute

On The Road

Nick and I have hit the road (Marty stays home) to travel back to the Wet Land and we haven't been terribly disappointed. :) We crossed the border and shortly thereafter had a few sprinkles hit the windshield.  And last night and this morning it rained quite a bit - clearing a little now though.  Nick took this picture out his window while we were driving:

A nice little rainbow.  He said it was a double rainbow, and it appeared much brighter than the picture shows. We got a late start on Tuesday morning, not leaving until 10:30.  So by 10:30 at night, I was pretty tired and we decided to stop at a Motel 6 ... not my favorite motel chain but this one was actually pretty nice...except the bed was hard and lumpy.  Nick said his was fine!  We were up and back on the road at 7:30 the following morning, stopped for to-go breakfast, pit-stop & gas-up and reached my mom's by 10:30 a.m. and this is where we are for the next week and a half before transitioning to my aunt's - she lives about 10 miles away. 

One place we stopped had this entire clan of feral cats hanging out in the corner of the parking lot.  Reminded Nick of his favorite book series "The Warriors" by Erin Hunter.  We saw six kitties, but more may have been hiding in the trees and grass.

 We saw a snow covered mountain:

We have no specific plans for the day, just hanging out and relaxing.

How May Ended - update of 5/14 post

 Update:  I have made no further progress on this since this original post, in fact, it still looks just like this on the design wall.  When I started work on it in May, it was just a box of pieces that I'd already cut, so all-in-all, a great deal of progress was made, although I should have been able to get the borders on but was side-tracked by some other activities.  So it goes.

I'll be linking this up over at Patchwork Times . I love seeing what everyone's working on.

I've made progress on this one, the blocks and the rows are all sewn together and I rather like the look, 'old' as it may be. The border fabrics in contention are the two shown on the right as my original choice was clearly a no-go. The photos don't give a very good likeness, but I'm sure my choice is the bottom one. I've asked three others who have been here and they agree. This top will have reached its progress limitations once the borders are on...at least until I can get some other projects which are already pinned, quilted and thus freeing up the basting pins.





Not sure why my camera seems to be making the pics look hazy or milky - maybe just on my computer.

Busy, Busy June

Today is the first of June so that means a new number has been chosen at Patchwork Times for the UFO Challenge.  If I were going to be home for more than the next few days of June, this is what I would be working on:  It's called Pumpkin Frost (Scarecrow).

This is the scarecrow I plan to do.  The project is all Log Cabin and each log finishes at 1/4" and each block finishes at 2 1/2" square.  The element above is only of the scarecrow which is all I plan to do.  There are other elements on the much larger portion of the quilt.  When finished, the chosen element should be 45 1/2" square.  It is presented separately in the book.

This is the book it's from.  It's out of print, but I found a like-new copy online a few years ago for just a couple dollars.  I'd seen the quilt sample displayed at our former LQS.  It had been taught in a class, and I loved it for a Fall wall-hanging.  I was not able to take the class.

Some brown selections to choose from.

Red and gold selections to choose from.

The tans and light brown options.

Auditioning for the greens role.

The lights choices in the running.

And we can't forget the purples.

But as I said, I'll be gone for all of June so won't be getting to this, but instead I will take a project on this year's list that is being done entirely by hand, and put this one into the place where that one, #11 will be when it gets chosen.  So this is the one I'll take with me and consider my 'June' UFO:

Dresden Plate block, in work

Road To Oklahoma II block - finished

Fool's Puzzle II / Wonder Of The World block - finished

Clown's Choice block - finished

Color Wheel block - finished

There will be a sixth block, an appliqued rooster.  I have had a difficult time finding just the exact rooster I want, but at a show in March I found a quilt pattern that has some roosters that just might fit the bill.  This is a quilt of my own design - just six simple squares and it will have sashing and borders.  My intent is to also hand-quilt it, something I have NO experience in doing.  It'll keep me busy for quite awhile yet an will be perfect to take with me on my trip.

I would love to use/find the pattern to the quilt displayed as the header at Cat Lover and Quilt Maker.  It is what I've had in my mind's eye that I haven't been able to find.  I'll have to send a note to her and see if she can tell me anything about it, or what the pattern is.  If not, I could probably also sit and try to sketch one out for the size I need that looks similar.  I'd like mine to face the other direction though.