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.

The Earth is Still Here...and So Am I !

Whether you've been wondering where I've been or not, I truly haven't been far.  I just haven't been focused on trying to get anything together for the blog, except for the funny kitty post yesterday.  It's going to be that way through the end of June. 

School is nearly out.  Nick has had one more final tomorrow today.  ONE.  For ONE final, I had to drive 11 miles one way across town.  Because it's only ONE, and lasted less than one and a half hours, there was no point in my driving all the way back home just to turn around and go back to pick him up.  So I stayed.  On Tuesday he had TWO finals, so I ran some errands that I could do on that side of town, then parked myself at the school to wait....but no, my cell phone rang and the contractor had LOST our house key, so I had to drive home and let him in and then return to the school.  Today yesterday was ONE class also and I parked myself and worked on crossword puzzles for the time, which thankfully was cool enough to leave the car windows down.  Afterward, we stopped by the bowling alley where Nick began the summer league, to pre-bowl four weeks of games as we'll be heading off on our annual trek north next Tuesday a.m..  We headed to Costco after that ONE final...perfect timing though as Costco doesn't open until 10:00 and it's on that side of town.  I haven't been to Costco since probably early February.  I won't say how much I spent, but it was a lot...for one visit, but had it been broken out into two or three visits, it wasn't bad.  Since Nick & I aren't going to be home most of June, I didn't buy any fresh produce, nor any fresh meat as Marty usually finds 'quick' things to eat while we're gone.  I picked up a few things he could nuke in the microwave.

Nick was sick all last week though he went to school that Wednesday.  Sinus infection = 10 days of antibiotics! Thankfully he was well enough to get back in time for his finals.

The bathrooms are 'officially' done! I just haven't gotten those darn towel rods & toilet paper holders = procrastination!   All else is done and the city inspector has signed off : ) .  I am well-pleased with the results.  Now I need to clean the windows, wash the tile dust from the freshly painted walls (painted before the tile went in), mirrors & doors, 'wax' the shower doors to help repel/prevent the hard-water spots, buy the new linens and I'll be feeling like I'm at a luxury spa every time I step into one of these bathrooms.  And all we wanted was to fix a leak we couldn't find and buy new linoleum...who knew, huh?

Both bath cabinets have the same knobs, glass with brushed nickel bases.  Raven was checking them out too.  Actually, she was just hoping I'd turn the water on so she could play with it in the sink.

....and a close-up of the handles on the cabinet doors.  The off-white cabinets (Swiss Coffee by Behr Paints) and the glass hardware help 'tone down' what I think is an otherwise very contemporary look.  I'm still a country girl at heart.

I have a LOT of cleaning to do with all the dust and such that's accumulated throughout the remodel process throughout the house.  When I return from vacation, I'll be packing up as many non-essentials as possible from every room downstairs in anticipation of the kitchen remodel we're planning to begin in early 2013.  I'll be in my planning phase as soon as I get back.  There are a lot of things to consider, almost more than I want to think about. 

 I'm not sure why I titled this post with "The Earth is Still Here..." ...probably had something in mind to say yesterday when I intended to post this, but here it is today, and yep, the earth is still here and so am I and I'd be really pleased if my lower back would stop being a pain...literally!

Cat Brats

"MOMMMM!! Raven stole my seat."