Baby quilt finished

Just put the last stitch in this last night.  DH came home from work 2 weeks ago and asked me if I had a baby quilt ready to give away . He wanted one for the grandson of a coworker .  I didn't--I know, I should, and I will be working on that!

Also spent a delightful day on Monday with Ron Paul and his wife, Laura Lee Fritz.  Ron did some maintainence work on Gertrude while giving me lessons on what he was doing, and Laura lee and I visited while she played in my threads, wrote down thread info for me, and hand stitched on a couple of her creations.  She is a quilting design author, so of course I bought her newest book!!

Dinner plate dahlia

DH just cut this beauty which measures 9 inches in diameter.  I floated it in this crystal bowl, which you can't see cuz the flower hogs the whole thing!!

Better late than never

I've had this photo on my desk top for ages--just forgot to post it here!!  This is my new ironing board in the usable position--it goes up flush on the wall, (in case I host square dancing or something similar in my studio!)  DH made this to my specs.  The blocks on it are the leftovers from Becca's mystery--they got turned into a small Christmas quilt (still in the top stage---a lot of mine are there---must get quilting so I'll have finishes!)

I'm back

and haven't gotten back into the swing of things yet.  Vacationing is hard work!!  The house boat on Rainy Lake was fabulous!  I got into Fargo after being up for 25 hours.  My sister and niece met me and we took my mother to lunch for her 80th birthday.  Then drove back to Bemidji, repacked, and drove to International Fall to spend 3 days on the houseboat.  So, of course, in the confusion, I forgot to repack my camera!!!  Sister dear is gonna send the ones she took.  Here is one of some of my family at a bar-b-q Kim had at her house.  My sister-in-law and 4 of her kids, my sis and her 3 and me.  We also took a couple of road trips and did some antiquing and quilt shop hopping!  Will take a photo of the best find later to share.

My bags are packed

I'm ready to go...well, almost!  I will be flying out tomorrow night to be with my twisted sister for 2 weeks.  We will be on a houseboat for the first 5 days I'm there, doing nothing but sunning, yakking and eating!    YES!!!  It is hot out there, complete with sun.  I can do sun and hot.  Can't really complain tho...we have had some lovely weather, but now it is raining.  I will check in while gone, but infrequently.Hope you all have as much fun as I'm planning on!

Productive Day

Two tops finished and a third needing one more border and then mitered.  It's been awhile since I've done that, so will get out a book to review.  I've lost interest in the blocks that were up, so they are partially assembled and relegated back to the BOB drawer...oh, well.  I never claimed to have a long attention span!  (But I DID see 3 or 4 sets of Dear Jane swap blocks that MAY be arranged on the wall, petted and admired and maybe put together??  or maybe returned to the place from whence they came...who knows?!)

Design Wall Monday

Here's what's on my wall:

It might have gotten sewn together and the CW 9 patch might have gotten its borders, but......  A motorcycle ride was taken to the Princess Lodge in Cooper Landing and deep fried coconut crusted salmon was eaten instead,  Oh, well.  The quilt blocks won't spoil! These were taken from the BOB drawer (Bag of Blocks).  The ones on the right were left over from a quilt I made years ago (recognize the quilty friends fabric, Becca??)  and the half square triangles on the left were the scraps from a snow ball quilt that is still a top.

Many threads today

Yesterday the pieces were cut, strip pieced and cut again.  Today they became blocks.  Now I will see if any are glaringly in the wrong order ( the photo will show that as will any comments from you!).  then hopefully they will be a top tomorrow.

Late Night Visitor

Last night DH contemplated sleeping in the hammock.  Considered mosquitoes and stayed in our bed.  Good thing---a large bear wreaked havoc on our bird feeder.  He must have had a craving for sunflowers.  And he was tall--the feeder was up high on a birch tree.  Rats! Now we have to replace the feeder. :(

Did I mention this tree is about 10 feet from the corner of our garage???

Ribbons!!

Things are back to normal here.  The Quilting on the Kenai Quilt Show is over for another year, and for the first time, I got ribbons!!  This is a viewers choice show and I placed third in crib quilts (the pastel one I made as a shop sample) and third in the Challenge category.  We had to create something using the Hoffman Challenge fabric--half yard max and identifiable minimum.  First place was a wall hanging that was fabulous--the quilting on it was spectacular (as expected from Lily), second was a jacket that was juried into a show in the Lower 48 (I didn't hear the particulars as it was announced at the fashion show after I had modeled it and was dashing back down the stairs for a clothing change!), and my wall hanging was third!!

I am very tickled!

DH Recycles!

When I finally decided to buy an ergonomically correct tilt table for my sewing machine, I was informed that they were no longer available.  WAHHHH!  So I took my handy-dandy DH into the store to show him what one looked like.  (They did have one under a machine but no way were they parting with it!!)  And this is what he crafted from a piece of a bookcase he had decapitated to allow our big screen TV to fit on it.

And now he's building me a wide ironing board that will fold down from the wall.  WaHoo!!

We have babies!!

Here is mama sitting on the babies.  DH said a few days ago she was stomping them down to sit on them, but they are too big to do that to now!!

Robin eggs

While mama (or papa) robin did the broken wing act, DH took some photos of the eggs.

Homer happenings

Just got home from a trip to Homer on the motorcycle.  The sun was shining but the wind was cold!  At the beach of Kachemak Bay this was going on:  Kite surfing!!  Brrrrr!

Robin nest

My DH went outside to clean windows (he's a keeper!) and was going to use this ladder.  However, it was already being used!!  There are two nests on it!!  The other one is to the right of this one with no occupant in it at present.  So far I have seen no swallows around the many houses waiting for them to move in to.

Today is Memorial Day in the US, and I am very grateful to  every person who put their life at risk for my freedom.