You can tell when I’m busy working on customers’ quilts — there’s not much activity in the blogging area!  I am treating myself to some quilting “work” on my own quilts this weekend, in conjunction with Judy Laquidara’s Quiltathon.  I am working on a very special quilt.  My best friend from high school and beyond, 40+ years ago, was Arlene Newman (Arlene Linton now).  Arlene is a wonderful decorative painter, and her specialty is painting lace.  She has three books out, and she also teaches internationally.  She has a heart as big as all outdoors, and has always been a fun, caring person.  Okay, back to the quilt. 

Last year, Robert Kaufman licensed some of Arlene’s designs and made some wonderful quilt fabric.  The line is called Linens & Lace, and it’s pretty much gone from the stores, although I think Arlene still has some available.  Of course, I had to get some in all the colorways.  Then what to do with it?  Choosing from the wonderful blue fabrics (my favorite), I decided to make a Four-Patch Posies Supreme quilt by HD Designs, which is a variation of a kaleidoscope quilt.  (I modified some of the measurements to suit my fabrics, so it isn’t exactly the same as the pattern.)  I’m very pleased with the way it turned out, and I have been waiting for a chance to quilt it.  Friday night I got it pinned up on my machine.  Doesn’t it remind you of blue-and-white china?

Then what to quilt?  I started with an overall design, and didn’t like it at all.  It really detracted from the fabric.  Rip-it, rip-it, rip-it.  In case you didn’t know what “frogging” meant!  Then I tried doing a custom design in the center.  Didn’t like that either.  More frogging.  I finally decided I needed to stitch-in-the-ditch (SID) the blocks, and I quilted a double-swag design in the borders.  SID is not my favorite, but it really allows the fabric to come through, and this quilt is all about the fabric.  So I’ll be quilting today until I get it done.  Then I’ll have tomorrow for binding. 

It won’t be a ribbon winner, but I am scrambling to get it done and ready in time for the Minnesota State Fair.  It’s so exciting to me that Arlene’s and my paths have crossed again, and this quilt will always be very near and dear to my heart.  Here we are in 1969.  Oh, my gosh, we were just babies!!!  I’m on the left, Arlene on the right:

Sue

Here are a couple of give-aways you might be interested in:

#1:  Sandi A. is having a semi-mystery give-away on her site, accepting entries until August 25th.  Click here to read all about it.  Sandy’s blog is also a good visit for a walk down memory lane, a look into small-town life, and to see what Sandy’s working on.

#2:  Have you ever made something from a Perkins Drygoods pattern?  Celine has a limited-time offer on her site.  If you send her a photo of something you’ve made from one of her patterns, she will send you a different pattern free.  She has started a Gallery of customers’ quilts.  Check out the offer here!  And if you haven’t tried one of her patterns (check them out on her site or in your LQS), I would suggest you pick one up.  She is known for her clear directions.  Her patterns never disappoint.

Here are some more pictures from our trip West (thru ND, Montana, family time in Seattle, Oregon (Hells Canyon), thru Idaho, into Yellowstone, home through MT, ND, and Minnesota).  Worth every gallon of gas!

Family Tree.  Here we are in the Grove of the Patriarchs, an island of land surrounded by the Ohanapecosh River, allowing these trees to survive, protected from fire.  There are trees over a thousand years old here.  In front of this fine specimen are some of our own Matriarchs and Patriarchs (and these six fine specimens, all siblings, total over 410 years!!!  John, we missed you.  You could have made the total 480 years!  Pretty soon you guys will be older than this tree.)  This is in the Mt. Rainier National Park.

Douglas, fer sure.  Here is Nephew Doug in front of a giant tree.  Doug, is this a Douglas Fir (or a Douglas, fer sure)?  I know some of the trees are.  Doug would know.  He’s our forestry man!

Stumped.  Here I am with DH Jim.  One of these giant trees fell over at some point, and you can climb into the empty stump.  Very awesome.  I look slimmer.  I’m going to only have my picture taken in stumps from now on.  Who knew???  (I think the scientific explanation is, it’s the dump-your-rump-in-a-stump effect.)

I’m posting these vacation pics according to various stops, so check back for more pictures.  And if you’re looking for quilts, check back too! 

Sue

(Additional information on this post:  I was searching the Web to see why this river has such beautiful turquoise water.  I didn’t enhance this photo at all — it truly is this amazing color.  It turns out that there is a glacier on the southeast flank of Mt. Rainier called the Ohanapecosh Glacier.  So this is glacial water, similar to what we’ve seen in Alaska.  This effect is caused by rock flour in the water.)

We had a wonderful time on our West Coast trip.  One of the first outings we had was with extended family.  We went to the Grove of the Patriarchs, a park part of the way up Mt. Rainier.  I would highly recommend it if you get to the Seattle area.  It is truly awe inspiring.  And a BIG thank you to Niece Julie who planned this outing for us and was our leader!  We all had a great time.

We crossed the beautiful Ohanapecosh River on a suspended bridge.  The water had the same sort of color as the glacial water in Alaska — kind of a milky green-blue.  I understand it’s from the snow melting on the mountain.  (Please honor my copyrights on this site.  Thank you.)

~Sue

Because I just don’t have enough to do (right…), I’ve decided to join Judy Laquidara’s BOM project starting in August.  Like I read on someone else’s blog, it’s funny how you have one color pathway in mind when you start selecting fabrics, and then you end up totally different.  My lightest fabric in the photo is an off-white muslin.  I just used it as a place-holder in the picture.  I haven’t found the #1 fabric yet, but it will be a cream/dk cream/lt gold (see how certain I am, even now???).  I didn’t get to use any stash, as I am mostly a fat-quarter collector, along with some backing-sized pieces.  Plus I wanted these fabrics to read pretty solid, and I found I don’t have much for solids in my collection.  Can’t wait to start this quilt.  And it will be fun to watch everyone else’s progress too!

~Sue

After a long vacation to the Northwest, we are now back home!  Sorry if you’ve been checking back to this site and wondering where I am.  We were away from computers (and cell phone coverage as well) in most of the places we’ve visited.  It was a little strange at first to be so “out of touch”.  No newspapers and very little TV news. 

We had a wonderful trip through North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and Wyoming.  And of course Minnesota!  It’s good to be home.  I need to unpack and start some laundry, so I will post more later.  Also, I’ll post maybe one photo a day of the sights we’ve seen.

Sue

Yesterday was Mom’s 80th birthday party, and it was a lot of fun.  It’s always amazing to me that when you have an open house, different groups of people come and go in waves, and yet we had a nice, comfortable group at any given time.  We were just going to do cake, nuts, mints, and beverages.  Then I saw the strawberries.  On sale.  $1.50 a quart for big, beautiful, red strawberries.  So we had strawberries.  As I was driving home from the grocery store, I had a vision of strawberries dipped in chocolate.  Perfect for an afternoon (mostly ladies) party.  Yummy!

(I can’t get the photo to come up right now, so the link to my photo album is the best I can do.)

I asked my mom if she ever had a birthday party before this one.  She couldn’t remember that she ever did, being the third of seven children (closely spaced) during the Depression.  She did, however, remember a birthday when she was about four or five.  Her mom (Grandma) made her a birthday cake in a 1# coffee tin.  Grandma allowed my mom to take the knife and cut the cake into five servings: three children and mom and dad.  Mom carefully cut the cake down the middle.  Then she gave one half of the cake to her dad (my Grampa), and divided the other half four ways for the rest of the family.  What a Daddy’s Girl!  I love that story, and I would never have heard it if it wasn’t for this little party.

Road trip coming up, and I’ll be working on my Grandmother’s Flower Garden (see post below).  I’m excited to get a large chunk of time to work on it, so I hope I will be able to post progress soon.

~Sue

I am typing my fastest so I can get to a window and watch the show.  (I have GOT to start planning my time better.)  We live within a very few miles of a large lake, a large casino, and a large amusement park, and so we have a pretty good view of multiple fireworks displays every year.

Wednesday our DayStitchers group continued our box exchange.  We each have a “box” with fabrics we’ve chosen and specific theme or instructions for our box.  We take home some else’s box for the month, and return it on the 1st Wednesday of the following month.  I’ve added the new June photos of the DayStitchers’ boxes.  It is so much fun to bring back someone else’s project and surprise her with what you made.  And it’s even more fun to see what someone else made for you.

My mom’s 80th birthday is Sunday, and we’re planning a birthday party for her in the party room of her apartment building.  Nothing elaborate, but still a million details.  Tomorrow I’ll make sure all the details get pulled together and make sure I haven’t missed anything, as I’ve been picking up what I think I need here and there.  As I said, I’ve GOT to start managing my time better. 

Then we’ll be heading west to Seattle for a grand-nephew’s wedding.  Woo-hoo!!!  Family weddings are always the BEST!!!  We’re looking forward to seeing all our Washington family, as well as family from North Dakota, Minnesota, Denver and Texas.  In addition, we’re going to make it somewhat of a road trip, so we will be able to also do some family visiting on the way back home.  Yes, we had the wisdom and foresight to plan on driving THIS year. 

It will be a fun trip though.  I have been cutting and preparing Baggies of fabric for my in-car project.  I’m going to start a Grandmother’s Flower Garden.  Should be done just in time for my first grandchild’s graduation from college.  We don’t have any grandchildren as of yet, so I figure the timing will come out just right…

Friday I went with friends to Rochester for the Minnesota Quilters show.  The eye candy was fabulous, and of course, even though I couldn’t think of a single thing I needed to shop for, I still managed to go home with a bag of hand-dyeds.  I have only used them once before, so this is something pretty new to my stash.  And I think there were four different vendors tempting us with such a depth of color and texture, it was impossible to resist!  (No, my mermaid didn’t win anything, but it was fun to see her hanging out at the show!  And I think she had a good time too.)

I ordered some Moda charm packs from Hancocks of Paducah a while back.  These are the Posh line.  I thought they were so pretty, and I ordered four packs, so I started sewing them together randomly with a dark yellow-green sashing.  The border will be all the dark green with maybe some feathered quilting in yellow or gold or … who knows?  Maybe a variegated.

I also completed Kate’s chicken block for our box exchange on Wednesday.  The block turned out really cute, but can’t share it yet.  I think Kate stops by once in a while!

–Sue

It will be our 37th anniversary this week.  This is my favorite photo of all our wedding pictures.  My Uncle Dwight was our photographer, and he really captured the moment in this picture.  Is Jim handsome, or what???  And don’t you love the glasses?  And THEY’RE BACK!  I could probably go and buy the same glasses now.  I made my dress and veil, and my bridesmaids made their dresses also.  We all sewed back then mostly out of necessity; now we’re all sewing for fun!