A Difficult Week

As many of my followers know already, it has been a difficult week for our family.  I truly appreciate all of the texts and e-mails from everyone, knowing that thoughts and prayers were going out.

My sister, who is on IG @alaskanquilter, came in from gardening to find her husband collapsed and unresponsive.  He was flown from their hometown to Anchorage and remained unresponsive for the week.  The final brain scan was done yesterday and he was declared brain dead.  The final act of his to short life was to donate his organs to other needy patients.  They must have been so thrilled today to receive the call that will change their lives.  As an organ recipient himself, this was truly something very important to him and his family.

As well, our niece and her family unexpectedly lost their little adoptive son on Sunday.  Our hearts are broken and our bodies are numb.  We know life goes on and that we will one day all be together again.

Everything else seems so trivial in the grand picture.  To end with some pictures.....we did have a wonderful family fishing trip before it all happened. We enjoyed spectacular thunderstorms each afternoon.  These are a few of our photos from the trip.

Our best fishermen...….

The fish should be scared with this crowd.

The wildflowers were also gorgeous at this time of the year.

So Dearly Part 4

Today is my day to share the fourth part of my So Dearly QAL.  I have really enjoyed the beautiful ones being posted on the FB page as well as on Instagram @sodearlyqal.

Once again, the patterns were printed off and sewn as sections.  I used my wonderful Aurifil threads for my sewing.

Once the pieces were sewn, they were trimmed and arranged as they would be sewn together.

Next up was sewing them together to create Part 4.

It's fun to see them all coming together.

This has been such a fun paper pieced QAL hosted by Gosia.  If you have not joined in, there is still time.  The patterns are still available.  There is plenty of time to catch up.  The information can be found on Gosia's website.

There are prizes to be won so what's stopping you?  Check out our great sponsors.

Best Laid Plans

Remember all of that sewing time that I was planning on while our floors were being refinished?  What was I thinking?   The first few days were okay, in spite of all the noise from the sanding machines, etc.  After that they suggested we leave the house because of the fumes and inability to walk on the floors.  I am glad to say that they finished up this morning and now it is cleaning and putting everything back where it belongs.  UGH!

So....what did we do when we had to leave?  We took a spur of the moment road trip.  We headed out to Las Vegas to visit some dear friends who moved there several years ago.  We stayed in Vegas for two days and enjoyed some rather cool and tropical weather.  It was a joy to see thunderstorms and enjoy a bit of rain in the desert.

I would love to know more geology so I could tell you about the different colored layers in the mountains and just how long ago it happened.  It would be so interesting.

From there we drove to Death Valley, stopping in at Ash Meadows Wildlife Refuge along the way.  Ash Meadows is located just a short distance from Death Valley and is an oasis in the middle of the hottest, driest desert in North America.  They had a lovely visitor center about 8 miles down a gravel road.  We were the only visitors at the beautiful facility.  What a shame!  I was amazed to see so much water in the desert.  The colors in the pools of water were gorgeous and they were homes to tiny little puff fish, an endangered species.

Death Valley was toasty warm at 114* when we pulled into the Inn for the evening.   We enjoyed a pretty sunset overlooking the desert.

It was still warm when we left a little after 6 a.m. the next morning.

What sewing did I get done during the mess?  I finished a fall table runner for Sara who is in our Sewing With Friends swap.

I also got all the blocks sewn together for my Sea and Sand quilt.

Lastly, I did some mindless sewing, adding 20 more blocks to my selvage block project.

I also caught up on my Temperature Quilt.  The reds were making an appearance for a few days, but we are back in the low 80s again - back to the rusty reds.

The last of my Gridster Bee blocks arrived from Afton.  She actually made me EIGHT blocks for my month!  I am excited about getting this quilt made with all of the gorgeous hearts that I received in the month of June.

My computer was stored away in a room with no access during the refinishing so it is nice to have it out again.  I have missed following blogs.

This is what my house has looked like.

No cooking!!!!

Even Toby is glad to have things back to a more normal living situation again.

Summer Has Arrived

Summer has finally arrived and it is packing a punch.  The high yesterday was 107* and is right up there again today.  The heatwave is suppose to break this evening and take us back to more seasonal temperatures.  I finally get to add those red fabrics to my Temperature Quilt.

It has been a busy week.  They were suppose to start on refinishing the wood floors on Friday, but that got postponed until Monday.  The closets, drawers and curios are now all emptied in anticipation.  Lots of purging has gone on here.

As well, we had the big July 4th party on Wednesday.  We do the BBQ and everyone brings side dishes so it makes it easier.  Games are played during the day and then the little ones light sparklers when it gets to be dusk.

My cousin's son is in L.A. for a summer internship so he and his friend joined us as well.

June was my month to be queen in our Gridster Bee.  I just love seeing the variation of the fabrics.  I'm looking forward to getting all of these together.

Several years ago I participated in the MCM Bee.  For my month I chose blocks to create the Woven pattern.  The blocks had been boxed up for too long.  I pulled them all out and added some more to create this layout.  I am calling it Sand and Sea.  It will be fun to get this one finished.

One last bit of sewing here.  While these little ones were staying with us this week, we had a chance to make some pink polka dot pajama bottoms.  The girls both loved them and didn't want to take them off.  Win/win!

I'm hoping to get some good sewing time in the next few weeks while they work on the floors.  I certainly won't be cleaning house!  That will come afterwards.  SIGH.