Spring or Winter?

DH and I decided to slip away for a few days and hit the open road - one of our favorite things to do.  One of our favorite roads has always been the 395 with amazing scenery and little traffic.  Spring weather can always be risky and this time was no different.  Once we hit the Sierras we were in snow flurries - in mid May!  It was not sticking to the road, but it made for such pretty sights around us. 

We drove as far north as Walla Walla, WA.  Delightful spring weather surrounded us there with everything in bloom - tulips, iris, dogwoods, lilacs, azaleas everywhere.  While in Walla Walla, I had a fabulous day spending time with Stephanie (IG sadunphy) of Loft Creations and Candace (IG mrssquash).  We had lunch, visited their local quilt shop and then I was treated to a visit to Maple Cottage.  It was such fun to see it in person after following the progress on IG and her blog AND I got to meet the well loved Abby.  Following that we took a short drive to Candace's and saw her beautiful home and stunning gardens.  She and her husband have amazingly green thumbs.  Those two gals have so much fun together and I discovered they are both black licorice lovers like myself.  Who knew???

Leaving Walla Walla, we headed east to Stanley, Idaho.  The scenery was glorious with lots of full streams and rivers, snowy mountains and lush meadows. 

At one of our nightly stays, this greeted us on the tub.

What stress???

 

Heading back south through NV, we enjoyed still more open roads and a desert in full bloom until we reached the I-15.  UGH.  It was back to the dreaded traffic again. 

What we enjoyed for five days!

UGH!!!!

We arrived home in time for Mother's Day weekend where we celebrated with everyone here for a BBQ.  Even momma tortoise laid her eggs for Mother's Day.

We always need a "grandchild fix" when we get home so it was nice to have a few little ones come visit. 

Pretending to sleep.

While in the car, I was able to hand stitch the binding down on En Provence and get a photo of it with a snowy mountain backdrop in Idaho.  Of course, the wind was blowing and DH and I were laughing at ourselves trying to grab the picture while it was calm.  He eventually stabilized it with rocks but it was still blowing. 

The only other sewing that has gone on was my Mother's Day postcard for my mom.  I am hoping to make my way to my sewing machine later today.

Happy May

Here we are in May!  How did we get here so quickly?  May also means that my month for being the queen bee for our Gridster bee is NEXT month.  That means I need to get my act together and make a choice as to what I want my fellow bee mates to stitch for me. 

I have so enjoyed each of the blocks that have been chosen this year.  We've had pigs, bees and pineapples in the mix.  Such fun!  I've been playing around with a couple of blocks that I thought might interest me.  I admired the kaleidoscope block from Crazy Mom Quilts and made a few to test them out. 

Crazy Mom Quilts Kaleidoscope free block in her Craftsy shop.

Next up I tried a Confetti Star block that was a choice in our bee from last year.  I loved it when we did it and found all of the completed stars stunning together. 

Confetti Star free block by Amy Friend, duringquiettime.com

I finally tried a totally scrappy strip block, but it did not do much for me.  I think it would be a fun strippy block pattern, but not for my bee choice.  In the end I decided that I will use the Confetti Star block.  It will be fun to get different stars from fabrics not in my stash.

One more month of geese is completed for my Temperature Quilt 2017.  As you can see, there were no blues in this month - definitely a warmer month.  May is also looking good so far with the oranges in there, but today is cooler and drizzly.  ;-(

Temperature Quilt 2017

I managed to finally get my En Provence top quilted this week.  The binding is stitched down and I will now spend some quiet time hand stitching it down.  This was such a pretty Bonnie Hunter QAL this year. 

May is always such a busy month in our household with seven birthdays, Mother's Day and our anniversary.  There will also be five graduations as well as a Confirmation and First Communion.  It will be endless celebrating here. 

Still Here

Yep, I am still around despite the fact that my good intentions to be a better blogger seemed to have flown away as quickly as February.   

The weather has been so nice and that tends to take me outside more than staying inside and stitching.  It has been the calm before the storm as I hear we are in for another big series of storms starting tomorrow.  What is it that they say, "Make hay while the sun shines"???

I managed to finally get my Allietare quilt finished.  I put the binding on and them remembered that it was suppose to have a scalloped edge.  Dang!  I may eventually take the binding off and redo it with the scallops as I love the look of scallops on quilt edgings.  Of course, that means that I will need to redo the binding with a biased binding too. 

Before I do that I need to get Scrap Dance Waltz and En Provence quilted.

As those of you who have followed my blog for awhile, it is the time of the year for the grandchildren's school auction.  That means it is time to get my 18" doll uniform made.  Have I ever told you how much I love sewing doll clothing????  ;-)

See those perfectly matched plaids?  TOTAL accident, but don't you love it when that happens?

As I mentioned, we've had some really nice temperatures lately and my Temperature Quilt is "heating up" nicely. 

I'm part of a couple of bees/swaps this year.  The first is our Gridster Bee.  The block this month was a pineapple block for Sherri.  I really enjoyed this block and can see a pineapple quilt at some point in my future. 

Using the same design I made a little garden flag for Jeanna. 

The second bit of fun was a mug rug swap with a group of gals who have sewn together for several years.  This is the block that I made for my partner's request for a Halloween mug rug. 

Ida made me this darling Valentine's mug rug.  I really like the scrappiness of it.  I love swapping out my mug rugs throughout the year and keep a little quilted box of them on my table.

We went to our eldest son's for their Super Bowl party.  What a game!  Taco Man came again this year.  I am fascinated by how this is done.  It is thinly slicked meat skewered with pineapple.  It is then cooked from the back while rotating.  As it cooks, they continually slice off the cooked part into nice little shreds for the tacos.  Can I tell you that it is delicious?

Several of my orchids have started blooming with lots more to follow.  They must know spring is quickly approaching.

As well, the Christmas cactus is finishing up with its blooming.  They stay outside all year so their bloom depends on the weather each year.  This is a special plant as it is an offspring of one that belonged to my grandmother.  I have started so many new ones from the initial piece she gave me. 

I'll see if I can do a better job of blogging.  No promises!

En Provence

My En Provence quilt is now completely pieced.  It has been so much fun cyber stitching along with my little sister (IG alaskanquilter) who lives in Alaska.  She finished hers a day ahead of me!  I always enjoy Bonnie Hunter's Mystery QALs and this one is one of my favorites - even though I am not a purple person.  My biggest problem was finding floor space large enough to photograph it.   The sun shining in the room appears to have taken the bottom corner off, but it is really all there.   I am so pleased with the way it all came together.

We've had storm after storm roll through our area.  It has been really wonderful after so many years without moisture.  The plants and trees are loving it - I am sure!  As well, we have had so many beautiful rainbows.  This one was so pretty, but faded by the time I could grab the camera for a picture. 

Guess it was a bit late to find the pot of gold too.

A New Year

Best laid plans of being a better blogger have gone out the window as quickly as the first two weeks of the new year have passed.  I just keep telling myself that it is living life rather than documenting life.  Sounds good.....right? 

There has been very little sewing going on around here, but I did manage to get a whole day of sewing in on Saturday - a stormy day at the beach.  I started assembling my En Provence quilt top.  There are lots of little pieces, but I am loving the way it is looking.

We've been having such wonderful storms rolling through and delivering us the much needed water that we have missed for the last few years.  One thing about storms is the amazing sunrises or sunsets they provide.  Sometimes you'll get both on the same day.  This was a recent sunset - a photo taken at our daughter's house.

After a stormy day at the beach on Saturday, we woke up to this beautiful sunrise on Sunday morning.

As I have stitched my En Provence, I have been sewing strips together to create blocks for this month's Block Lotto blocks.  There is still plenty of time to create a few if you want to join in on the fun.  I was one of the winners of last month's string blocks so it has been fun receiving the "squishy" envelopes each day.

I'm off to clean house as I've had little ones the last few days.  Stay safe from the nasty weather out there.

Ahhhhhh.............

Is it just me or am I hearing a universal sigh today?  This was how I felt today.....

Grandson's bearded dragon chilling out!

I won't even try to catch up on the last few weeks here other than to say that it has been a crazy Christmas season.  My mom fell, broke her leg and then developed a blood clot.  Hours have been spent in hospitals and she is currently in a rehab facility.  We were able to "spring" her for a few hours on Christmas Eve.

Our Christmas was wonderful with family all here.  I apologize for no photos, but it was a hectic evening.  My DILs promised me some photos so I will share once that happens. 

Our son and his family left last evening so today should have been a day of cleaning.  Instead, I took a little time to sew Clue #5 from Bonnie Hunter's En Provence Mystery QAL.  Cleaning will wait but today I needed to scratch my itch!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  It's hard to believe we are getting ready to say goodbye to 2016.

It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas

As the weeks quickly tick away here, I am feeling as though Christmas will be here before I can blink my eyes. 

As with most stitchers at this time of the year, a lot of what we create is secretive until after Christmas.  There has been a bit of sewing that can be shown.

Using a snowflake embroidery design, I created a small candle mat.  Hopefully, it will be able to be used past the Christmas season.

Like so many others, I have been trying to keep up with Bonnie Hunter's En Provence Mystery.  I managed to finish Step 3 and finally finished Step 1 too.

Although I probably won't have a lot of time to work on these blocks, I did start on Scrap Dance Waltz - hosted by Carole at From My Carolina Home.  I loved this pattern.

We had a few little helpers to help get the Christmas tree up yesterday.  Of course the ornaments ended up rather clustered and low!  ;-)  It is always fun to have the little ones here for the Christmas traditions. 

Before the train goes under the tree, the children like to set it up and play with it - building bridges with the blocks and running it faster than it can go on the smaller track under the tree.

While we are enjoying the last of the roses before they get pruned back, the poinsettia now has bright red flowers all over it. 

 You can see how big these flowers are when you see my hand in the next photo.

I was recently a winner on Soma's blog and received these gorgeous batik fabrics along with a few of her beautiful patterns.  The photo does not do the colors any justice.  As I told Soma, I have been wanting to make a blue quilt for awhile now and these should be perfect.   

Just to add to the Christmas eating, they have recently opened a Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop fairly close to us.  Oh.my.goodness!  I loved seeing the doughnuts make their way down the processing line only to get placed in your box at the end - still warm.  They absolutely melt in your mouth.....so, how bad can they really be for you? 

Two more weeks from today is Christmas.  Relax and enjoy the beautiful season.