Better Late...Even if the Deadline Was Last Year

I missed the quilt retreat in October of 2018 due to my niece's wedding. I also missed completing the challenge assigned to everyone in May of 2018. I am going to make the 2019 October retreat so I have been working on completing the challenge. 

We were given four fat quarters to do with as we pleased. 

Almost immediately I thought of taking artwork used for carving pumpkins and making a silhouette wall hanging.

I enlarged the artwork 200-percent.

I added fabrics from my stash to make strips of oranges, golds and yellows. I started with 1-1/2 strips but decided to reduce them by half an inch after sewing most of them together.

I now have the piece all fused together and ready for top stitching which I will do as I quilt it. 

I'm making good progress on my "Sparklers" quilt. I finished stitching all the areas requiring white thread. Below is a detail of how I worked out marking stitching in the white stars. 

                            

A  little detail of the large white stars below...

I am ready to switch to red thread and have my quilting plan worked out for those areas.

Will I get it done in time for show and tell at Thursday's Breakfast club?

 I don't think so but I'll keep trying.

A Bit More Progress

The Butterfly Patch quilt top is done. This will be a fun one to quilt...someday!

I had a print that coordinated with the lilac fabric I started using for the background so instead of letting it age any longer in my stash, I created nine-patches to complete the border. 

I got two more autos done from a Bucilla Plaid kit. Three more to make.

Lots of appointments in the schedule for the coming week which is just as well since the forecast is rain, rain, and more rain. Still pretty warm so not yet worrying about "snow." 

Quilting Progress

I have been deciding how to quilt this top as I go...not my usual style. I spent months doodling on this one but never got in a rhythm. It was time to just sink a needle and make it happen.

I'll do several colors of thread so I started with the navy blue thread areas as this is the predominate thread used in this quilt.

Not sure the stars stitched in a field of pebbling is popping as much as I would like but I am happy with the technique I came up with to mark them on my quilt top. I found 2-inch star shapes on the internet to print on card stock. After trimming to shape, I used double stick tape to hold them in place for positioning and then outlined with chalk.

I have all the blocks made for the butterfly patch quilt. Such a fun quilt to make.

I got one little ornament finished last week.

A good start to September. 

Critters Everywhere

I have spent my holiday weekend doing a solo quilt retreat. I have even spent a few hours on my midarm quilting machine but what I am really jazzed about is all the quilt designs swimming around in my head. 

Got back my Quilting Mojo.

But first I am working on quilts already underway.

The Butterfly Patch quilt is looking great.

I played again with the design on EQ8 and think the version below is where I am going. It will have a row of nine-patches  on the left in the background lilacs and lavenders but it is too laborious to add that in EQ8 at this stage. 

And I have a flimsy finish, a quilt for my son in the Air Force who is Bigfoot enthusiast. The colors in this photo are so washed out, they are much warmer in person.  Yes...I added the phrase. I tried piecing letters but found them too, "blocky." I resorted to adapting the font, "Jokerman," I found in the computer program Word. I printed the lettering at 400-percent to get the right size. I had less than an inch of the background fabric when I finished. I was really sweating it!

It started with the Elizabeth Hartman pattern, "Legendary." I pieced all the tree blocks and the bigfoot block at a quilt retreat last February.

I have been really remiss this summer about sharing wildlife photos from my neighborhood. 

I was driving into town one morning in late June when I had to stop for a Mama moose crossing the road...with her three calves. Got this photo sitting in my car with the window rolled down...pretty darn close. 

The next two photos are from my neighbor's trail camera taken on August 14th. They live directly across the street from me and have lots of animals that traverse through their backyard.

A mama black bear with her three cubs. 

Then one morning while trying to make my coffee the dogs were outside barking like crazy. I expected to see a moose in my yard but instead I saw this pretty horse.

It belongs to the neighbors behind me and as soon as I finished taking the photo, the horse went right back home. 

Time to get back to quilting.

August Breakfast Club

I made a great effort to pull myself away from landscape and garden chores to attend Breakfast Club last Thursday. Our project was, "Butterfly Patch."

 Below is Marcia's class sample. She substituted more complex 6-inch blocks for her version.

Laura worked on the pattern ahead of time and finished her version in class. No patchwork blocks. 

Seeing how others interpret a pattern is my favorite part of Breakfast Club.

I played in EQ8 to get my concept drawn.

My goal was to finish the monkey wrench and chain blocks. 

I got done with  my center blocks too. I'm looking forward to tweaking this design as I work on it.

Marcia had her class samples for the next two Breakfast Clubs ready for us. Both are smaller quilts.

September's Club will feature this Cozy Quilt Designs mini version of "Daybreak." Strips that are 1 1/2-inches wide are substituted for 2 1/2-inch strips.

And for October's Breakfast Club there is a fun Pattern Basket design, "Pumpkin Seeds."

The quilt shop we meet at, Seams Like Home, is hosting a mystery quilt starting in September. For $89 you purchase a brown paper bag of fabrics and only the focus fabric in a ribbon is shown on the outside. If the ribbon is in batiks then all  of the fabrics will be batiks. Below is what was in my brown paper bag.

I'm very excited with my fabrics. The shop did this last year and it was a huge hit. Every brown paper bag is a different selection of fabrics. A lot of the ladies from Breakfast Club did the mystery last year and it was so much fun to see all the different quilts so I had to join in this year.

Have share one of my studio projects...I tore the carpet off the support stands on Eli's cat tree and covered them in twine. Eli had shredded the carpet with his clawing and the one section wrapped in rope was in tack but really too short for my huge Maine Coon. He barely fits in the top bed but he loves this spot.

I have such a sense of quilt renewal after seeing the ladies at Breakfast Club.

I really hope to actually get a quilt top loaded on my quilt frame today. Maybe I can get my quilting mojo back!

Crazy Summer of 2019

Hot....I am so hot! Not right! This is Alaska.

There will be more whining about weather through out this post.

Less than two weeks after our summer guests left we had a septic issue. We all assumed it would be related to the earthquake but turns out is was improper installation...which would explain a few problems from the moment we moved into the house. 

Miraculously, my landscaping from last summer was not sacrificed.

 A hole at least 12 feet deep came within inches of my rock work. 

I always have new landscaping projects but this year I am using the rocks in my yard instead of importing them from a quarry. Below is an area at the entrance of our driveway. Lots of snow and gravel gets pushed around this area in the winter time so I am keeping that in mind as I work.

I am planting perennials and ferns I have transplanted from other parts of my yard. 

Below is a close up of the round rocks I've been trying to layout to mimic a flowing stream. I'm going to try filling with a sand used in patio work that you wet and it turns into a grout. I'll let you know how that goes.

We had one more adventure planned for this summer, a trip to Washington state to pickup the tools my son inherited from my dad. My husband drove his truck down to Seattle where he picked me up at the airport. The next morning we bought a trailer and loaded up all the tools. My parents home is in Randle, Washington, a remote logging town. We didn't have any luck hiring strong men to help us but hubby and I did it! 

It was the first time I had ridden on the Alcan Highway. I think it will be my one and only time. Gorgeous scenery every bit of the way but roads, especially in Alaska, were rough.

It took us four days with 15 hours on the road for three of those days. We had to get home so my husband could get to work so no time to site-see. Below is a fun sign at a gas station in Kitwanga, British Columbia. 

It is 2,363 miles from Randle, Washington to our home in Eagle River, Alaska.

I didn't do any of the driving since our heavy trailer intimidated me too much to offer to share that responsibility. I did bring a small quilt for some handquilting.  I got almost half of the white stitching done. 

I got all of the cross stitching done on a South American Santa ornament.

Once home, it was back to the heat.

Normally...August is a cool, rainy month. This August the temperatures are near 80 most days with lots of sunshine. I do hate to complain but my garden is absolutely exploding. I was gone 6 days. I tried to harvest everything that was ripe before I left but I came home to a squash explosion. I made four loaves of zucchini bread before I left town. 

More bread and other recipes in my future.

And though some of my potted plants are fried from all the heat, the liatris or gay feather, in my perennial garden is doing better than ever. Usually it is September when it finally starts blooming and I am always worrying a killing frost will take it before I can enjoy it. 

Before our road trip, I  finished the stocking front for Snow Princess 

and got started on the Snowman Family 3-D Project. 

Just no time for quilting with all this hot weather. If I'm not watering plants I am harvesting, trimming or cooking food for the freezer. At some point I would like to get educated about dehydrators but that will have to be a winter project. 

A Little of Everything

We finished our tourist trip with a couple of days in Whittier. We did a glacier tour of Prince William Sound. Below is a photo of Surprise Glacier. The glacier does a lot of calving so that is how it got its name and it did give us a nice little show.

The next day we went on a halibut fishing charter with Crazy Rays. There were 12 of us on the boat and 11 of us brought home a halibut. I was the last one to get mine and it was a biggie, 90 to 100 pounds.

No way could I pick up this sucker. The boat had rod holders but I still needed my husband to hold the rod in place while I used both hands to reel. The fish was 400 feet below the boat. It took forever to reel it in...it was much more difficult than I thought it would be.

We have been breaking a lot of records for high temperatures this summer. It has been a real chore to keep everything watered. I did some artichokes as ornamental plants in pots. They are doing great. 

My garden is out of control but in a good way!

Not sure if I will do zucchini and yellow squash again. The plants get so big and my husband doesn't care for them.

Harvested a batch of squashes and some beets.

 We had zucchini noodles with our marinara sauce last night. I liked it more than hubby.

Tonight I am making a salad that has some spiral zucchini in it. 

I know hubby likes zucchini in that recipe. 

I could share of ton beautiful flower pictures...they all look so great this summer.

Despite all the wonderful hot and sunny weather, I have spent time on some handwork pieces. 

Making great progress on a Plaid Bucilla stocking, "Snow Princess."

Finished a Jim Shore snowman ornament, " Snowman with Lights."

Added the border to the second quilt top, "Spumoni Spin."

And I got a few of my older Bucilla stockings lined with cotton Christmas fabrics. I learned this technique through a Bucilla Facebook group. This extra lining process really adds nice body to the finished stocking.

It is always good to write a blog post and see that I really have gotten some projects done.