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.