Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Some inspiration


 I have been busy with things around the house and not had much time to devote to a dedicated quilting project of late. I am in the process of doing a bit of designing for a challenge so I am doing tons of research on the internet for photos for the parts of the composition. Of course being a challenge I cannot reveal what I am up to but I am having fun trying to put the composition together and make it work for a fiber art piece.

I have also been busy with an online free crazy quilt class.............yep crazy all right. Like I needed another project. Some of my friends had signed up and I checked it out and when I realized that I really had all the supplies already I figured why not, it is after all free and there is always something to learn. We post when we have completed small tasks and the instructor then e-mails the next step. This is Task #6 in progress which is embellishing most but not all of the seams. I especially love the row of hyacinths. I chose greens the base and then the embelishmets are in deeper colors of greens, blues, purples and pinks. I am having lots of fun with this little project and have learned quite a few new things.

Last Saturday I drove to Santa Fe for a meeting and on the way home went the back way thru Gallesteo, New Mexico. In the center of the village there is this bank of mail boxes. I have driven past these for years and since I had my camera I stopped to take some photos. I have always loved quilts that have long rows for mailboxes and I have always thought of that when I drive by these. It will be fun to play with these photos and come up with a pleasing composition using some of the boxes in the photos.
 



Tuesday, January 13, 2015

On A Dark And Dreary Day




 What to do on a dark and dreary day? The new year is already almost two weeks old and I have been busy. Wish I could say I have been having nothing but fun and working on my 2015 Bucket List. Yep this year I have ditched the resolutions as well as the goals. This year it is a bucket list. In any case whatever you call it, it is a list of things and events that I want to do or participate in.

For quilting and sewing the bucket list is pretty simple:
Work on UFOs
Reduce stash
Work on altered couture (old clothes to new items......this should be fun)

So far I am off to a good running start. Yesterday I decided to try this little "Thread Catcher". I guess you can put anything in there that suits your fancy. I put buttons in mine. I found it on Pintrest and there is a link with a tutorial to this blog: HERE These go together really fast and there are a million color combinations that you could make them out of. What a fun little project to sew up on a dreary day.







Another project that I am just starting this year is another Scrappy Trip Around The World. The instructions for this quilt are on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville site: HERE I love Bonnie's site and this is the second Scrappy Trip I am making. This one is in my favorite color combination; purple and green. It will go on the bed in the RV we bought last November and will be queen sized. This project will use 384 strips that measure 2 1/2 by 16 inches. I calculated that this project used up around TEN yards of fabric. How is that for a good start on my quilters bucket list to use stash? I have been cutting these strips for over a week and am so happy to have them all cut so that now I can just sew them together without having to stop to cut more.










Today's view off the balcony. You cannot even see the mountain today, and there has been snow on and off since yesterday morning. Just enough snow to cover the ground. It is the desert so the moisture is much needed.





Sunday, January 4, 2015

Happy New Year


 I have been traveling for the past two weeks. I even took my little featherweight sewing machine but did not manage to have the time to do any sewing.  I did manage to crochet a hat for my daughters violin teacher. I will post a photo of that in another post.

Our first stop was Tombstone Arizona, a town with quite the history. We were there Christmas day and there were not many people. They did have a few things going on like stagecoach rides and mine tours.
 Here is a photo of me as I was all donned with my hard hat to explore the Good Enough Silver Mine which sits right underneath the town. It was a fun tour. The next photo was taken inside the mine of the colors of some of the rocks, and no that is not turquoise. I do love the colors and see a quilt based on that photo.

Next was Romona California to visit relatives for the holidays. While we were there we went to the San Diego Wildlife Park. These two ducks are not exotic but I really thought they make a nice composition. And below are some African animals we saw on the tram ride.



My favorite places we visited was Organ Pipe National Monument in Southern Arizona. We only spent the night there. They have a wonderful campground and the scenery is some of the very best Snoran Desert habitat I have seen. The sunset was just awesome and the weather was pretty nice.

 


 After Organ Pipe we headed east to Kartchner Caverns. There are no photos allowed in the caverns but it was really pretty. We took a hike around the park the next day.



 Comming home the snowstorm that had been chasing us all the way from California finally caught up with us. We spent our last night on the road at Caballo Lake State Park in New Mexico. It is a really pretty place and I would love to go back when it is not so cold.




The trip was great and we really enjoyed our toy hauler that we got each other for Christmas. It is a used rig but the price was awesome and it is in great shape.

When we arrived home there was lots of snow. We turned the heat back up in the house and discovered a broken pipe that began to leak. I guess Mr Enchanting will be getting a new office remodel in 2015 as the carpet and wallboard took quite the hit from all the water that started leaking when the pipe in the wall thawed out. Not a good thing to come home to but I will take it in stride and look at it as a kick in the behind to start working on painting and working on the house with the study being first on the list.