What I've Been Up To.....

In no apparent order of occurence or importance.... here's some pix from the last two days.

On a run over to the Friends & Co. Quilt Shop, we passed a field with a good sized herd of antelope. So graceful and pretty! They took off when we slowed down to take the pix.
















Click to embiggen!

I caught Mom in a rare moment of relaxation with "Julie", at her feet.








































Dad and I started a string quilt. I had packed my belongings in a box that only filled it about 1/3 full. Then I dumped in 10 inches of strings!


Dad wasn't all that sure about the process, but he gamely offered to help and we had dueling sewing machines hard at work.


































His first block:

Here, he found another "snake" in the string box. There were some strings that were the entire width of the fabric and he found that rather amusing as he kept pulling and pulling trying to find the end of his string.

And after about two hours, we had the one fourth of a twin quilt put together! Do we rock, or what???

For my niece Wiffie: a picture of the neatest treehouse I've seen in a long time. It's not really a tree house, but I guess the owners called it that. It belonged to the son of some friends of my parents - he's grown now.... but I have a feeling this 'treehouse' will be around for his children someday!

While I've been typing or sewing, chores here have gone on as usual. Dad's monitored his irrigation lines....

Mom's done a ton of laundry after their recent trip and cooked us some FANTASTIC dinners. Simple, healthy and delicious - my kind of yummy. We had an omlet the other night made from eggs laid by the chickens that day! Fresh eggs are SO good! Here, Dad was holding one of his favorite chickens, who thinks she's a lap pet.

Friends of theirs at a neighboring ranch were going to be out for the evening, and asked Mom and Dad to feed their labs and their kitties. It felt just like a dog sit! We hustled down and I met Bailey (a very young white lab) and then watched the feeding system for the barn cats.

This was rigged up to get their food to the top of the hay bales, and onto a rafter in the top of the barn. That keeps other creatures from stealing it, including a rather unmannerly magpie that loves their kitty food. Once a day, the container is brought down and filled up and hoisted back.

The kitties showed Mom their appreciation for the food and the back rubs!

And I sat down today with the intention of knocking out four Sylvia blocks. Ha!

Here's B1, which kicked my butt around the sewing room. I started to cheat and just cut out basket shaped pieces and applique them on. Then I decided I wanted to stretch and grow as a quilter and do it right. Ugh. I will go with my first instinct next time. I still need to applique stitch the handles, but the block was made per the directions in the book.

And here's B2. I was tired, and I'm finding that I need to do a really scant 1/4 inch seam on the machine I'm using. This one is wonky. But you know what? I'm over it. Wonky but finished is fine with me! Moving on to B3 later this week. But I'm also working on the string quilt and quilting a flimsy that I brought with me, to drop off at the crisis center.

So me thinks I'm going to be a dud at the Sylvias until I get home. But I will catch up! I will keep trying to work on them here, too.

Oh, and guess what was sitting in the back room of the Friends & Co Quilt Shop??? A Fusion and an Avante!

Drool!

G'nite all!!