A bad day at the pond~

The boys have these cool remote control boats, and BC has this water park for activities such as these!

Here we have a tipped vessel, (red/cream), but here comes Will to the rescue!!!

After a few attempts he finally gets in a good position to push him to shore!

It was quite entertaining watching them~

Finally, the rescue is made! A few minor adjustments and he is back in action!

I love watching these guys, in BC, its boats, skateboards, bikes and scooters, at home, its quads, hiking, target shooting, bow hunting, and now handheld crossbows.....................blessed? Indeed!!

Been a busy couple days, dental appointments, quilting, and guild business meeting, and more quilting, not up to leaving but I look forward to delivering quilts, it's like watching kids opening up presents!

A Challenge accomplished!

Hehehe, just a funny shot I came across while looking at some pictures, this boy was out riding with his buddy, the mud was pretty slick and he just tipped right over! No harm was done to the bike~and obviously none to the rider either!

This quilt was quite the challenge, it was one of last months accomplishments and as I look back at the pictures it all comes rushing back!

I loved the design, it is one from Deb Geissler, love love love her stuff!

This was no little one either, you can see on the left how close it is to the end of the frame, I have a 14 ft table~

One of the challenges was how the quilt was growing from around the middle of the quilt towards the bottom, tried to get a shot of it but it was around 110 at the top and by the time I hit the bottom we were at 116 wide!

We knew the backing and batting were going to be close but man oh man............

Here is its full shot, it came out pretty even with all its quirks~

Here is a little closer look at the design, kokopelli's flittering around doing their thing! I gave it to her on a Wednesday and she had the binding on it and on her bed by the weekend!

Seems we go through spurts of quilts that bring us a little challenge, we did 5 bargello hearts that still cause me to wake up in a sweat in the middle of the night, they came out beautiful and that is what I try to focus on! Those babies are up next to share!

Catching up~

Wow, I am still amazed that we are already in June, I had a fun May and was sorry to see it end so quick!!

This customer is one of my favorites, she tells me exactly what she wants and that is just what she gets!

The pictures don't quite do the quilting justice............

She also had shams but didn't get pics of those.

Then this little guy, sigh, when you get a naggling feeling in the back of your mind it is always best to trust that niggle and double check those little things, especially when it involves your tension!! I got to the 4th row and seen the stitching from the 1st and my heart dropped clean to my toes, what took 15.5 minutes to stitch out ended up taking over 5 hours of unstitching. Big lesson learned!

Here we have T and K, they are two amazing quilters in our Guild, T, is showing her latest using silk ties that she has collected over the years, it is an amazing quilt to say the least!!

Since we have had rain, snow and sleet so late into the year, it is has brought out all the beautiful wild flowers, Court and Donnie brought the bouquet home for me and hopefully I will have a nice supply throughout the summer!

I am very excited to have gotten our classes scheduled for MQX West this morning, did that at 9am sharp, booked our room last week so we are set to go! From there we went and delivered a couple quilts then it was off to the dentist, poor Donnie spent over 3 hours in that chair, he takes after me in that we have a high pain tolerance so by the time we realize there is a problem it definitely has become one! One more visit and he is good to go, the Dentist gave him a prescription and I thought it was for an antibiotic but it turned out to be a pain killer, Vicadin to be exact! I about flipped on the pharmacist, actually I did, but it will be properly channeled to the bleeping dentist on the next visit, in the meantime he is doing just fine with the ibuprofen thank you very much!!

The machine is happily stitching along and I am trying to get some order put back into this studio............

Another one bites the dust~

Month that is! It is hard to believe June is already upon us, what has been sweet is the weather! it is a balmy 74 out and just perfect!

While Little Man D was hunting for some new shoes we headed to the camping section to check out what all was new, I am ever so tempted to get this chair for my King! It was a perfect fit!

Mothers Day was no different than any other day for me except the beautiful live plant was given along with this fabulous meal!

Which reminds me that I need to water it................

And last but not least, Spring Market in Salt Lake. Here are Merry, Kathy and Rose, they just finished up registering. I actually was the driver and we hit rain, sleet and snow the whole ride in! We were in my truck so just in case I had brought along huge black bags to protect our luggage from the elements...............oh was it a site!! Anyway, I dropped them at the door with twenty minutes to spare for early registering and as blessing would have it a car pulled away at just the right moment so I could hustle in!

We have just finished with a day of Schoolhouse and now are ready to hit Sample Spree! I planned on doing a little shopping for myself this time but I didn't push enough to get what I wanted and after 10 minutes things were sold out! I did get a couple new books and an awesome tote made out of Jo Morton fabrics along with the patterns on how to make one for yourself!

Then Friday Night, we headed to Moda's Party, it was a tasty meal but the fun part was when Michael showed up!!

It was fun to watch the dancers gather folks from the crowd............especially after they had take advantage of the open bar!!

Saturday was spent wandering the aisles and seeing all the neat new gadgets and pattern designs, I am still in awe at everything I seen, I did gather all kinds of info for future reference!

We topped the night of with a meal at the Original Red Iquana..........

Yummm, is all I can say about this! I love traditional Mexican food and their classic enchiladas did not disappoint a bit! I ate the whole plate, may have even licked a little.............

We headed out fairly early Sunday Morning, I spent a little while getting everything loaded up, I should have taken a picture of the madness, since I have the Mega Model there is a poop load of space behind the seat, so everything the 3 bought went there, I brought along my big suitcase so was able to pack all my goodies up into it and it went into the back of the truck with the other luggage, we also had a nifty cooler that sat between Rose and Kathy so cool drinks and snacks were just an arm reach away!

The ride home was horrid, it was the windiest I have ever driven in, my arms were cramping for 2 days from holding on so tight! Was it worth it? Oh yeah!! And on a funny note, since my truck was to big to go into the hotels parking garage it got front door parking for the full 4 days!

I have lost count all the quilts that have been worked on but I did manage to keep up with pictures so will now take some time to get them uploaded and shown!

Where did April go?

What an amazing month it has been! We held our annual retreat here in the Hualapai's at a Bed and Breakfast that opened up a couple years ago. Amazing place! Have the photo's downloaded and ready to be put in some kind of order for posting! Way too much fun was had!!!

We like sunset shots and this one was just glorious!

On the quilting front it has been non-stop! I am so grateful for the Gal's who trust their precious tops to me!

Since getting the IQ installed on my machine I really haven't taken the time to just play with some of the other features that it has, I have to rely on you-tube videos and sometimes they can be a little more confusing for my data bank (aka brain) to process! So I just plug along and hope for the best and keep the ripper('s) at hand!

I took a couple hours to make just a little something to play on, had the pattern forever along with the charm squares already matched, cut and ready for stitching, AND sitting under the plexi table at the machine, I wonder about myself sometimes.............

So just started pushing buttons and learned as I went!

I am pretty pleased with it! But the best part is, DH has agreed to plan a vacation to Oregon when MQX West is going to be having their first ever Longarmer's convention there this fall!!!

Then I will be able to ask a LIVE person for help! I am super excited! The Class Catalogue comes out in May and I will be signing up for everything I possibly can! Little Piggy Bank needs some chunking up!

We are also gearing up for Spring Market in Salt Lake in a few weeks, will be a wild time for sure! 4 of us from the Shop are going, and we will be able to completely experience it for all its glory as the Boss wasn't allowed to make any appointments!! We will get to scope out every aisle and booth for what they have to offer, boo-ya!!

I will also get to visit my Dad's Burial Site, he has been on my heart a lot lately and I think it might just be time to get those feelings in order...................

It is passed time that I should be heading out, I would love to stay home and watch Smallville Season 2 with the boys, Scottie bought Season 1 and we were hooked right away, then he came home with 2 last night, which reminds me I now need to rearrange the Netflix que, they have been on long wait status for quite some time now and if he keeps buying the Seasons I can put some more Jane Austen style shows on!! Hehehe~ Boys just love my choices! Not! Hehehe~

Favor~

That was how this conversation started~ The Owner was going out of town in 2 weeks and wanted to know if I could possibly have them done for her in one week giving her time to get the binding on before heading out of town!

Sigh~

Wanted to see how those funky feathers stitched out anyway~

And the backing was this heavy fleece, was a little nervous at first how it was going to take to the stitching, ended up being very nice!

This one was a mystery quilt~

It reminded me of snow and the sky, so I thought the Windy Day Design would be a perfect fit!

Was a good choice!

Now what is funny is I never met the gal, she called before I was heading to Boulder City for 3 days and she met my Son and Daughter at the quilt shop downtown, I got them done first thing Monday, literally, started at 7am and worked until completed, called her around 8pm and said they were ready, she would get back to me after checking her budget..................my stomach cringed and I just put them up and loaded the one that was up next wondering all the while what was up with this!?!

So I didn't hear from her again until Thursday, we were already in Boulder and I let one Son know what was up, he may be making a run again to take them if she found her budget worked.

In the end she was going to be able to pick them up on that Friday and wanted me to just leave them at the shop for her to pick up, nah, nada, nope, asked other Son to step in as he had some other errands already in town so he met with her at the shop and all ended well! He even took a video of her pulling them out of the bag to look at them, she was beyond thrilled and she gave him cash for payment!! Phew~ felt like I dodged a bullet there!!

It has been a long time since tinking around with the blog layout, had fun playing with the different fonts, something simple and not easy to mess up! I have forgotten how to update and change certain things so hopefully I will be able to take baby steps and change it up a bit, I found a neat background that I would like to try, then have to trial and error my way into changing the banner photo. Hmmm, wonder if I practiced on a fake one so as not to mess this one up................love those "lightbulb" (courtesy of Gru from Despicable Me) moments! ~smile~

Again~

We went to sleep seeing little flurries last night, then woke to this!!

And it is still coming down at noon time, poor little birds aren't sure what to think!

These of Mookie ~The Abominable Snow Chin~ were taken from the storm 2 weeks ago,

She wasn't quite thrilled with it this time around, may have been on the deep side for her liking!

Happily back where she belongs, she has angry eyes to me, I gave here a couple extra treats and all was good again!

I am so happy to have served at the last retreat this last weekend. They were all the local girls who came to enjoy 2 1/2 days of sewing bliss, and they spoiled me rotten, anytime someone came to the shop for something they had a little plate of goodies for me to nibble on! There was this ginormous sugar cookie that was out of this world! I only thought of taking a picture after I ate it!!

Not sure how much quilting I will get done today, I tried to start early but we had power surges kick in so just shut it all down, hopefully I can at least get one done, and another pinned in before they start again, that is about the only downside to living on a mountain............

Quick Jobs~

There are some cute frog prints in this little guy, so thought some bubbles would give it what it needed!

Love the bright colors!

There's them bubbles!

And always a sucker, can never say no, a customer who was visiting her daughter needed something done before she headed home the following week.

Since she just wanted simple stars, I figured I could fit it in!

She was thrilled and I was happy to make someone smile and make them feel special!

Home Again~

I am happy to have this guy back home! He was a shop sample for five months, it sold 12 kits and a lot of fabric off the bolts to make those little basket blocks!

which are 5 in, and those half square triangles measure out at 1 in! The littlest I have made to date!

And these ended up coming home with a certain Young Man who has admired Ostrich for a long long time! The color shows them being kind of blue but they are more on the grey side and look 'smokin on the ole' (young) boy!

Did I mention he got them HALF off!! He went and bought himself a couple new pair of jeans to enhance the look!

Back in the day when I had time I would make home~made tortillas for all the little peoples daily enjoyment, they were all wanting some and there wasn't/isn't a spare moment for such luxuries so it was time to break out the well patina'd rolling pins and griddle!

The catch though is it wasn't going to be me doing all the work and they thought I would be more involved, as in taking over and doing it myself because it would be quicker and so much easier!

Sadly for them, I didn't fall for it!!!

I told them to each grab a bowl and all the needed ingredients and THEY went to work! I hollored out the directions while loading a quilt, and so to keep it friendly the 2 boys each had their own batch to make, nothing like a little friendly competition! And I did show up to show them how they wanted their dough to feel, then a quick demonstration on kneading, and once the dough was rested how to roll 'em out. I did one for each and the rest was on their own!

They did pretty good! Manchild 1 had some interesting shapes, but once the butter melted on it didn't matter what they looked like! The taste was scrumptious!

Then here is Manchild 2 with his batch, I did start them off 20 minutes apart so there would be no room for wrestling, especially once the rolling pins came out!

Perfection! Right from the get go! His dough was just perfect!

And he kept cranking out perfect ones, one after another! Then he wanted to see just how big he could make one, and we shared it! Little bit of butter with a little bit of sugar sprinkled on and we had the best treat!

Manchild 3 wasn't up to the task this round but later in the week he got a hankering for some, and out came all the ingredients, but this time his experienced big brothers gave him a helping hand! Cheese tortillas and fajitas were on the menu!

On the work side, we are now through the 3rd weekend of Retreats, phew! This was a busy group, 16 came in from California, all friends, and man were the machines flying, I lost count of all the projects they completed, and in their down time they were shopping for future projects! All in all it was a great time but Saturday was a 12 hour day for me keeping the shop running smoothly and helping take care of these gals, needless to say I am still on the wiped out side, but this is the last weekend and I am actually looking forward to seeing that the end is in sight!