A Tiskit, a Tasket...

Ta Da!!

With a list as long as Santa's, I decided to ignore everything on it and make a basket. Call me crazy. :) I had all sorts of clean-up cuts piling up, and it was time to get rid of them. Instead of sewing them together, I wrap them around clothesline and start making baskets.

I never know what I'm going to end up with, but as long as the colors like each other in a pile, they seem to like each other when they are sewn together.

I haven't cleared off any more space on my sewing table, but I have cleared out a bit of one drawer.

Now I can shuffle things from the sewing table to the drawer. hahahahaha (maniacal laugh...)

Perhaps tomorrow I will be able to churn out something from my list. I've entered unfinished work in the County Fair, and it needs to be finished and delivered by 6pm September 3. yep. I should have my head examined. I've got 1.5 quilts to quilt and bind, and I can probably guarantee that the rafting quilt will not be beaded in the coming week. oh well. Goals are good, and I've set some doozies!

Seeing Sights

I'm not much of a photographer, but I love to take pictures. I could claim that it is "in my blood," as both grandfathers were passionate photographers, entering their work in salons, much the way I enter quilt shows. I've entered some work in the county fair - I've won two ribbons for photographs from the dozens that I've entered. Second place and Honorable Mention. woohoo!! I felt like I'd gone to the moon!! :)

Anyway, here are some of the pictures I took while we were traveling.

Do you see it? This tree is a reindeer - I have trouble seeing the tree. We were at the bus stop in Albuquerque. Pete did not see the reindeer until he saw the photo on the computer and I pointed it out to him.

I took "the world's longest tram ride" to the top of Sandia peak, the last in the chain of the Rocky Mountains. I walked around a bit, and asked a fellow-walker if she would snap my picture. Thank you!! I couldn't have framed it more perfectly!!

I was told that Sandia is a geologist's dream. All that remains is the magma portion of the volcano. When I saw the mountain top, I believed them! What is hard to believe, is that anything can grow here!

We left New Mexico for Colorado, and spent a day driving through the Rocky Mountain National Park out of Estes Park.

I was reminded of Alaska and Denali, although I think Alaska is more spectacular. My camera hold pictures of tundra and a few meadows, we must have missed the wildflower season. We did see some bighorn sheep...

We also saw this little guy, watching us carefully. I don't know what he is. He didn't have a squirrel tail, I don't think he's a chipmunk. I initially thought he was a prairie dog, but we weren't on the prairie, we were in the mountains. According to the sign, I thought he might be a pika, but when we saw a stuffed pika on the summit, he certainly wasn't a pika...

Whatever he was, he was watching me very carefully.

We made it to the Visitor's Center at the Alpine Summit, which was just below 12,000 feet. I love the blue sky.

On the way down, we stopped at this rock-face. Guess who wanted his picture taken?

And that about wraps up the photos from our trip. I do have more, but it remains to be seen whether or not I decide they are worth posting. Hope you enjoyed the show!

A Quilting Interlude

I took a hand-quilting and an applique project along for the trip, but neither saw much hand time. One evening I had an hour or so, so I began making replacement eyes for this year-old Charlie block. Eventually I replaced his eyes. Yesterday I began a second surgery on Green Charlie. Here he is, halfway through the process.

My husband says he likes the old eye better. hmmm.

Remember the stack of fabrics and subsequent cut strips that I teased you with before I disappeared? I added the last border yesterday. It is "Stone Mosaic," from Quick Diamond Quilts & Beyond, by Jan Krentz.

I'm not much for following patterns, but this one was fascinating. It is completely different from anything I've done before. I like the finished quilt, although I had no idea it would look like this. I think I would have altered fabric placement, with more hibiscus and less water, but on the whole? Not bad. One more thing to add to my "needs quilting" list...

Finally, yesterday, I grabbed some of the scraps and put together this little thank you card. It's nothing spectacular, but I like the way the dark greys make the turquoise pop. The orange border makes me smile, as do the little fishies, swimming across the top.

That's all I've got for you for now. I've gone back to beading my whitewater quilt. It will be weeks (months?) before I finish. *sigh* But I love the results, so I need to remain diligent.

Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival

Did you miss me? As you may have guessed, I went silent because I was out of town. No sense announcing to the world that my baby (20) would be home alone... ;)

Our destination? First, Albuquerque, NM, for the AABP Conference. For those of you out of the loop, that's the American Association of Bovine Practitioners. It's cows, cows, cows, and more cows. We were there for two days.

We flew from Albuquerque to Denver, CO, then drove to Loveland. Our destination? The Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival. This is where they debut the entire Hoffman Challenge traveling collection, and I thought it would be fun to see it again in its entirety.

My husband came with me on the first day, and took a gander at the quilts. I'm usually not much of a picture taker at quilt shows, but I thought it would be fun to share the entries of some of the people that I know read this blog.

Right up front we came to this quilt, by Sharon L. Schlotzhauer of Colorado Springs, CO:

She won a first place with her quilt, "Little Wild Flowers," in the Mixed Technique category.

As we wandered down the aisle, this quilt caught my eye. Chard? Is it chard? It's "Asian Jade."

Imagine my surprise when I read the tag and saw that it was made by Kay Pennington, of Bakersfield, CA. I know her! Kay, I love your quilt!!

Directly below Kay's quilt was...Kay's quilt! I had seen "Geometry in Bloom" on Kay-from-Indiana's blog, which you can visit here...

I turned 90 degrees, and bumped into Kristin's quilt! Kristin Eilers is a local quilter from Lemoore. I know her! Her quilt is called "Tide Pool's Edge."

It took some looking, but we finally rounded the corner and found my little quilt. When we took the picture, people thought my quilt was the lady. No, it's the little quilt with turtles hanging below the lady...

Pete seemed to like looking at the quilts, but he really perked up when he found the cows...

On Saturday, we visited Estes Park, CO, and entered the Rocky Mountain National Park. On Sunday, I was back at the quilt show, to do my shopping. Here's my quilt loot:

I've purchased hand-dyed silk velvet, a "velvet beading pad," and little orange fish beads from the Bead Ranch; a cone of So Fine from the Hobbs vendor, Sulky thread from Sulky, snowflake buttons from Jillions of Buttons, and some photo transfer paper from the Kaleidoscope people.

Although I bought other things, (I forgot to include the clothesline from Vogie, for making baskets), there wasn't much that called my name. Maybe that's because I'd found New Mexico Bead and Fetish in Albuquerque.

As you can see, I found several versions and sizes of heishi. There are fish, hummingbird and bear fetish (es?) in the bag, a bag of heart-shaped abalone buttons, a bag of silver-plated round beads, a string of white mystery (glass? stone?) beads, and a string of very nice shells. I don't have plans for them yet, but they all looked like they will be very useful.

And that's about it for RMQF. I have tons of pictures of other things, but I think I'll save them for another day. Hope you enjoyed the show!

A Peek At A Project...

Step One: Select Fabric...

Step Two: Cut and label strips...


Step Three...Begin sewing...

Right Place, Right Time

I inserted a quickie project into my schedule and hit a stumbling block. I thought I'd have pictures by now. They will have to wait.

Instead, I can show you this lovely postcard, made by Sara Kelly. It arrived in the mail this week. Consider me a lucky duck!! :)

My other piece of good news is that I sold my old sewing table. You may recall that I redid my Studio last year, and had a new one built to order. The old one has been languishing in my dining room. Yesterday it found a new owner. I delivered it this morning, and discovered that tomorrow she is having a Giant Yard Sale. She gave me a sneak preview, and I came home with this armload, at 50 cents/skein. Woohoo!! jackpot!!

Obviously Blogger is jealous...why else would it flip my picture?

And that's all I've got for now. I can't exactly take a picture of the myriad of ideas that are suddenly swimming in my brain in response to this new load of Treasure. Believe me, it's crowded in there!

Two More Cards

I put two more cards in the mail today. They are fairly simple. They are for men. I did not think they would go for froo froo.
The first was simply strips of red with two rows of gold/black beads and a free-motion sentiment.

The second was done with my embroidery machine. I free-motioned the signature and sewed on a button. (The blue mosaic background is a patio table.)


And that's the scoop around here.

Perhaps you'd like a Dyson update?

I've discovered that it is heavy (compared to the Oreck), it does not have a light in front (Oreck does), the cord is too short, and the attached hose/wand is awkward to say the least. HOWEVER, I vacuumed the living room yesterday, and it sucked up as much cat hair as it did the first time I used it. That sucking power is why I bought it and why I use it. It is AMAZING. I can live with its insufficiencies, because the cat hair removal more than makes up for them.

The End

Buzz...

I've been doing a LOT of beading lately. Yesterday I took a much-needed break. What should I work on? How about my Nancy Brown project from the June workshop? Yes, it's just the thing. The quilt is now quilted and bound, and ready for a label.

"Buzz"
NotMyCat from January 31-June 11, 2010
Nancy Brown workshop
Suzanne Kistler, August 2010

A Couple of Cards

Tomorrow is Sue's birthday. Does she or doesn't she read the blog? I have no idea. I should see her, and will deliver this card in person. It is the last of the cards made with this strip of fishie fabric.

My daughter's second anniversary is this weekend. Or is it Monday? I've made this little card that reminds me of bamboo. You probably can't tell, but it has copper-covered leaves sewn onto it.

The last thing that I did today was finish quilting this quilt-for-hire. It's been in my possession
for much too long. It will go to its owner in a couple of weeks. I believe she plans to bead it.

I was asked to emphasize the circles, which was more of a challenge than you might believe. But it is done now, and ready for its return.

That's it for today. Tomorrow I meet with the Itty Bitties where I will be sewing beads on my rafting quilt. They're looking wonderful (in my opinion) and make it known that we were in the middle of White Water. yay!

Treasure Cache

The first treasure I have to share just came out of my mailbox. I regularly read Vicki's blog at Field Trips in Fiber. A few days ago, she turned the remnant of a cross-stitch kit into a set of postcards. She sent five to the first five people to comment. I am SO excited. I was commentator #2. woohoo!! See my pretty? Thank you so much, Vicki!!

Oh!! How cool is that?!!

As I was looking for the link, I see that she's linked to my postcards on her weekly field-tripping the web post on eye candy. Thank you, Vicki, again!!

On Saturday, my son and I went yard-sale-ing. I picked up these wine stem charms and other charms for a total of 75 cents. I've already dismantled the wine charms and put the candy canes in a spot where they are ready for making Christmas cards. I'm not sure how successful that will be, since the canes are glass and fragile, but they would work on ornaments if they don't work on cards.


At the Salvation Army, their bric-a-brac was 50% off. That means I paid 70 cents for this lovely shell,


And 70 cents for this 14" glazed ceramic fish.

And that's what I've got for today. Hope you enjoyed the show!