We are in Colorado and had beautiful snow to look at but the roads were clear.
It made for a lovely drive.

I hope all is well with all of you. I have not had much time on the computer but just wanted to say HI....

On the road again. We are off to Utah and Wyoming to see family.

The final word came in on my once wonderful machine. The motor is dead and my machine is too old and there are no replacement motors available.

I am so sad.

If any of you have any recommendations on favorite machines
please send along your suggestions.

Embroidery is sure relaxing.

I am having such a good time doing some embroidery on my western blocks.

I have been talking about how much fun it is to live in a new home
and see what comes up in the spring.
Everyday there is something new coming up and I am enjoying it.

However yesterday I came out and this is what I found!

A new surprise in the spring sun.

I have decided to do some embroidery on my quilt squares for my western quilt. I want to enhance the fabric with some embroidery and then I will quilt the dark green boarder around each of the squares. There are 20 different squares so I will be doing hand work for a bit. So far it is a very fun process. I have no idea how this will look when it is complete but I guess we will just say it is a work in progress that will evolve. This is the first time I have not had a solid plan on one of my projects but I am enjoying heading into the unknown.

Wish me luck!

SPRING IS HERE!!

Today is Mom's birthday....

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you!
Wish I could be there but I hope you have a wonderful day!

Yahoo, it is done! I finished this last night.
It is a wedding present for a friends daughter. She is getting married on Monday. I was thinking that I might have to give it to her after the fact and I am so excited that I can give it to the happy couple on Monday.

My Baby boy is 19 today. I am wishing he was here with us to celebrate but He made it safely back to school and is snowboarding in Park City with his friends today.
It is a perfect way for him to spend his birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

It is funny how fast time passes with our kids. They grow up too fast!

Here is my worksheet for my western quilt that I have been working on since my first post. I have been thinking a lot about how to put all these pieces together since all of the blocks are very busy. I also did not want them lined up horizontally or vertically. So this was what I came up with.

Here is the beginning of the layout. I think I like it but we will see how it all looks when I have all of the squares bordered in the dark green. My only concern is sewing the squares together which will be a challenge so if any of you have any wise words of wisdom I would welcome them.

Thank you to all of you who expressed concern for my sister. They have ruled out many things but have not found out what created her problems. Please continue to send good thoughts to her. The unknown is a scary thing.

I am thinking about my sister in Wyoming today. She was in a car accident yesterday and has something going on medically and we do not know what it is. I hope the doctors can decide what is going on so she can get on with life. She is my younger sister. Fortunately she has a wonderful family there with her.

It is times like this when it so difficult to live so far from one another. I am sending many good thoughts and prayers. And of course lots of Love!!!

My son has made it home, yippee... It is so nice to have him here, the only thing that could make it better is to have his sister here too. Having your kids so far from home is the one thing I do not like about having them grow up. I am kind of like a mother hen who wants all her chicks in the nest.

Look at these lovely eggs. I just love eggs and yesterday my sweet husband brought me farm fresh eggs and got a dozen. We had poached eggs this morning and they were sooooo good. I really like the beautiful colors too.

We have received a couple inches of rain since midnight and it is still coming down with strong gusty winds. Butch is very disgusted with the rain. He did not want to go out this morning. As you can see from the photo this is one unhappy pup.
He is spoiled rotten too!

I spent quite a bit of time working on stitching circles yesterday and I will continue today. I hope to get the binding cut also. Our youngest is coming home for a few days for spring break and I am looking forward to having him here so I will also be cooking too.

Have a great day!

I made my first order from Etsy the other day and yesterday my package arrived. It is this wonderful package of scraps that I purchased from Michelle at Cicada Studio.

This fabric is lovely and it will be so fun to work with. I am such a lover of scraps and this is a wonderful assortment and her fabric. Thank you Michelle for making this available. I am pleased with my purchase.

This is what I have been working on latly. I am hand quilting circles inside the squares of this quilt. I decided that the squares were too large with just the quilting along the edges and it needed something in the center. So here are the circles. I am sorry the photo is not great but I hope to photograph the entire quilt when I finish and I hope the circles will show up better after it is washed.

I think I have found someone to work on my sewing machine but it is 80 miles up the coast so I will be waiting until next week to drop it off on our way to Portland.

I love the designs on this machine. My grandmother gave it to me when I turned 13. I have it sitting in my studio. I think it is a beautiful machine. I am thankful that is still works since I will be using it to finish quilting my latest project since my trusty Elna is having some problems......

I think my sewing machine is dying. I got this machine in 1976 and it has been a wonderful machine. Yesterday when I was quilting my latest project it started not responding when I would use the pressure foot. I thought it was a short in the cord but when I removed the top to make sure it wasn't a belt or something I noticed when I would use the pressure foot there were flashes inside the machine. I am going to try and find someone to repair it but I am not sure what will happen. I guess time will tell.

I have spent the day working on machine quilting. I have never machine quilted a quilt any larger than a small lap quilt. I found it a real adventure. I have taken out many rows of stitching. I think my problem was that I had not basted things well enough. So I am now basting my quilt and will try again tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

If you have any advise please leave me a comment.

I have been doing some more experimenting with the idea of a crazy quilt. I also love doing embroidery and have not done it for years so I am putting the two together. I am not sure what will become of this but for now it is really satisfying me in many ways.

It is a strange day here. Nice enough to walk the dog one minute and pouring the next. I guess it is time to go to the studio and work. Oh darn. :-) Have a great Monday.

I just had to add one more green photo. I went out and noticed that I had not emptied the rain gauge this week. MMMM now I know why I live with so much green.

Now back to some quilting. I pieced this quilt this week with a moda jelly roll. This is the first time I have used a jelly roll. It was fun. I have made my quilt sandwich now it is time to quilt. I am not a traditional quilter and this is the largest quilt I have ever made, it is about the size of a twin bed. I had quite a time getting all three layers lined up properly. I think I have it now.

Now I am a bit intimidated by the thought of machine quilting this and I have to complete it by the 23rd of March for a wedding gift, so there is no time to waste. However as you can see I am procrastinating and writing in my blog instead. I may give it a try later today or wait until tomorrow. Wish me Luck!

Green Week Day 7

This is the end of green week. I really enjoyed doing this. This is a photo of the Thomas Creek Bridge on the Pacific Coast. It was constructed in 1961, the Thomas Creek Bridge has the highest bridge in Oregon at 345 feet. It is located at milepost 374.78 near Cape Ferrelo, between Gold Beach and Brookings. I took the photo about noon yesterday so the lighting is not great but I thought this had to be the final photo of the week.

I will return to quilting tomorrow. I have completed a quilt top for a wedding gift so I need to get it ready to quilt.

Green Week Day 6

I went out yesterday and took photos around our community. It was very fun to go out and see what I could find. It seemed like every grouping of mailbox's had one green box in the group. I found it interesting that there was only one in each group. In fact where my box sits there are all black boxes and one green one. Odd.

TIME TO CELEBRATE WITH GREEN !!!

I have the internet at home again. I can hardly wait for tomorrow morning when I can read blogs and drink my coffee in the comforts of my home.

Thank you for putting up with my week of whining.

Green Week Day 5

I went out today and took photos around town and up in the hills. I did not venture too far since it was very muddy due to all of the rain in the last few days. It has been such fun for me to focus on one color when I take my photographs. I took quite a few today. I usually get on a bit of visual overload when I go out to take photos but by focusing on one color it helped me to focus. I will post more tomorrow but I loved the spring feel of this one.

I am still using the internet at the library so unless my modem is on my front door step waiting my return I will not be posting too much since my time is very limited. Have a great weekend and I hope to be back to normal posting soon.

Green Week Day 4

I had hoped to take photos today outside but once again we have rain. So I looked around the house and found a few things to photograph. As I said yesterday I am amazed at the amount of green in my world. However I would like the rain to stop so I can share it with you.

I have been fighting with my internet provider. I really hate the automated calling systems. I had to spend 45 minutes this morning on the phone just to find out that my replacement modem that was to arrive yesterday had not even been ordered. Bah humbug! I am sorry to be venting but I just need to. I am in our library again so that I can get online and take care of my blogging addiction. I really regret that I have not been able to have the time to read everyone's blogs. Maybe by next week I will be online at home again. Have a great Thursday. :-)

Well, another day at the library. We are still waiting on our new modem. I thought it would arrive today. Not.

It rained most of the day so my green photo is a wet one. We are expecting a few dry days so I hope to get out and wander around town and take some green photos. I have been looking everywhere I go for green and I am amazed and how much green there is in my world.

I also worked on a quilt for a friends daughter who is getting married. I used a jelly roll of fabric. It is going together very quickly. I will take photos in the next couple of days and share.

I hope all of you are having a great week.

Green Week Day 2

It is a windy and rainy day today. I have come to the library to use the internet today since the lightning storm last night fried my modem. I guess I should be thankful that it did not do the same to my computer.

This photo I took a couple of years ago while visiting my parents in southern Colorado. I just love the way the rain follows the copper chain. And don't forget the green.....

I am participating in "Green Week" http://www.shiningegg.com/shining_egg/2009/02/starting-monday.html. This is a fun challenge. We had a break in the rain (2 inches yesterday) this morning so I went out and wandered around the yard and found this small little broccoli head coming up in the garden. It is amazing when you just focus on one color what you see.

This is a fun challenge. I apologize for not knowing how to do a direct link.

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about how quickly time passes. It seems like a couple of years ago when these photos were taken and it has to be at least 14 years. These are my babies. I should not call them that but I like to. They are now 22 and 18. How time flies.