The County Fair ( and Ribbons)

This year one of my new years resolutions was to enter the local county fair with at least one quilt. Well I am very proud to say - we had three! I entered a group quilt that 3 of my friends and I made and I quilted. The judge mentioned that the applique was Very Nice - so my friend Daisy was awfully thrilled - she did the applique! I entered my stack and whack zoo quilt and the Scrapwhacker that DS#3 and I did. We got Blue ribbons on all three and Reserve Champion on the group quilt!

We went to the fair today to see how we did and we were so tickled - now the other 2 boys are ready to make something! The Black Cream and Gold one in the center is the group quilt. The bright blue quilt to the right is the Stack n Whack quilt.

The one hanging is the Scrapwhacker quilt. Of course it is the only one I put a hanging sleeve one....

We also saw Pigs and Goats and Sheep and Ducks - so ds#3 wants a goat, ds#1 wants a duck and ds#2 wants to know if you make any money on any of this stuff so he can buy toys!!

Birthdays galore and more

June and July is big Birthday time around here, we have 3 within 2 weeks of each other, and the 4th of July holiday as well. Isn't it nice for the country to help us celebrate?

We took the 2 Birthday boys, there brother and some of their friends to the bowling alley for the evening and had a blast. We were the center of attention as it was ALL boys ( well and me, but I was just the runner!) The boys ate tons of pizza, bowled and ate all the cake - Yay!!

On the 4th of July we were getting ready to do our fireworks and the power went out, then a huge storm moved in and we had pouring rain until 11:30 pm, we tried to outlast it, but the weather won.... we could see some fireworks from other areas from the windows, but with no popcorn .... It was a warm day.

Our swim season is going well, the boys are taking seconds off there times and competing well. We are all getting very tanned too. At the last meet even the little guy decided to compete and he swam a 25 meter freestyle! He was awesome. It was fun to yell for him too.

On the quilting front, I have put the binding on 3 of my quilts. This is good news as I don't like that step of the whole process. I have one more to get on before I let myself sew too much. Of course there isn't much time for that this summer. But its also so hot its hard to think of quilts.

Hope everyone else is having a fun summer too, and enjoying the sunny days!

Last week of June

My how time goes by when you are having fun. My Cousin says I am running around like a turkey with its head cut off - Thats just too funny! We are running a lot for swimming but I am managing to get some quilts done, and some fabric shopping in. I don't quite have enough fabric for the Quilt of Valor project for next year at the school, so I have been watching the sales. Some of the Patriotic stuff is on sale now. I found some really neat prints on the clearance rack at the LQS that would be great for backings - so picked some of those up. I now have backings for 2 quilts. This is a good start! When I told the owner what we were doing she threw in an extra yard!

Another friend of mine says she has a box of some fabrics we might be able to use - so I am looking forward to picking those up .

A customer recently brought me a jewel box quilt. I just love the look of these quilts and she used such vibrant colors. It turned out really neat. She made it a few years ago , then didn't like it, so I assumed it would be wavy and unsquare - bad assumption. This lady's piecing is perfect - I learned a lot just studying it!

Have a quilty day!

Fathers Day

See - I am catching up. Who knew you could be even busier in the summer than in the winter? But its a lot of fun.

Fathers day was a nice sunny day here in CO - it was 102 where we live, so we headed up to the mountains to go fishing. It was a lot of fun, and we caught 4 trout. The two little guys were given instructions not to get soaked, I wonder why we even thought about that - they didn't last 15 minutes before they were soaked - clear thru to the socks. But they had fun and I laughed.... Good thing I had an extra blanket in the truck - they needed to sit on it for our ride home. There is a store - Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and of course our truck led us there - the truck was feeling the need for some chocolate so we all obliged!

We ate our fish on Monday night and they were pretty good. We BBQ'd them.

Have a quilty day!

Our First Swim Meet

My middle son had his first swim meet last saturday ...see how far I am behing already? Anyways it was an 8 and under meet so it went rather fast. As soon as he was done with one event they were calling them to the heating area for the next event. Needless to say he was a little tired. He swam Backstroke, Breaststroke, Free Style and was on a relay team. After his first meet he is hooked - ready to swim even faster!

Here he is all finished! I was so proud of him and his whole team. They did a great job.

The rest of us were very warm - it hit 100 that day. Well we better get going - swim practice you know!

Finds from the past

My Aunt sent me a box of things that she had or had been given from my grandmother and her relatives. I found 7 tea towels in there that had never been used. Each one has a little sunbonnet gal on there appliqued. They are adorable - We guess they were made about 1950 or so. So I am going to make some sort of quilt out of them. Right now they are in the stare at every day and look at a few more details stage.

I have some thirties prints that would look cute - but I don't know what I'll do yet - so I am just looking at them.

My dog - he chased a prairie dog and the mean thing bit him. So today we go get his stitches out. It has been a pathetic 2 weeks for the pup - he had to have one of those funnel things on so he wouldn't bother his stitches. He looks so dejected when he wears it. Plus he has to stay in the house to keep it clean. He is not a complete house dog....we have been taking him out a lot - but I think he misses the great outdoors.

Have a great day!

Pink Lemonade Quilt

This quilt is called Pink Lemonade. I just love bright colors and have been getting more and more bold with my fabric choices - and this is what I came up with. And since it is summertime I like it even more. Of course it is not quilted yet ( but the top is done!!!) and my son thinks I should use lime green thread- he may be on to something.

Summer is here today - Thursday it was so blustery that the pool had to close, and Friday it was so cold in the morning. There was snow at my parents house Thursday nite, so I was wondering if we would have a mild summer. Today so far is 86 here and very sunny. Its nice - but easy to sunburn.

A Fishing Vacation

We had a successfull fishing vacation! We took 10 days and traveled north. It was a blast. We went to the town where my Grandfather grew up and got to see his house - built in 1915 but him, ( he was 12), his father and his grandfather. It was awesome. The man who owns the farm now has kept the house in as close to original condition as he can - it was neat to see the tile that my great great grandfather used in building the fire place.

This is the boys at the water pump that has been there since 1915.

We spent days at the lake fishing - both from a boat - a brand new experience for my boys, and from the shore. The shore proved more successful in number of fish caught. The big whopper was caught by my oldest son. It was 3.57 pounds and I can't remember how long, it was a white bass. They are somwhat difficult to reel in - they fight rater hard and since they are like a plate they resist a lot of water!

We also took a drive to the International Peace Gardens - so we got to jump into Canada and back. Our trip back home found us at Mount Rushmore, and of course - I found a quilt shop, and since it was only 4 miles out of the way they let me go - and didn't even rush me thru the 6000 bolt shop!!!

Little Bits Quilt of Valor

Yay - we finished the top of Little Bits quilt of Valor. This is the quilt that he decided we needed to sew on each day for 15 minutes! It worked and it is ready to be quilted. its a scrap pattern from Bonnie Hunters website called weedwhacker. (http://www.quiltville.com)

We changed the borders a little and it is 51 by 62 - perfect for a Quilt of Valor.

He really liked the way he chose his borders - and he even tried to clean the kitchen up a little before the picture ;-)

We call this a working kitchen - and house for that matter.

We went on a vacation so all my days are a little messed up - the benefits of leaving a computer at home. But either last weekend or the weekend before we had my kids, and my nephews out and did a little riding on the horses, a little rodeoing, and a lot of goofing off. This is the 5 cowboys. We sure had a lot of fun and were a little sunburned.

Our Mini Tornado

Well - it finally happened. We have seen countless tornado go north of us, to the east of us, but Saturday one came our way. It took our trampoline and smashed it into the guy wires, turned our dumpster over, and took everything we had outside. Luckily for us - we were not apart of the outside.

It wasn't that big of one but it went from south to the north of us and truned east - we watched for about 2 miles, then a huge rain/hail storm came.

The next night we had rain for about 3 hours, we were prepared for a repeat, but nothing came of it.