Thanksgiving at the School

The school has a Thanksgiving dinner the week before Thanksgiving and the kids get all dolled up. They invite the parents. They also invite the folks from the senior center. The 5th grade kids get to help serve the meal. Its kind of a neat thing.

My first grader got to be a pilgrim - so of course Mom had to join him for lunch.

Today it has just been my little guy and me, the other 3 are off in the great wilderness. So we watched cartoons, made chocolate chip cookies, went to the fabric shop (I had a gift certificate that expires monday!!), went Christmas shopping for the brothers, went out to dinner ( he is easy to please - McD's) and watched Surf's Up. And now he is quizzing me over all sorts of things I don't know - it is scary how much I don't know .....

We are almost off to bed - and maybe Mom can sew a few minutes ;-)

Have a great one!!

Quilts of Valor and our crazy day.

Today was a wonderfully busy, crazy, wonderful, amazing day....

Our 5th grade class had delivered our Quilts of Valor to Fort Carson in May. We never expected to hear from a soldier, let alone get to meet him when he was able. But in September Specialist Kyle was injured from a morter attack while on a misson. He was flown from the field to Bagdad for treatment, and then on to Landstuhl in Germany, after a brief trip to Walter Reed he found himself at Fort Carson - Evans Hospital. Fort Carson is where he recieved one of the quilts our kids made. We also sent a photo album with each quilt.

He was able to get convalence leave to head home to Wyoming, where he sent us a letter and offered to come to the school. Well today was the day. I had the priveledge of taking him, his mother ( an AMAZING woman), and father to lunch( VERY cool dude!!). They were the neatest people. After lunch they went with me to the school and he talked to 108 5th graders and many parents. 12 of the 6th graders came as well, as they were the group who delivered these quilts. And of course my son ( a 7th grader) came, as he was in the first bunch of students that made quilts, well and also he is MY son

Specialist Kyle entered the Elementary Cafeteria to a standing ovation and took the stage. The kids had prepared about 10 questions to ask him. He was wonderful - he answered every question and had the kids amazed. He is one brave soldier. He is into year 3 of his 4 year term. He is 22 years old, and entered the military right out of high school. When his term is over he thinks he will probably go to college to become a teacher.

The class presented him with a gorgeous quilt rack, that another veteran had made especially for him. ( I want one!!) Another group presented him with a book. I think his mom might have had a tear in her eyes.

After the family left I got to tell the kids all about QOV, and how we would be making quilts again this year. These kids are SOOO excited. They had many many questions, and I think I might have been able to answer them all.

Then - school was over - I loaded my 3 boys up and went straight to Golden to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum. My youngest son was being interviewed by the newspaper. He wore a tie, and was a camera hound! We talked to the reporter a lot about QOV's and really tried to explain quilting in general to her. We were done around 6:30 and headed home. My Hubby was just flying in from chicago so we were able to meet him for a quick burger and looong drive home.

I tell you - after a day like that - although you ( okay me) are tired, your brain is still mulling over the events. I was so impressed by the young soldier that came to see us, especially about how he handled himself, how he handled his injuries and his attitude in general. He is 1 of 3 boys, all 3 are military as of this moment. I told you that mom is Amazing. I told my boys they will now live with me until the are 100.......

Hope you all have a quilty day!!

Alycia

Artwork by kids

My middle son is very into art at the moment - well that and science experiments. He is currently doing a chemical experiments with Lemon Juice, Baking soda, Olive oil, and Vinegar. I am worried about what the kitchen will look like when he is done. I figure if I close my eyes I can pretend he is making sugar cookies....

Anyways - this is the art they have been working on at school. I thought it was really neat and is now on my wall. He thinks I ought to make that design into a quilt. He thinks highly of my abilities (grin)

Okay - Off to work - Have a gReat Day!!!
Alycia

Fabric! For Quilts of Valor

An aquaintence ( that is a friend of a friend) told me she had some fabrics that she didn't want - could I be interested in them for quilts of valor. So I headed over and she had a whole BOLT of red and of blue!! I was so tickled - now I have my backings for a lot of quilts!!

Then in the mail I got this box of fabrics - they will be so awesome for string and scrap quilts of Valor.

I just love fabric - and I love seeing the different ways we can make a quilt - so this is fun.

The Great Outdoors

Besides Quilting, one of my other favoritist things to do is be outdoors. For some reason winter hasn't really hit here, yes it is cold in the mornings and evenings. We have ice on the water to prove it, but the days are warming up to between 50 and 70. So we have been taking advantage of this as much as possible.

We hiked into a little stream waaaaay back in the mountains and this is my crew. They caught 8 fish and daddy ( good man that he is!!) came home and fried them up for dinner for them, and (this is the best part) they ALL cleaned the kitchen up while I sewed. See two loves in one day.

Then MY dad got a new dog - so we took him out and tested him in the back pastures. He is a bird dog and he is awesome. It was much colder that day as we started in the morning - so in our pics we are pretty bundled up, but towards the end of the day we had shed our coveralls and ear gear.

We must have walke about 20 miles this day - my legs were so tired when we came back in. We don't live close to a town - so pizza delivery was out. I had some soup - so we had hot soup and salad. A great ending to a gorgeous day.

I know this isn't quilt related - I promise I'll be back with a quilty thing next.... maybe ;-)

Alycia

Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum

My youngest son had a quilt that he submitted to be in the exhibit "Quilts by the Hands of Men" at the RMQM . Last night was the reception and a meet the artists night. So we headed to Golden to attend. We got there a but early ( mapquest said 1 1/2 hours - they were off, or dh sped.... we'll go with mapquest being wrong). So we had about 1/2 hour to kill so we went down to the river and went for a short walk. There are all these really neat bronzes - so the boys swam with the fish.

Then we went into the museum and it was a blast. C is the youngest quilter to have a quilt at the museum - he is 6. We went in and he got his artist name tag and right away E. Bostick a very well known quilt artist came over and shook his hand and congratulated him on his quilt. C was so very excited and honored. Then we went into the exhibit. He gave us all his best pose in front of his quilt.

We looked at that exhibit and at the one by Teddy Pruitt, had a little snack, and then met a lot of artists. They had a little announcement of all the artists and called C's name - he was so proud and he was so little they made him come up front so he could be seen... and he never came back. I think he is a glory hound !! He enjoyed himself so much, and so did my other boys. There was a quilt there called tinker toy and the man who made it must be a math genious. He explained it to us and my oldest son was so taken with the process.... hmmm. On the way home he asked if he could use some of my camo fabrics and black....

Gifts for the 25th October

I did it! I made a gift for the 25th - although I think it is my gift!! I really like it!! Its a little smaller than I thought it would be. I think I will make another tote but add some size to it, so that maybe I could carry my planner in it?

I have quite a few tote patterns but I need them so detailed I just usually give up - but this pattern was soooo easy - I did it in 1 hour maybe 1 1/2. It was in Terry Atkinsons book Happy Hour. I of course like the quilts in the book too and pulled 12 FQ's from my stash to start one of them .. hopefully tonite after the LAST child gets in bed.....

Fall Leaves Quilt of Valor

Here is another quilt of valor from the very prolific group in Buena Vista CO. I did an overall meander on it. I took the picture outside as I hear the lighting is supposed to be better - but no one warned me that the slighest breeze could make it move or come down off the rail. So it took me a few trys and some help to get the picture

Cool Pillowcases

My oldest son was on the Pheasant Run Cowboys football team. Saturday ( in the cold drizzle and blowing wind) was there last game and afterwards we had a potluck. You know the team usually always gets something for the coaches and this year I wanted to be different and get them something they could use and rememeber there team - so I made Pillowcases! And I took Gelly Pens for the kids to sign the bodies of the pillowcases. They were a hit! The coaches loved them and every player wanted one too.... ha only my son and his best buddy J got one - theres are the navy with white. The other white on white is what I made for the coaches.

After the pot luck we were such football Die Hards we drove to Fort Collins to watch CSU lose to Air Force - there was a half hour rain delay and it was sooooo windy my umbrella turned inside out. We found seats blocked by the announcers stand that protected us from the cold, but only managed to stay thru half time. We were frozen. So I guess this means that winter is on its way. I had hopes that maybe it would wait a few years LOL.

I took in Sues String Quilt to the 5th Grade class to hang up, to inspire them, and they just LOVED it. It really brightened up the room! A picture of her quilt is in another post and I have no Clue how to link to it - so Its called Sues Heartsting quilt.....

Have a great day!!

Alycia

Pink for October

Okay - did you know it was October already? Where did the days go? I have been keeping busy but I didn't realize the time has gone so fast!! Last week one of my sons got tackled really hard and sustained ( medical term there) and Stage 2 Concussion - so today he is all cleared to go back to activity - today is also his last practice, and Saturday is his last game. My inlaws came down last weekend and stayed with us. It was fun, but they didn't get to see my son play - as he was out with a concussion. Oh well - at least they helped entertain the other two during the game .

I have been working on Pink String Blocks - My goal is 24 to send to Jennifer for her to assemble them and get them to the cancer center(You can see more at heartstringsquiltproject.com)

I also finished quilting a quilt for a customer. It is a braid quilt - very cool. I used really full fluffy feathers as she didn't want dense quilting on it. In the center of each strip there is a feather medallion quilted.

And I finished adding binding to the heartstrings quilt from Sue. It is now hanging in the 5th grade classroom as inspiration for our Quilts of Valor project. I will bring it home Friday and wash it and get it ready to ship out to where Catherine deems it to go. I finished quilting Melvas Heartstring Quilt of Valor, made the binding and will get it done this weekend.

Annnnnnd I made the binding for my Gift for the 25th Quilt - so on the 25th I will be ready to bind it, if not before, I may get energized! Okay - now I must go and seam a backing so I can get the next quilt onto my Longarm.

Have a great day

Alycia