Spirit Lake camping...

Ozzy has a new cousin. A teeny tiny little thing. Her name is Kiwi. He wasn't sure what to think of her.  She reminds me of Brain, from Pinky and the Brain. 

"Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

It's a kids show from years ago.

Tractor joe caught a nice bass off the dock. We debated keeping him and frying it up, but in the end we let it go.

While he was fishing, I was playing with rocks.

And my sister was busy painting them.

And we painted at the CreativeSpirits Okoboji Studio. Cows this year.

Not the easiest thing to paint.

We were the only painters for this class. That was kind of nice. We could have even changed our minds and paint another painting, but we stuck with the cow.

It looks so homey when you put quilts on the air mattresses.

Now that I am back home, I have been busy making quilt tops!

Half done stuff is getting put together.

I'm up to four now!

june...

I was able to finish my midwest row by row from last year, and took it to the quilter. 

Carol is still here to help me. 

The May meeting for Gypsy Wife. We are doing two blocks, then the filler blocks, then two blocks and more filler blocks each month. This was the pin wheels month. I love all the different fabrics that are being used. The quilts will all be the same and but the variety will be fun when they are hung together at next years quilt show.

Carol continues to be in the way. I was looking at the ipad and she had to sit on me. Totally blocking my view.

One day I was in the recliner. Ozzy (the dog) was looking up over my head at something. 

Good grief, Carol had jumped up to sit on the cupboard behind me.

My out west row by row got this far. I need to finish three more vertical rows to get this into a top.

Going camping slowed me down.

It was a good four days weather wise. The forecast had 0% chance of rain. But out of the blue a nasty storm hit Friday night. The wind howled and it rained and rained.

We brought our stuff over there in a trailer. We sat in that and played Yahtzee. We were able to stay dry. The tents all held stayed standing and reasonably dry too.  

We did our painting at the studio too. None of us was happy with our birds. They look more like silhouette people sitting on a branch.

Carol was happy to have us home. She wanted to cuddle near me while I sipped my coffee in bed that morning. 

The kitchen was getting worked on. The walls were all fixed up, ready for me to prime and paint.

Carol continued to always be around. Her favorite place was the tray on this ladder. She wasn't bothered by me moving it around to paint.

They left my kitchen sink until the last minute. It was held up with 2x4's. 

I met my cousin Max at the Quilted Forest in Forest City. We promptly bought the kits for this years row by row. I couldn't stand it and started to sew it together.

The cupboards arrived and Carol made herself at home.

I went to toss a towel in the washing machine and there sat Carol.

Carol can found just about anywhere taking a nap. No counter tops or sink yet. They came to measure and thought they would be back on Tuesday to install.

My mom is taking me on a quilting tour. We go will leave Wednesday for Oregon. I'll be in Sisters for the outdoor quilt show next Saturday. We will visit 5 quilt shops, all have row by row patterns. I will be collecting kits at each shop.

Yesterday was clean out the garage and house of old cupboards. The majority of them ended up in my shed. They are mostly empty. 

At least for now. 

I am really trying to fight my hoarder ways. But these just enable me to tuck things away for safe keeping, one just never knows when you will need something! 

going backwards through June......

I finished hand sewing about 3/4 of the binding for this quilt. It is part of the block exchange at the Blue Earth Valley Quilters. There were 12 of us in this. Next week we all get together and show each other what became of the 24 blocks we received. I'm looking forward to seeing all the different takes on the blocks.

These are April Block Lotto blocks I won! This will be the gift for the wedding we attended last month. It needs a border yet. A blue is my first choice, then it will kind of go with the wedding colors....or I may spot a green that I like...

It is already late, so I'm taking my time.

These are MORE block lotto blocks I won last year. This one has gone through many ideas before I finally committed to setting it with the black and white sashing. It is all sewn together and can go to the quilter as soon as I figure out the backing.

Still plugging away on the Tula Pink project.

Crap this picture is sideways.

I made the HST's two at a time. So I these last two blocks are the same, only different.

I would never have done these blocks at all. Never even bought the book. But I joined the small Tula Pink group and once I start making the blocks I find they are addicting and make a bunch at once. We make 8 a month. I am caught up to the August set of blocks.

We went camping again. One activity was going to the studio in Spirit Lake to do a painting. This one was hard. My least favorite of all the paintings I have done. I was the only one to add the people to the boat. 

They look a little scary.

A ton of coaster were made while camping. We used stickers, magazine pictures, photos, or just paint.

The last thing to show is the blocks for June at Block Lotto. These are harder than they look. As Sophie says,

"we strive for perfection, but it isn't a requirement"

or something like that.

Thank goodness.

The sneak peek was sent out earlier this week. After I finish the binding on my block exchange quilt, I will be working on the July block.

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times......

Camping was an ordeal this year. Jane and I got in some fun time at the picnic table doing our craft things. This was a coloring page I printed off before I left. I had the most fun with this.

Wish I had a picture of Jane's, it is the same but oh-so-different.

[coloring pages are here]

Saturday was a whole new ballgame.

RAIN & WIND came to visit.

These are NOT our tents. These were down along the lake, we were up on the hill.

The wind was howling and the rain came...down pour after down pour. Breakfast was sausage and PLAIN scrambled eggs. We couldn't be bothered with finding the salt and pepper or silver ware.

We ate it with our fingers.  

The boat wasn't out of the water, just pulled up on the shore. The waves were so big and crashing over the back of the boat. It just filled with water and sat there, half sunk. Sunday morning was a WHOLE lot calmer. We scooped it out with buckets until it started to float again. Once it was up on the trailer, the plug was pulled and the rest of the water came flying out.

Jane and I went to the painting studio again.

[creativespiritsokoboji.com]

It was Friday the 13th, so they had the witch painting. This one is mine. I didn't stray off from the original. Jane did.

This one is her's. She wanted ruby slippers and a full moon in hers. 

A full moon and Friday the 13th won't happen again until 2049.

There were also raccoon visitors.

This was a first. I scared them off the first time we heard them. I could see their eyes looking at me when I put the flashlight on the trees across the road. I secured everything but the garbage, did even think of it. I fell asleep and never heard my brother in law get up when they started messing in the garbage.

He ended up walking to the dumpster in his socks and underwear.

Yep, fun time at the lake this year.

camping over the weekend.....

We (as in 3 sisters, with various spouses, grown kids, boyfriends and girlfriends) 

were at Marble Beach State Park on Spirit Lake in Iowa. We were in a quiet area of the campground with our tents. I brought along my geocaching quilt. 

A couple weeks ago I received a surprise package.

Inside were a couple of pink flamingos.

Mrs. Browndirt sent them.

She thought I would think they were ridiculous and silly.

BUT, I loved them. 

They came camping and so did the doll mrs. browndirt. 

We went geocaching

We went painting at Creative Spirit Okoboji

They were doing owls that evening in the studio.

We made wood block signs. I have all kinds of scrap wood. We put some of it to use. It was only me and Jane doing this. Others would come over to check out our mess, but no one else wanted to do one. I gave the glamping sign to my sister Jenny.

She is always a glamour girl, even when camping.

Today seems like a good day to go work on some backing and get a quilt in to be quilted. 

Not the cow quilt. He needs to be worked on yet too.

All in good time.

Mrs. Browndirt goes camping and geocaching.....

When I mentioned that I was going camping, a comment came in from Brown Dirt Cottage....

she said she could start a fire with one match and no paper.

I thought,

It sure would be nice to have her along to start the campfires.

Then I thought some more....

She could go with!

I could make a Mrs. Browndirt, she could do everything we did.

Mrs. Browndirt arrived safe and sound at the campground with us. She sat nice and still on the trip over. She didn't even get into the graham crackers and leave crumbs all over.

Mrs. Browndirt wasn't able to start the fire like she said, 

BUT 

I got all kinds of encouragement while I started the fire. I used paper. Mrs. Browndirt said that was okay, I still only used one match like she does. 

Always the prankster, she played with the flashlight. When it got dark, she stuck it under her chin and tried to scare us. 

Time to go geocaching!! It was me, my sister Jane, and Mrs. Browndirt.

First up was a cache inside a library.....

We needed to search the card catalog for John Sculley. This was the wrong drawer. It was the next drawer we tried. We found what we needed and went searching for the book.

Mrs. Browndirt helps sign the logbook...

There were kids playing video games at the library. 

A bunch of them kept staring at us.

Watching us.

What the heck?

Was it because we actually used the old card catalog to find a book? 

I can't imagine what else would cause anyone to take a second look at us. I thought the three of us blended right in at the library. Good geocacher use stealth. Doesn't do anything to call attention to themselves. I think we were okay.

The next cache was in a small wooded area, in the middle of no where. There was no clear path to it. We had to fight our way through the trees to find it. It is called bushwhacking. The next problem was getting the lock open. It took a couple attempts before we got it right.

I opened the door...

and looked inside.

I screamed my fool head off and slammed the door!

Jane's eyes bugged out, "whaat?"

Then I started laughing and couldn't stop.

Jane wanted to know if there was a mirror in there?

NO! Go look!

Jane refused to look, 

and Mrs Browndirt just sat there with that amused look of hers, wondering what all the fuss was about.

I finally calmed down enough to re-open the door. Jane came over slowly to see what made me scream so much.

It was just a fake chicken with real feathers and beady little eyes watching for anyone who might open the door. The cache was in the drawer. We did a few more caches that were pretty tame, then headed back to the campground.

After a few hours of geocaching, Mrs. Browndirt needed to lay back and relax. 

We had lots of fun while camping. Our only complaint was how HOT and miserable we were every afternoon. 

The body for Mrs. Browndirt came from (HERE)