quilt stuff....

I cleaned the desk off in the living room. Then I moved on to clean and de-clutter more....
and I found a piece of scrap batting folded on a chair that no one sits in. I think the chairs main purpose is to hold coats.
That was too perfect....a clean desk to work at
AND some batting that was JUST the right size for quilting the happy beer quilt.
I even put binding on it.
It will go in tractor joe's shed, or as Matt Roloff (little people big world, tv show) called his fixed up barn....The men's crisis center.
Another one for the done column.



Next up.....
This pattern is from a magazine, an older magazine, but I don't remember which one or what the name of it is.


I only know I wanted to finish it...I needed three more blocks to make this layout of 8 x 10 blocks.


They finish at 6 inches. The original was much larger, but I got tired of making the blocks.


I sewed the last three blocks this week and put the whole thing together.


I just need to put on a border, which will be plain!


I don't know if I have something that will work or if I need to buy something.....



....and what color???? black, brown, rusty red????

story people....

While in Decorah
we did a drive-by photo shooting of one of my favorite things.
Story People.... We didn't take the time to go in....it might not have even been open on a late Saturday afternoon.
I love what they do there. I like the things they make.
It is quirky stuff. I'm not even sure how describe it....
HERE is the link.

Years ago, in a scrapbooking magazine, there was a page with a picture of a little girl. Also on that page were these words:
Are you a princess? I said & she said
I'm much more than a princess,
but you don't have a name for it yet here on earth.

I thought it was wonderful! I ended up putting it on a quilt as the border and giving it to Madison. I don't have a picture handy to show though. I will have to talk to my sister.

Another one I thought would be great on a quilt is:
There has never been a day when I have not been proud of you, I said,
though some days I'm louder about other stuff so it's easy to miss that.

Of course, I haven't done this yet...but I really think it would work for any of my kids or
even tractor joe.

(this is in no way and admission that I might get loud or even yell)

chore boy

Tractor joe's brother went to Florida a couple weeks ago. They didn't send any pictures of themselves while they were down there. I don't know, maybe that's because I said if we did get one...

I would draw eye patches on it, and give them a spikey hairdo.


Go figure.

So I have no real pictures of them in Florida.

Anyway...

Cornealous is off work right now. They aren't putting up any windmills. When spring comes he'll head out for somewhere, when they start building them again.

For now he is home and agreed to do his uncles chores.
I went with one day.....

This picture (of where we were headed)

is BEFORE the weather got bad. The wind picked up and we had whiteout conditions for the rest of the day. It turned into a horrible day.




Uncle Jim raises Alpaca.

They are not Llamas.

I know, they look like llamas, just don't call them that.

They sorta look like lambs or sheep.
Only their necks and legs are way longer.
And they come in more colors.

They will get sheered in the spring, just like sheep do...

and the wool is then sold.
I like when they are fluffy, they are at their cutest!

There are a ton of vintage graphics (besides the bathing beauty) to pick from here

earthcache two

This earthcache is called

Dunnings Spring and Waterfall.

Except for the walk in the snow there wasn't anything to tough at this one.

Here we needed to estimate how tall and wide the falls are.

Classify the falls and why we chose that.

(I will go with "cascade" I think.)

And what river does this flow into. I was way up there at the falls.

Tractor joe had the camera.

Are you close enough??

Come closer!!

There.
Now you can see I am standing on the side of the falls.
The water running down the rocks was such a nice sound.
I am thinking we could have taken a picture even a little closer.
Oh well.






When we were done watching at the highschool
(all the speech performances

Crispy's group got all 2's)
and ready to head home.....
I was able to convince tractor joe that there was one more easy cache we could try and find.
It was on a crosscountry ski trail.
Right at the begining of the trail.
So easy!
No hiking involved.
Almost a park and grab.
Except.....
Right after we arrived...
So did a group of skiers and they took
FOREVER
to get ready and head out.

We didn't want them to watch us as we dug out the bottom of this light pole.
Actually, I did the digging. Tractor joe kept saying...
"it is not there, lets go"
"you won't find it"
"you can't even move that cap, can you?"

It moved, I lifted it to find the cache, it was a film canister...sign our name on the log sheet inside,
and bury it back up for the next happy cacher to find!

Today we are home because of snow....

earthcache one

We were in Decorah, Iowa, on Saturday for a Speech competition.

Tractor joe..."can't we go anywhere and not have to find a cache?"

Me...."I guess not my love, you know how we enjoy caching."

Tractor joe..."WHO enjoys it?"

Me...."oh yah, it is ME who loves it. But these are earthcaches. There is no box to find. Just geological wonders! Then we just have to answer questions to claim them. Doesn't that sound cool and easy?"

The first one was called.....
ICE CAVE!!!!

The cache page said: Bring a flashlight and we did!
We were ready to be spelunkers!!
We needed to describe the terrain into the cave up to the point where it is gated off.
(it was downhill on a rocky, ICE covered path, and dark except where there was daylight coming in because of fissures above us)

We needed to take a picture with our GPS at the mouth of the cave.

Since I failed to hold up my beloved GPS....I will use the picture of tractor joe on the cache page.

The steps down to the road were even more treacherous than the cave itself.

We both manuvered them safely.

We both know we aren't to thrilled with cave exploration.
But in the end it was all worth it!!!

Except....here is where we recieved a text from Crispy that said: 20 minutes....

oh oh... we had to high tail it over to the highschool to see his Reader's Theater performance.

We made it with time to spare!

graphics from http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

I was sewing too....

Wow....I have had this for awhile....



http://quiltville.com/doubledelightintro.shtml/



The blocks have been done for quite some time...

I just needed to cut some setting triangles.



Good ol' Ozzy had to come check it out.


Mine is smaller than the one made by Bonnie Hunter....and different in color too.

It is for the couch in the basement.

I thought it looked so bright and busy....

wasn't even sure I liked it anymore.

But since the basement is rather dark....

this will work well down here to brighten it up.

I am almost done sewing all the rows together!! Now I need to think about the backing...

I just might go even more wild and put some orange on the back
or

maybe not.....

It will depend on what I can find that is on sale!

a dream come true.....

Madison has been waiting for snow.

Living on the coast in Virginia, it doesn't happen to often.

With a snowstorm finally predicted,

my sister gathered up sticks,

and made sure she bought a carrot.

(She says she bought all the important stuff too...

like milk and bread.)

But the carrot was very important...

Madison was going to make her first snowman!!

It snowed and snowed. It was perfect to lay in and make snow angels!

It was fun for Madison and her older brother Joey to take turns buring each other in the snow.

It was that light fluffy kinda snow that swirls around and makes everything pretty.

But it wasn't right for making snowmen.

Not sticky and wet enough.

Bummer.

No snowman on Saturday.

But then the sun came out on Sunday.

It warmed things up enough.....

made the snow nice and sticky!

Madison was able to build her first snowman....

carrot nose and all.......