consumed by Captain A-moo-ica....

I have been working away on a cow quilt. It will go to my sister for her 50th birthday. She wasn't to concerned about what kind of quilt she would get. But her husband had a request....

he wanted me to use the Federal Shield design in it. 

I wasn't really crazy about the idea of working with curves.

So, I thought about it.

For months.

Then this spring I was looking through the book,

OUT OF THE BOX 

with easy blocks 

by Mary Lou Weidman and Melanie Bautista McFarland

I love the cow in that book and thought I might make one for a baby quilt.

I never got any further than thinking about it.

But one day it occurs to me, why not make my sister a cow with the federal shield on it?? I would only need to make one shield! That made me happy.

While driving to the dentist with Crispy, I was talking about this cow.

How it would have the shield on it's body.

Then he says, "Ya, and you can call him Captain A-moo-ica!"

When he said that, there was no stopping me.

It was perfect. My brother-in-law loves super heroes too.

The background is made by sewing strips of different widths together,

cut apart in more different widths and sewn back together.

I ended up with patchwork fat quarters.

He needed a cape, so I added that too.

The blue flying geese are there to transition from the yellow background to a green background.

The words have a green background. They will be along the bottom of the quilt.

It is all coming together.

These stars are from the Buggy Barn book, Certifiably Crazy.

I didn't make them as scrappy as the book directions.

I want the blue background ones for my border and the white ones even have a home!

Crispy had a cavity that day at the dentist. I was so excited, 

"I can come back here with you!"

"But mom, you don't have to come with."

Yes, I know, moms generally don't need to go with their 19 year old to the dentist.

BUT 

It is right across the street from the quilt shop! Of course I am going with if it means I can run into The Quilted Forest! I want a few more medium greens to add to the cow quilt!

Happy 4th of July...

I sent my niece Madi an orphan doll. They got on a bus yesterday headed for NYC. they are sending pictures of the doll where ever they go. 

 Flag painting last month. We did this right before I left on the road trip.

A federal shield that will go on a quilt. I appliqued this to the top using freezer paper on top. 

You glue the edges down and then peel off the freezer paper. 

I loved everything about doing it this way. 

It was so slick and easy.

Here is a link to the super good tutorial on it......(click here for fantastic tutorial)

quilt blocks and other things...

I laid out the bird quilt to see what I had finished. 

Right now it looks like three more birds for 6 rows.

Six more little red hearts and some simple filler blocks.

I will worry about the border later,

more checks?

plain red?

plain blue?

or all of the above.

The table and chairs all painted and finished.

It is under the roof out back. It won't be to exposed to the weather.

I still have red paint left over. I am always on the lookout now for something to paint red.

and I forgot.....

When we were in Illinois at the farm, I was wondering around taking pictures.

This gate was in an old cement watering tank.

I thought it was really pretty.

I asked Marjorie if she would sell it.

She said,

NO.

"but for a Christmas card, I will give it to you!"

Deal!!!

I emptied out the back of the car and it just fit inside.

Marjorie looked at our stuff and said,

"you guys travel light."

That was nice to know. 

We thought we had plenty of bags and what not 

that we were hauling with us.

Anyway, I picture it standing in a flower garden. We told all the boys that it came from their great grandfather's boyhood home. We wanted to make sure they understood that it's status was higher than "junk mom and dad left us" 

It has some meaning.

road trip part three.....

The final leg of our trip home.

There was stalking and a visit to the "old country"

We got on the Blue Ridge Parkway in western Virginia. Just for a little while, at least. 

It was very very scenic and worth it.

There were roads along the way that would take us back to the freeway.

We took one.

It just so happened that when we came down, 

winding slowly back and forth all the way,

and down some more,

we landed in.... 

Vesuvius, Virginia.

Home of of Erin or vesuviusmamablogspot 

She is starting up a fiber art shop in downtown Lexington, VA.
We stopped there too.

Here is the front of the building. It isn't the best of pictures, but it says "I was there!"

It isn't open yet, but very soon it will be. Next time we head east this will be on our list of places to stop. While getting this picture I hear my name being called from the alley.

"come here, I found something"

It was tractor joe. He found this Military Museum and wanted his picture taken

with the Red Coat standing there. The door had a small chain going across it and a sign that said,

"tour in progress"

So this can be added to the list of things to do.

We drove right through Bonnie Hunter country. I didn't realize it at the time.

We could have been stalking Bonnie too.

( quiltville.blogspot )

A picture of me by the mailbox, with mrs. browndirt sitting on top of it,

Now that would have been cool. 

Then "the old country"

or 

the middle of Illinois......

Tractor joe's grandpa moved here, to Iowa, back in the early 1920's

Growing up, tractor joe heard a lot about Illinois and the family still living there.

But he had never been there.We had to make the stop.

This is a picture of a copy of a picture. I think it works.

Grandpa rented a box car, loaded it with his team of horses and a wagon,

and his bride,

and took the train to Woden, Iowa.

This was taken the day they left.

We found the home place.

We sat there on the road, wondering, now what do we do?

Tractor joe was on the phone with his mom.

She said to go up and knock on the door. Marjorie lived there.

She would be delighted to see you.

So, we did. She would be my FIL's cousin. She lives in the house now.

Only the house and barn are still standing. 

The hog building, corn crib, the brooder house, the grove of fruit trees are gone.

Marjorie was full of information about the farm.

She also told us who was in the cemetery and where.

That was our next stop.

Some of the graves we found right away, but others were a little harder.

I saw this statue on top of a grave stone. Wow, I thought, it was worth a picture.

The best part was..... these were the graves we were looking for!

It was a very good trip.

It is also good to be home again!

road trip part two.....

Virginia Beach.....

I brought mrs. browndirt along. The one day we were at the beach she came with us for a picture. Poor thing didn't get out much for pictures. 

My niece, Madison, loved her. She wanted to keep her!

I told her I had another orphan doll at home and would send her that one.

We were in charge of Madison during the mornings while her parents were at work.

We did a lot with Madison, which was really fun. 

She went with us fishing and geocaching. She didn't think it was very fun, until we found one.

Then she was all excited and wanted to do more!

I couldn't even find a picture of Jackie or Jesse. Oh well.

My stomach was sucked in from the chill of a wave rushing past us. I appear smaller than I actually am. I like that. We mostly played with the waves. Madison ended up soaking wet from head to toe. 

Here is Madison's first fish EVER. 

She didn't want to touch it, so one of "the mates" helped get it off the line. We were catching croakers. They are a bottom feeders and not very big. We caught 6 lbs worth, 

had them cleaned and ate them that night for supper. Except for all the small bones, they were delicious!

These fish "croak" when you are holding them. Kind of like a frog. It something you feel, rather than hear. I tried putting one up to my ear, but with the engine noise and wind, I couldn't hear anything. 

Madi never did get up the nerve to touch one and feel the joy of that croaking. She did attempt to put the bait on her hooks (squid) only to give up. She was to afraid of stabbing herself with the hook. Between us and "the mates" her line was never without bait on it.

Using the book,

Collage Couture

Techniques for creating Fashionable Art by Julie Nutting

and those tourist magazines with coupons for Virginia Beach...

We ripped, cut and painted.

If we were home, Madi and I were busy on these projects. I thought we would each get one done.

By the end of our visit we had 4. Jackie loved them and wants to do one with all her NYC papers.

Someday.

Madison can show her how.

This is pretty old. I made it years ago for Brianna. (Madison's older sister)

I made a quilt for Madison when she was little too.

It is one of the first quilts that I put words on.

It says....

Are you a princess I said

and she said

I'm much more than a princess

but you don't have a name for it yet here on earth.

I saw the words on a scrapbook page in a magazine so many years ago.

The quilt is a pattern from Judy Martin. I think it's real name is I Have a Dream.

I just call it Madi's quilt.

We could have spent way more time here. But I needed to get back for summer school. 

We just need to go again.

road trip part one.....

We are back from a road trip. We wanted to go to Memphis, TN for a wedding and then out to Virginia Beach, VA to visit my sister. We also wanted...maybe I should say.... "I" wanted to find geocaches in as many states as possible. 

Sometimes we were on the freeway, sometimes state highways.

First stop was a geocache at the house where the painting American Gothic was done.

The house still stands. We found out that you can also put on the costumes for a picture.

We did that. I am holding the GPS for logging this find.

We stopped in Hannibal, MO to see the birthplace of Mark Twain. 

I love Alton Brown. We used to watch his cooking show ALL the time. I had his Feasting on Asphalt book along. We stopped in Chester IL just like he did in the book. It would have been better if we had opened cans of spinach to eat like he did, but we weren't that organized.

Went looking for a cache instead.

The wedding in Memphis was outside, in the woods near a pond, at noon. Yes, it was hot, but not unbearable. Inside where the reception was held, was a quilt. There were a couple more hanging, but this one was my favorite one.

We headed for Beale Street for supper, this is where we ate. We were with tractor joe's brothers and sisters and all the spouses. 10 of us all together.

The food was VERY good. We got a sample platter that had all kinds of different things on it.

Some pork, some chicken, some side dishes. 

Before heading east early Sunday morning, we went by Graceland. We weren't that interested in seeing it....BUT...

They were opening the gate as we went by.

With no one around, it was easy to find parking.

 It didn't cost anything to get up by the house or visit the graves. 

We did a quick tour and then hit the road.

We stopped at the Corinth Civil War Battle Field Interpretive Center in Mississippi.

After going by the U.S. Space and Rocket Center and seeing what we could see from the road....

we wished we had made time for it. Don't know if we will ever make it back to Huntsville AL.

But if we do, we will definitely be stopping.

We drove into the corner of Georgia just to get a geocache there. 

Then back up into Tennessee where we stopped.

On Monday...

We drove through North Carolina.

Beautiful

 Then along the bottom of Virginia.

We arrived at my sister's in time for supper on Monday night.

Next time...Virginia Beach stuff.

recent happenings around here....

It has been awhile. There aren't any pictures of recent sewing...but there were some pictures in the phone that seemed blog worthy.

I said I wouldn't be painting my auction chairs. I was wrong.

I bought some paint! They are taking a little longer than I thought.

Washing, painting on the primer...then finally starting with the green.

I will be back at it this morning.

This is the neighbor boy, when he was over a couple weeks ago. He found this old truck and wanted to play with it, then chased down the cat to see if she wanted a ride.

He likes to come over and see what we are up to.

He is not bothered by tractor joe's grumpiness.

He is like a Dennis the Menace,

and tractor joe is now Mr. Wilson.

Painting the chairs also took longer because...

I remembered that I needed to put out recycle stuff,

While getting that ready, I found some old jars that could be stored out in a shed.

So, I took them out there and got sidetracked weeding.

That is when I decided to transplant some ferns.

I was watering them and there sat my tomato plants.

So those went in the garden.

As long as I was out there, I transplanted some marigolds.

But wait, where are the flower seeds I bought?

Found them and they went into the ground too.

I also stood around a lot watching the county guys dig deep holes. They needed to unplug some tile.

There are huge ponds north and south of us in the farm ground. They don't go away.

They thought they had it figured out yesterday and left saying that "by morning the ponds to the north would be shrinking." 

I looked this morning. The north ones look the same, but the south ones are gone.

On one of the last days of school we went bowling and then to the second highest point in Iowa.

There is a tower there and the view is awesome. We all climbed up to have a look.

I now have a frequent painter card! 

Paint 6 and get the 7th free!

creativespiritokoboji

was in Bancroft. We did the wine glass that night. 

I told my sister I wanted to add words to it.

Her idea.....

The good life is friends, wine and art--in Italian.

Karen had this in her car the night we painted. It is scrap vomit fresh from the quilter.

She pulled it out to show every one. When the top was finished, it made her gag. 

She didn't like it much at all.

The light must have been just right. It looked beautiful!

She fell in love with it.

(HERE) is where she blogged about it.

Okay, back to the green paint.