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!

the sheep quilt...

I started a quilt a long time ago. It used last years blocks at block lotto to create Old McDonald's Farm. I started, but fell behind and then lost interest. Those that did finish them had really cool quilts.  I recently took out the blocks I had done.

Okay, these two blocks put together will make a cute baby quilt. I needed more blocks.

Slowly I sewed more blocks.

I was thankful when I had enough snail trails. I was getting tired of them.

Next up, flower blocks.

At this point I'm thinking....more flower blocks. How boring for me.

But what if I add something?

Something I have never made before. 

Then I wouldn't be bored.

A sheep from the book Farm Girl Vintage.

And baby sheep! 

Or as tractor joe reminded me, they are called lambs.

I was way more excited about this project with sheep and was excited to sew the remaining flowers I needed. That's when I started called it the sheep quilt.

This morning I put it all together.

My cousin Gwen has a granddaughter due this month. This will be her baby quilt!

Gypsy

Blizzard!

No school on Friday meant I could sew!

I love when that happens.
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I started this post a few weeks ago. For whatever reason I wasn't getting pictures to upload using the ipad. SO....here I am finally getting a post done on the laptop.

I sewed all the rows or months for my temperature quilt while it snowed and snowed.

This was a couple weeks ago. Since then we have had a wonderful warm up, including a thunderstorm one day. Then last weekend it was another snowstorm, and another snow day. This was followed by windchills below zero. March in northern Iowa!

Now I'm home because of spring break and sewing on my gypsy wife quilt.

This is sections 1, 2, and 7.

They all use the same strips. I am using what is long enough and sitting on top of stuff for easy access. I hope to get this top done before the break is over.

I have lost track of when I got this next quilt top done, I only know it was in the last few weeks.

All excited! Another top finished! Then I looked at the picture and saw it!

Dang, a block is upside down.

Out comes the seam ripper.

There. All better.

The temperature quilt just needs its black borders attached. They are cut and ready to go.

We had a VERY nice November. All of last fall was nice!

Block Lotto this month is blue and white stars. I should have made more for more chances to win. I love these blocks and think the quilt will be gorgeous.

That's it for now. Back to the giant puzzle of fabric called gypsy wife.

More paper and fabric that didn't get in previous post

A few weeks ago we had 9 inches of snow. Before it was all blown off the driveway by the snowblower, I stuck a yardstick in for a final measure.

This wouldn't be so bad, but Karen had a granddaughter born and she couldn't get down to the hospital to see her right away. 

I busied myself on the baby quilt I was making. It is made from blocks I won at block lotto last summer.

It's my very first attempt at quilting in a circle on my sewing machine. Except for the starting point with the tight small circles it went well going round and round. In addition to watching the previous sewn line, I had to concentrate on keeping my neck and shoulders relaxed. They were getting sore. It took a big afternoon and then some to finish the quilting. 

It still doesn't have the binding and this should surprise no one. 

And my sister's tree, doctored up in a photo app!

paper and fabric

My sisters and mom were down in January. We tried our hand at warm cool trees. They are small, the paper we worked on was about 6 inches and the squares were about a half inch. We used inktense pencils. They are sort of like water color pencils, but ink. 

The original is okay, but I loved it when I put in a photo editing app.

I started another quilt. It is from a kit bought a couple years ago. My youngest sister picked it out for her 50th birthday...which is this year. High time to get working on it. 

All the Dresden plates are cut and a few sewn. They are going well and I'm thinking I will work on them this weekend.

gypsy wife and block lotto hearts for January

This was yesterday afternoon. I had sewn the rest of the blocks and fillers and couldn't wait to start putting them together in their sections. 

Easier said than done.

One giant puzzle.

I counted, checked and double checked. One extra pinwheel. Not bad!

Next up is cutting strips and sewing each section. 

More puzzle work and thinking. I'll save it for another day.