finished things.....

One of my favorite check-out girls at the store is going to college.
I will miss her.
I made her a going away/happy last day gift.
In my excitement to get it to her on her last day, I forgot to take a picture.
Crispy was working with her that night, so I called and asked them to take a picture of the mini quilt. They did a nice job, except the laugh should be on top so no words are upside down.



All the replacement boards are painted brown out in the shed. IT looks SO MUCH better than it did! All the wood is the same. It used to have chunks of 2 x 12's stuck in there.
They will be perfect to make a work bench top some time, they are nice and sturdy and thick.

...black paint came out too.

The table was in the living room. Ozzy had chewed on it as a puppy.

I think it looks rather classy painted black. It may go back to the living room.

The big flat black thing is the door off the cupboard that is hanging in the garage. I will have to get the full history of it. When I asked tractor joe if I should paint the inside too (it's pink)

he said, "no leave it, that is what Mom wanted it to be"

I wonder if she even remembers it. I will get a picture later.

The other cupboard is from my Aunt Meta's garage. I don't know what exactly it was for, I just agreed to take it when she was cleaning some time ago. We have used it here and there.

Both of those cupboards will go into the shed for storage.
Now I am eyeballing everything....looking for things to paint black.

I have even thought about the kitchen cabinets...would they look good in black???

my uncle....

My uncle, Gwen's dad, passed away on Sunday. He was strong, tough and rugged

... and at the same time the most gentle uncle anyone could have.

when I think of him, I think of...

camping in the mountains, cut off from the rest of the world...it was magical.

For about 30 years he ran Triple O Outfitters in Idaho. Even though he recently sold the business, I found their website.

I found this picture and "stole" it....Hunting was a big part of the business. So was the Lewis and Clark trail ride they offered....

I found a blog by juli thorson ....she had been on the trail ride. She describes things way better than I can.

Here is another stolen picture. This was taken when he took his 13 year old granddaughter (Gwen's daughter) hunting and she got her first bear!! That must have been about 5 years ago.

We will all miss him a lot.

before and after, ozzy...

This is Ozzy in a before shot....
he was getting awfully hairy. We went to Algona for his haircut

and bath

and toe trimming

and what ever else they do for the "bronze package"

I was able to get more thread for quilting stuff!! Hopefully I will get to work on things this week.

before and after, the furniture

This was Tuesday morning,
the old couch was taken out and then we waited.... Shortly after noon, the truck arrived with the furniture we bought.
The couch and recliner.
This is a compromise between tractor joe and me.
He doesn't like sectionals, I don't like recliners (even if they are the most comfortable thing in the world)....we both got something we like and don't like as much. Over all though,
we love it!

The big wall quilt that I made, but never hung, was laid artfully over the couch by tractor joe. Who knew he was a decorator too!

Now, go back to picture #2, there is scar on the wall where the air conditioner was removed and patched years ago. We saw it so much, that eventually we didn't see it. My Mom would see it every time she was here she would wonder why we hadn't done anything about it yet.

"you can make a quilt and hang it there to cover up the patch"

While you can still see part of the patch, most of it is covered by the Crooked Cow quilt!!


Someday we will paint and really fix it. I have been busy painting other stuff.

the trade stuff and my logcabin quilt....

A while back I agreed to do a swap with Anne in England.
For a collection of light fabric she would send a heart wall hanging.
Seemed like a fun thing to do.
So I talked to her, well emailed her and
started gathering up fabric to send.


I sent my package of fabric off and waited.
Finally!! I got word that it had made it.
That was a relief, I had never sent anything internationally before....unless you count Canada, but we are attached, so it doesn't seem as far. No major oceans are involved.
...And my wall hanging was on its way!!!!

...and then the other day this sweet little wall hanging was in the mailbox.
I was so excited. Those hearts aren't even 2 inches across. They are so small and delicate.
I love it!
But Anne felt she took so long to get her stuff back to me.

so.....a surprise was also in the package....

she sent a companion wall hanging.

It is also just as sweet and delicate....

I am in awe of her work. It is beautiful. I walked around holding them up trying to decide where to hang them. I still haven't decided. There was also a postcard from her area and candy. I just finished that off as I was writing. The "jelly tots" said 25% fruit juice...so they must be healthy.

Our new furniture arrives tomorrow. The living room is cleared out (mostly) and the rug doctor machine was put to work over the weekend. This morning as I sat there looking at all this empty space, it occurred to me that it was the perfect time to lay out my log cabin quilt......
and sew it together.


I wasn't sure how to go about it....in the end I went for chunks instead of rows. That seemed to help keep it all straight....(no blocks turned the wrong way)

I am down to the last 2 seams.

Now I am on the look out for some backing fabric.

When tractor joe got home he said to me, "you are going to keep this aren't you?"

OH yeah, this is ours.

need to go shopping.....

I ran out of thread while quilting this.
This project is on hold for now,
along with the fish quilt.
That's 2 items I need...thread and that heat and bond stuff.

My tractor book is getting closer to being declared done.....

Going through an old book, I look for sentences that would work,

cut them out and glue them in.....

It's kinda fun.

Tractor joe says to me "I never said that!"

I know, but it works in the book.

This is a good time to start clearing out the living room. We want to clean

the carpet with a rug doctor machine before the new furniture arrives.

live laugh learn love.......

This has been in the works for awhile....

It started with the 9 patches that just weren't exiting me, so they were set aside.

Then I made the electric fan blocks and I wondered...

would they work for a border ?
I was so excited when I had just enough of the 9 patches to go around the 4 electric fans. Everything was sewn together and it sat on the living room floor just like this.

We walked around it.

(it is just laying on the blue fabric that I used for the inner border)

I was surprised no one said, "aren't you going to pick that up?"

Then I thought about words.

live

laugh

learn

love

and I made them......

...they are a little bigger than I wanted. As I write this I am in the middle of adding spacers and fillers to them....trying to figure out how to make it all work.