Catching Up

It's been a little while since I've written, so here's a quick update of the past few months. This is my friend Heather's quilt, all finished up and ready for mailing.






Now, remember the scrap quilt I mentioned earlier? The one where I thought it would be a neat idea to sew a whole bunch of odds and ends together willy-nilly just to see what would happen? Well, this is what happened. :)





This is Fiesta's block. She was my Blue Heeler (Australian Cattle Dog). We had her for 14 years before she passed away from cancer on 31 December 2009.






Kadi never did come home, but she will always be a part of our family. I miss her and my Fiesta every day.








Jesse is our male Blue Heeler. Even though he is all grown up I believe he will always have the heart of a puppy. Ranger is the newest member of our clan. I found Ranger on the local Humane Society website while checking to see if maybe someone had turned in Kadi. I'll post a real picture of these guys later on.

Bumblebee is our old orphan kitty. She adopted us back in 2003 when we lived in Louisiana. Someone shot her in the head with a BB gun and dropped her alongside the road. To this day, she still has the pellet because it is too risky for the vet to remove it. Petey is our pain in the butt Yorkie dog. Jesse has always been our oldest son's dog and his little brother felt he should have a doggie of his own to make it fair. So along comes Pete in a Craigslist ad and he was just too cute to resist. For such a little dog he sure can be a handful!

While I was researching scrap quilt blocks, I happened across some pictures of old fashioned redwork embroidery. Thinking it would be fun to try something new, I found a coloring book page online of this basket of apples, traced it out on a leftover piece of cream muslin from Heather's quilt backing and started stitching. There are a few mistakes here and there (Shhh!) but overall it came out good enough to be part of the Duncan Family scrap quilt.

The boys like to spend time in the "woman cave" with me on occassion so I take the opportunity to teach them a little something if they stand still long enough. Both of them thought redwork was pretty nifty, so they gave it a try. They each picked something that they really love to embroider. As this was the summer of fishing and the first time Jake had been out on our little john boat with his Dad, it didn't surprise me a bit when he went searching for a picture of a boat.

Kennedy chose pizza as his favorite thing, but he got a little tired of sewing towards the end, so I just left the stitching "as-is" for his block because I wanted the work to be his alone.

Motorcycles, Barbed Wire and Candy Kisses

It's been just over 20 years since I left the Vegas valley to travel the world. At least, that was my intention. While world travel was never achieved, I have been able to see about 2/3 of the United States while bouncing from one duty station to another. Yeppers, this here is one proud member of the United States Navy doubling as the road weary wife to an Army Ranger. I've traded my Airedale days for diapers and deployments and Craftsman tools for cooking utensils and quilting paraphernalia. It's been an interesting and often hectic life moving around from one base to another every 2-3 years, but I wouldn't change it for the all the chocolate at the Ethel M factory.

The best part of military travel is being able to see and experience different parts of the country. Every set of PCS orders is another chance to taste new food, live in a new house, make new friends, and in some cases, to take a stab at a new language. (Deciphering Deep South and KY/TN/VA Hillbilly accents and terminology should earn us college credits!) There are some bases I wouldn't mind going back to (Fort Campbell, KY) and others that I'd give my left leg to never have to look at again (Fort Polk, La.). Thankfully, we are near every career soldiers' dream...retirement!, and we've pretty much decided that the North Country of Upstate NY is where it's at.

At first, we thought we had all four seasons here, but after 3 years we've learned that we have Chilly, Cold, Oh-My-Goodness-I'm-Gonna-Die Cold and Spring. For instance, today is 1 July. Today's high was 62. 62! I'd love to say that this is abnormal weather but last year on the 4th of July it was a whopping 55! Am I complaining? I know it sounds like it, but no, really I'm not. I've done my time in hell (temperature-wise) and even though I abhor snowmobiles, I do love snow.

Three seasons of chilly/cold/subzero temperatures is perfect quilting weather. My wonderful husband even let me talk him into heating the sunroom-turned-sewing room so that I could have year-round access to all of my toys. I kind of feel bad for confiscating his favorite room in the house for my hobby, but he has been compensated generously for his loss by means of his own personally designed hand stitched quilt that he takes on deployments.

His quilt is proof positive that hand-crafted goods can in fact be "manly". Motorcycles, skulls, flames and barbed wire just scream masculine and he incorporated every one of them into his fabric selections. I love this quilt simply because it is my first large hand-quilted project. When it was completed, I realized I had a new found respect for the Amish and ladies of today and yesterday who use this technique for every quilt they make.

Hand quilting is relaxing and almost meditative. Rocking the needle back and forth through the layers has the same calming quality as swaying on the front porch swing, at least for me. I loved it so much that even though I promised myself I'd take a break from the sewing room for a bit after the Motorcycle quilt's completion, I immediately started hand-quilting my very own favorite "Country Lane" throw.

Out of all of the crocheted, cross-stitched and quilted projects I've made, there has only been one that I completed for myself, until I came across RJR's Country Lane collection, that is.
Despite the nasty little case of carpal tunnel I gave myself with crocheting, I couldn't resist using up the Wal-Mart bag of pink baby soft yarn I found stashed away in one of my numerous craft totes. So low and behold, I created a pastel pink afghan for the back of my sewing room recliner to use during afternoon naps. Cozy!

Now, as for my Country Lane, I'll get back to that one again, maybe tomorrow...or the next day, or the next day... :-) No need to tell about all of the fun stuff in the first post, eh?

On to today...

Introducing "Candy Kisses". I'm making this quilt as a friendship/thank you quilt for an old high school friend in Nevada. Today I finished piecing the top and began designing the backing. Normally, like most quilters, I would simply use one type of fabric to cover the back and be done with it. This quilt is a bit more difficult when it comes to the backing because the colors are not what I would call "typical" colors, meaning I'm not able to find a darned thing to match one single color in the whole quilt top! So, I've decided on a pieced backing using the remaining fabric from the fat quarter bundle along with lots of antique cream muslin. Keeping my fingers crossed that my creative eye doesn't fail me on this one.