Friendship

A week ago I spent the day with two of my good friends and we took the 90 minute drive to visit the Spiral Jetty on the north end of the Great Salt Lake. They had never been there before, and I'd only been once before about 25 years ago, so we were all looking forward to it. We stopped at Subway and got sandwiches & salads for our lunch, then sat in the dirt parking lot on lawn chairs and enjoyed the view after walking the spiral and hiking the overlook. Fun day! (I wore a quilty shirt!) If you Google Spiral Jetty you can see more photos and learn about the artist and the history of the installation - it's kind of interesting. People come from all over the world to see this, and yet very few local people even know it exists!

Also last week, I won my friend Janet's blog giveaway (Rogue Quilter) and the goodies arrived in the mail yesterday. Her handmade soaps are SO luxurious - love using them in the shower. The little thread snips will be great for both machine work and hand work so they'll be used a lot. And what quilter doesn't enjoy receiving new fabrics? The little Dresden pincushion is perfection itself! Thanks for your generosity Janet!

When I packed up my studio to move to the new house, I discovered some vintage fabrics I had forgotten all about. This small piece of cheddar & purple really caught my eye - it was shaped irregularly - maybe a fat quarter in size - and I loved the colors.

Janet had just shared a free pattern available on the Henry Glass website and I thought it was cute.

After I chose some coordinating fabrics from my stash, I decided to try making it.

This is what I had leftover, and I had to piece together small bits for one of the alternate blocks - I felt very 'make-do' in my efforts. The largest piece is probably 2" across.

The top is all finished - and just this minute I noticed that two of the blocks are turned the wrong way. ARGH! Guess I'll get my seam ripper out..... The finished size is 23" x 29".

A bit of a close-up shot below - a totally different feel than the original design by Stacy West!

I'm so thankful for friends and their influence and contributions to my life!

Rug Hooking Workshop (Picture Heavy)

Over the weekend I was fortunate to attend a three day rug hooking workshop sponsored by the Utah Rug & Fiber Guild. This year our national teacher was Donna Hrkman from Dayton Ohio - what a delightful lady! We met at a local quilt store.

I chose to work on a landscape rug of a red rock slot canyon in Southern Utah - an area that my husband absolutely adores. I'm hoping that my project will turn out well enough that I can have it mounted on stretcher bars and he will want to hang it in his office at work. If not, oh well! I worked from a photograph so you can see what it's supposed to look like when finished. It's only 18" square, so not a huge rug.

The Guild has always done a great job on prizes & treats for the attendees. This time all 20 people in the class received one of these adorable sheep! He's quite large - can you imagine how much work it was to make so many of these? Love him!

This rich, chocolate cupcake was sooooo delicious to eat - and cute to look at with that little face!

I recently visited my friend Kay who is hooking a rug depicting a church that is right next door to her home. She mentioned that she thought she'd like to make it have stained glass in the windows, so this morning I got out my electric frying pan and attempted to make dye some wool for her that would work as a surprise.

I used only three colors of dye - red, blue & yellow - hoping that they would run together to create orange, purple and green.Turned out kinda dark and muddy, but she might like it anyway. I'm crossing my fingers...... maybe I should have done rows of color instead?

Donna is well known for her portrait rugs, and that is what most of the gals chose to hook during the workshop. After three days solid of working on their projects, most of them had two eyes hooked - which is why I wasn't terribly interested in doing faces - too time intensive for my tastes - plus they had to use very, very narrow cuts of wool to get the details right - a #3 cut.  Jill is doing Marie Antoinette - a long term project I imagine.

Judy was hooking Freida......

Mary worked from a photograph of her granddaughter......

Leah is hooking her hubby & herself......

Brynne recently moved here from CA where she was active with a rug group there. She started an angel rug - might be a weathervane? It's a big one.

Brenda is hooking a sheep that will eventually become a small handbag.

Stacie is hooking a beloved pet dog.....

Tonia worked on one of Donna's patterns of a steam punk pumpkin......

Cheryl also bought a pattern from Donna, but she loves to make sculpted rugs, so this dog has a muzzle sticking out a couple inches from the surface of the rug - he also has a steam punk vibe....

Terri was hooking a rooster in varied colors - one of Donna's patterns also.

Marianne drew her own pattern of her sister with a cat and a computer - her two favorite things!

Coralee is doing a picture of a town on the Oregon coast she visited - great weathered wood.

Jeanette is hooking a rug to go on a window seat near where her grandchildren play when they come to visit - such fun bright colors for the three elephants!

Sandy got a whale hooked, but there is much much more to the pattern she's doing - she works quickly so I'm looking forward to seeing this when we meet again next week - it might even be done by then! LOL

Pat is making a footstool - she's started with these coiled circles and will hook around them until the surface is finished. Can't wait to see this one!

There was a small rug show at the end of the class where I snapped the pictures below - lots of talent in our group!

Over President's Day weekend we spent some time in St. George Utah - usually we escape there for the warmer temperatures, but not this time. We still had a good time - drove out to Glitter Mountain and collected these shards of rock that look like clear glass - very cool! I like them displayed in this small rope bowl that I recently made.

Hubby & I have had a new home built and it's nearly finished now - maybe two weeks till we close. After living in our current home for 37 years it's going to be quite an adjustment for us - and the physical move will be quite an ordeal - especially my studio with it's supplies. But we're looking forward to it. Thankfully, we can take as long as we need since we won't be selling our old home until the move is complete - no pressure to hurry, hurry, hurry. It's only three miles away so that helps too. I haven't had a lot of time for reading blogs lately, so I'll go catch up with everyone now!

Home Again

I'm home from attending my brother's wedding in California - it was SO nice to see all of my family and meet the bride's family - a very happy occasion! They seemed to like the quilted table runner I made for their gift, so that made me happy.

Now that our newest grandchild has arrived, I finally got around to making this new piece of wall art using Scrabble game tiles to spell out the names of everyone in my little family. It was a fun project and I did have a bit of help doing it, which makes it even more fun. If/when we have another grand baby I'll just have to start over, and that will be fine with me. Luckily, it fit perfectly into a thrift store frame I had on hand so I just had to paint it. I used Heat & Bond to adhere the fabric background to a sturdy piece of cardboard, the tiles themselves are attached with hot glue, and the book page scallops received a shot of spray adhesive to their backside after I inked the edges a bit. I twisted a strip of burlap to make the flower and added a vintage red button to the center.

Yesterday I attended my monthly meeting of the Salt Lake rug group - it's been two months since we saw each other so it was really nice to catch up on the visiting. Myra's beautiful floral rug is nearly finished - she used a pattern that was originally for an appliqued quilt but adapted beautifully to a hooked rug. I'm sure you would recognize each of the flowers if you could see them up close.      I love it!

Nancy is making this Susan Quicksall design for a new grandchild - just has to work on those borders.

I began a small round rug that I will fill with cat's paw circles - scrappy as usual.

Yvonne was hoping to get the wool applique on this quilt finished quickly, so she could layer it and begin quilting it on a road trip she'll soon be leaving on. It was her first try at using wool for the applique and she's not quite sure if she likes it as much as using cotton needle turn.

I bought myself one of the new Zirkel magnetic pincushions recently. I've used a magnetic one for years now, but this one is extra strong, and the pins hang over the edges in a circle so they're easy to grasp without any fumbling. I worry a little about it grabbing onto my thread snips on occasion, but it's supposed to be okay with the electronic sewing machines. I'll see how I like it after a week or two of use. Have any of you tried one?

Catching Up

Last summer when hubby & I were vacationing in Montana, I found this set of sewing machine drawers at an antique store in a small town - I think I paid $25 for them. There was no top, because they used to be attached to a sewing cabinet, so I knew I would have to do something about that.

I could have added a piece of wood  to cover the opening- cut to size and stained to match.

But I decided to hook a little rug for the top. The hooking has been done for months, and my mom helped me put it all together while she was here last week. Those two extra hands were very helpful.

The wood was a little worn, so I sanded it lightly and brushed fresh stain on it - very pleased with the way it turned out.

I made another heart quilt for Valentine's Day, but didn't get it finished till today. So now it'll be ready for NEXT year! It's kind stiff cuz it's heavily quilted. I'd like to soften it up by washing it, but I'm kinda nervous about the red bleeding.  Not sure what to do.

My grandson's birthday quilt is all finished. We'll be taking it to him next Saturday.

The back is kind of fun with his name appliqued on there - and I embroidered my name and a message on the letter 'O'.

I was very lucky that a friend let me use her longarm machine to quilt this on. It was a lot of fun and only took me about three hours from start to finish.

I received a Quick Curve Ruler for Christmas, and although I won't be able to make a quilt with it for quite awhile, I wanted to stitch up one block just for fun so I could see what it's like. The gal who designed this is here in Utah and most of the quilts made using her method are Modern Quilts,  but I think it's going to work just fine in my dark & dirty scrappy style. Her company is Sew Kind of Wonderful.

Home From Vacation

Hubby & I explored Western Montana with our 5th wheel all of last week - sure saw some pretty country! We stayed in my favorite campground for two days where I could hear the breeze blowing through the trees, smell the pine in the air, and listen to the gurgle of this small stream all night long - loved it!

Our truck rides too rough to do any stitching on the road, but each evening when we parked I was able to do a little work on these small hexie flowers - - -

- - - and I got nine more stars done on my hooked table runner - only six more to go, plus a piano key border at each end.

It's kinda funny how I was seeing planted wheelbarrows wherever we went! I saw these at Flathead Lake all lined up on the lawn alongside the road we were travelling. There were a few more scattered throughout the yard too.

And there were two of these outside a junk shop in Helena that we stopped at.

Now I'm on the lookout for a few more for my own yard! I've had this one for many years under the trees by my front door.

Hooked rugs are rarely seen here in the west, but I spotted this one at an antique store in a very small town called Choteau. It was priced at only $50, but I didn't love it enough to buy it. The hooking was completed but the edge hadn't been finished yet. The tag said it was needlework so I educated the proprietor a little about rug hooking before I left.

One of the things I usually dread about camping is mosquito bites! I always seem to have a bad time with them - they turn red and swell up terribly - and the itching drives me crazy for at LEAST an entire week!

I've been learning about the benefits of using essential oils lately, and when I read that lavender oil applied to a mosquito bite will help it feel better, I decided to pack my bottle and give it a try. WOW! What a difference it made! I applied a small amount each time I was bit and almost immediately I found relief! They healed quickly and and the itching stopped completely. I'll never travel without it again. I used doTERRA brand, but I'm sure any of them will work the same way. Just thought I'd pass that info along to anyone who might benefit from it too!

We got a late start on our garden in the spring, but we are finally eating zucchini and the green beans and corn will be on soon - YUM!