Finally quilts...

I haven't gotten much quilting done.  It's been a busy couple of months with company, trips, just a lot of other stuff besides quilting.

  
But I did manage to finish these two from blocks that Sharon gave me at the Phoenix retreat.  I had the perfect backing that accommodated both quilts, and so have two finishes.  

And now when I find my momentum again, we're taking off to see the grandboys.  Just a short trip, but a little longer than my overnight trip to Tucumcari.  It's shaping up to be a busy summer.

Chollas blooming!

 I took a quick trip to Tucumcari to visit friends.  As I headed north on Highway 54 towards Santa Rosa, I was wowed by blooming chollas.

There were huge patches of chollas, all thickly blossoming lighting up the desert with their hot pink/magenta flowers.  My pictures don't do them justice.  It was a bit hazy.

 Like the yuccas around us, I don't think I've seen such an explosion of blossoms all at once. 

I came home with a serger, unfortunately missing a foot pedal, and some bread from Frank's Bakery in Amarillo.  
 

Banner year in the desert!

 
The area immediately around us is all in bloom with yuccas.  It's amazing the variety of softly colored flowers.  I can't remember this many blossoms since we've lived here.
 

 Their roots must be deep or they store water since we haven't had any measurable precipitation since May 11th!

 I'm enjoying the spectacle of blossoms.



 

Sofa bed

We really had no ultimate plans for our sun room other than taking advantage of the solar gain.  Even before completely finishing it, it was functioning to provide just about all of our daytime heat this past winter.  

We started thinking it would be a great place to sleep someone.  Our friend Cybelle's visit from Brazil coincided with my dad's and so she has slept there on a borrowed air mattress.  We shopped for a sofa bed while at the IKEA store in Denver.  Now we have a sofa sleeper.  We're ready for the kids to come visit with the twins now!

This sofa bed is easy to pull out, and even has storage for linens. The other red wall will have a table and chairs, so we can enjoy breakfast in the sunshine in the winter.  Just need to exchange the table base.

The yucca flowers opened and it has gone to seed.  I think it was more spectacular before the flowers actually opened.  The seed pods look like green chiles to me!  The evening primroses continue to bloom without any watering, and scorching winds.  It's warmed to summer now, and we have fires in southern NM blowing smoke our way. 

Waiting and knitting

 We made a trip to Colorado.  It was an opportunity to take my dad to see his great-grandsons.  I scheduled the trip to coincide with the itinerant Brazilian Consulate being in Denver.  Fortunately I had submitted the correct, necessary paperwork so that I could get my American marriage certificate registered with the consulate, and finally get my passport in my married name.  Just waiting for the passport in the mail now!


The itinerant consulate operated much the same as any other bureaucratic entity.  There was a lot of confusion.  A lot of waiting.  We arrived there when they opened at 9 a.m. and left at 2 p.m., the first couple of hours waiting on the person that pulled my already prepared paperwork from a stack, and then moving on to waiting on the only person who was doing marriage and birth certificate registrations.  There were a lot of cranky, tired children waiting in the all too small church as well.  I was glad it was only Dale and I.  I finished the pair of socks I've had on my needles since the beginning of the year, except for the seams with Kitchener stitches, which I did later.  They haven't been washed yet!  

The boys have grown and changed so much, walking and really understanding what you say to them.  They still like my cooking, and were enjoying chicken soup with some creamed spinach.

 

We also took the opportunity to do some shopping for furniture at IKEA in Denver.

The sun room is finished except for a small table glitch.  I picked up the wrong base, bar height instead of table height, and we need to exchange it. 

Roof drip line

When we finished the exterior building of the sun room, Dale laid some flat stones in the roof drip line to prevent splashing in the dirt and mucking up the walls.  It was temporary at best.  With my dad visiting and redoing the stones at the exterior of our front door, I finally got busy and cleaned up the area in front of the sun room.

I used broken, smaller rocks, broken pottery and filled in the same area where the roof drips.  Fortunately our Russian sage, and bird of paradise (bush) survived the construction process.  I added a red yucca (hesperaloe) which I hope will make it, as the hummingbirds like the flowers.  I kept my dad, here for his yearly, month-long visit, from devastating our wild primroses which are thriving this year out front, since he likes to clear all around the house and considers everything a weed.  We tried moving one of the plants--the wilted looking thing in the photo above, only to discover they have very long tap roots.  It's hanging on, so maybe it will make it. 

I also finished the east side flower bed where I had moved all the irises from the front of the house.  They are much happier to have protection from the prevailing winds.  The front of the house is looking much better now.  

 

Tme lapse?

The yucca flower is growing so quickly we don't need time lapse photography.  You can practically stand there and watch it change.

 We noticed the flower stalk kind of followed the sun, and was pointing west at the end of the day.  Yesterday evening it began opening flowers. 

This morning the flowers have opened even more and they are really rather dazzling for our dry, arid climate. 

Spring has also brought out the invasion of the Miller moths.  Seems our milder winter has made their migration earlier, and they are plentiful.  I'm happy to have enticed wild birds with regular feeding that like to eat moths as well!

Utility sewing

Our sun room is done, done.  Dale tiled the window sills.  We had some leftover blue tiles and a bit of turquoise, from previous projects.  

I sewed covers for the window blockers.  We use two-inch rigid foam insulation to block our windows, covered with fabric.  The first few I covered, I used quilted fabric, but found it really isn't necessary and we don't need the extra bulk.  Dale has been trimming the blockers as each part of the finishing process moved along.  Now that the sills were done, I could make the covers.  

 I had intended to do fabric art for the large south facing glass.  Getting the foam covered became more important as it kept "bleeding" styrofoam, and artful covers are on the back burner.  Function sometimes takes precedence.  

You won't be seeing the covers for the tall windows--I have one more to do, and hopefully it will go better than the last three.  I've just really been making do with what I had to work with.  We are really able to control our indoor temperatures blocking the windows at night during the winter, and part of the day during the summer.  Even though the sun room wasn't completely finished it provided most of our daytime heat during this past winter!

Our yucca baccata is going to flower this year.  It's amazing watching this flower coming up.  I was pulling dead leaves and weeds carefully from the base of this plant, and accidentally leaned my head into one of the "leaves," and can attest to its sharp point!  Ouch!  I came inside bleeding!    

Quilts delivered

We went to town yesterday and had another good day.  I was able to get four quilts done to deliver along with Dr. Kaufman's granddaughter's quilt, which I only did the quilting and binding for.

Pat made this great BQ3 with the same fabric she sent to me a while back as a "challenge."  There was enough of it left to use as a border for a pillowcase to go with the quilt. 

I put this top together at the retreat in Phoenix, and then added the borders this past week.  I think the blocks were from Yetta, via Sharon.  As always, great to have friends help with this cause.  My friends ROCK!

 Looks like it's going to cool off this weekend.  Perfect weather for staying indoors and getting going on the next batch of quilts.  Found out that this quilt is going to be raffled off for a service dog for diabetic child.  Thanks Lucille!

A couple more done.

I haven't been as productive with the quilts for Dr. Kaufman, but I managed to get a couple finished this past week.

Pat made this BQ3.  It's such a great pattern!  

I also finished this scrappy quilt, which was a bit of work, but I like the look now that it's done.  Would I do another...probably not.

The backing was just a little short so I added a couple of strips to widen it.  I used Grizzly Paws pantograph by Dave Hudson, which like most of his patterns, flowed nicely.  Since it was a scrappy quilt, it benefited from some scrappy binding.