Getting some quilts done

I was able to get three quilt tops done while at Bear Cabin.  I used orphan blocks from Linda H. to put together a "hockey" quilt.  Also had flannel with hockey motifs for the backing.  It's nice to be able to make some quilts that work for boys.  

I also put together a four patch with fabrics I got in February from Chris' stash.  Chris was a hostess at the AZ retreat I attend, and lost her battle with pancreatic cancer earlier this year.  It made a bright, cheery quilt.

 

I enlarged this liberated pieced center also from Chris' stash for another bright quilt.

  It's so much easier for me to get tops done when I have some orphans or pieces parts to work with.  I also bordered this panel of tropical birds for another quick quilt.

 

Quilt camp

I had a lot to do on my return home.  I had two big queen quilts to quilt for Pat.  I wanted to get them done so that I could take them with to a planned trip to Bear Cabin Inn where I was meeting up with friends from Phoenix.  

I did get them done, but not without a hiccup.  Measure twice, cut once is a lesson I keep having to learn.  I measured out lengths of backing--Pat had bought lots of homespun yardage to use for backing.  I sewed the lengths together, loaded them on the longarm frame...and I thought it looked a little short.  I place the quilt top on the backing, and it is--very short.  I had to take it off the frame and add pieces to each of three lengths.  Arrrggghh!  No pictures of the finished quilts.  I meant to do that at the retreat where we could have tall people hold up the quilts, but forgot.

Got back and quilted a top for Yetta, who had so kindly donated a number of tops for Dr. Kaufman, and also a finished quilt.  

Grandbabies!!

We finished off our vacation staying with the kids.  The boys have grown so much, and we were there to enjoy watching their first forays with solid food.

It was a wonderful visit.  We came home to clearer skies.   Fortunately, the fire near Los Alamos, was north of us and not a factor in our air quality.
 

Lava Hot Springs, ID

As far as our trip goes, we saved the best for last.  We discovered Lava Hot Springs, ID.  We camped in town at the KOA before discovering our favorite spot, Big Spring campground just north of the town of Lava Hot Springs.  It was everything we wanted...Cooler high country, early spring flowers, not too many people.

 


We spent our days just lazing around, and every evening we went to town to enjoy the huge pool and then finish off with a soak in the hotter pools.  The water was amazingly clear with no sulfur odor, and very hot.  It was one of the best hot springs we've ever been to. 

On our way to Colorado to finish our trip we went through Soda Springs, and caught their captive geyser. It was pretty spectacular.  

We also filled up a couple of bottles with their natural soda water from the spring.  Dale enjoyed it...I preferred my store bought bubbly water.  

Also happened to catch the slag pour at the Monsanto plant near there.  Probably the closest I'll get to what looks like an active volcano.  

The drive through Wyoming and Colorado was uneventful, though I have to grit my teeth and just get through Denver.  I don't enjoy going through traffic in a big rig.  

Jordanelle SP, UT

We headed north in search of cooler weather, and made our home at Jordanelle SP for a few days.  We checked out Bridal Veil Falls for a day.  


The surrounding mountains were still covered with snow, and our attempts to go to higher country were met with closed roads.  

We did find a nice picnic spot with a field of wild irises.


Also had dinner in Park City, home of the Sundance Film Festival. 

Moab and Arches NP

We made our way to Arches NP, and of course the NP was full, but we actually found a great place to camp after one night in private park in Moab.  

Upon recommendation from a park ranger, we camped at Sand Flats Recreation Area, just above Moab.  There was no water or electric, but we filled up with water before heading up, and we had solar panels.  Our setup worked great.  

We spent most of our days checking out Arches NP.  The number of arch formations there were unreal.  The number of people made it less desirable to us.  It's a busy national park, and it's easy to see why.  We were happy to return to our less populated campground every evening.   

It started heating up, and we were ready to leave in search of more remote places, but not before being rewarded with a gorgeous sunset.

Capitol Reef NP

Capitol Reef was amazing.  I was surprised that we were able to go towards the end of June and not be roasting.  I really thought we'd have to head north more quickly, and skip Arches National Park.  

We did one impressive hike to Hickman Bridge.  My "new" (TKR) knee held up pretty well, the other knee complained a bit.  The trail is pretty easy follow, and well worth the reward.

Petroglyphs are within easy view of the park road.  I want to try my hand at making my own with the Dremmel tool on sandstone.

Procrastination is my middle name

Okay so it's officially two months since I last posted.  The longer I go without posting, the less inclined I am to catch up.  I wanted to blog about our vacation.  We went so many places and saw so much natural beauty that I wanted to have a record of it.  It's almost two months since we took off, and so I'm going to back date these posts as I remind myself of our trip.  

We left kind of late, as we really don't feel the need to set a time to leave for vacation and then drive ourselves crazy trying to get out of the house with an arbitrary schedule.  It is vacation after all...we leave when we're ready.  We didn't get very far, Farmington, but it was a bit cooler and we enjoyed dinner at Three Rivers Brewery.  Farmington didn't seem to be as dry as our part of the state, and it was great to escape the smoke from the Wallow Fire in Arizona.

It was easier to get an early start the next morning, and we made it all the way to Capitol Reef National Park.  The drive to get there was spectacular.  Of course it was too late to get get a camping spot in the NP, but we found a nice private campground in Torrey, UT just outside the park.  It was quiet and with magnificent views of its own.   

We spent several days and thoroughly checked out the park with drives and hikes.  I don't tire of the the rocks.  They speak to me like no other landscape.  It was never boring and each canyon and rock formation, was better than the last.  This was the best slot canyon we found.  We were the only ones there until we were leaving.

Taking refuge

Today has been really windy but this wind was a blessing as it was keeping the smoke from the AZ fires away from us.  I've been taking refuge in my sewing room.  Got my Amish doll quilt loaded and am done with the quilting I wanted to do on the longarm.  It's also going to require some quilt in the ditch on the domestic sewing machine.

Yesterday we finally put up my new design wall.  We had to cut down the 4X8' half-inch insulation panels, and I covered it all with batting.  I'm really happy with my new design wall, 87X144" of space!  We sure could have used it when Pat was putting together the queen quilts.  I used the three pieces we cut off to make a bulletin board. 

  Of course since I had everything moved around, it was a good time to clean and organize stuff.  An ongoing, forever kind of task that's never finished.  I'm trying to weed out some stuff to sell or trade with other quilters.  I'm participating in a challenge to clean up my sewing room on about.com.  I also discovered ants were invading and I sprayed the exterior of my sliding glass doors and entry door with some "natural" product that I hope is going to be a deterrent.

I don't have much left to do, and then on to bigger quilts that I need to get done.

This & That

Our skies have been smoke filled from the Wallow fire in AZ, creating some eerie, other worldly sunsets.  Yesterday the wind was blowing in such a way that we had relatively clear skies, but then in the evening when the wind quit blowing, you could actually see the smoke pouring over the Manzano mountains that separate us from Albuquerque.  

I finished a couple more quilts and delivered three quilts to Dr. Kaufman.  I did freehand designs on all of them.  Seems like I'm on a roll.  Thanks Yetta for the quilt tops.

 I used the leftover backing to quilt some pillows.  I've been wanting to make pillow covers for these pillows for some time.  Pat gave me just perfect fabric and I'm happy with the bright, colorful addition to our little window seating area.  

 My allergies are in overdrive no doubt exacerbated by the smoky air.  I'll need to stay in the sewing room with the AC running.  Fortunately, I have three big quilts to do, two for Pat and one for Yetta.