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The Bear Family?

Last night we saw this bear on on way home and then while Mark was returning calls in the barn he saw a cub down by the water.  So we think this one is the mother.  Earlier this summer we saw a bigger and more brown bear who we think is a male.  But what do we know.  I'm hoping none of these bears becomes a problem in town since that usually means their death.  We leave nothing out and Sadie barks at every little noise just to let animals know she is here.  We're lucky we see any wildlife. 

09 Raffle Quilt

Once again I volunteered to design the raffle quilt for my quilt group. I'm not sure what made my hand go up. I really didn't want the stress but then I realized that I didn't want to be excluded. And really it's so nice to be able to design a quilt and have other people make it. In theory that is. I actually ended up remaking lots of the blocks. The dilema for me is that I am coming up with a total blank for what to do next. I'm haveing designers block and the pressure is on. Someone suggested doing the same one over but in different colorways but that seems like cheating and not a lot of fun. Well as they say, "back to the drawing board".

Yet Another UFO

Here is another UFO on it's way to being finished. It's amazing what you can find when you start cleaning. Of course this should have been done for Valentines day, probably many years ago, but here it is now and if I'm lucky I'll get to quilting it before next Valentines. I used some handkerchiefs, an old doily and some lace hearts in this along with the squares of the fabric. This was some sort of panel so it was very quick to put together.

More Orphan Blocks

This is a combination of the purple squares that I have no idea what I was planning to do with, crazy pieced blocks, and some curved piecing.  All the colors went together and then I found the butterflies and they seemed perfect for filling up some of that green.  What am I going to do with all these wall hangings?

Orphan Blocks

 

I've been cleaning out my studio.  We are having a yard sale at my quilt group next month so I was sorting out stuff to sell.  I came across all my orphan blocks and put them in color piles.  Yikes!  These I bagged to sell but then they started to talk to me and before I knew it I started to play with them and in the course of as many days I made 4 little quilts and am working on a 5th.  Oh just shoot me right now.  They will be good practice for the Tin Lizziek I keep telling myself.

Mystery quilt

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This was supposed to be a mystery quilt that I was designing for the guild.  It begins with a nine patch and then you cut it in half and then into triangles and and add a focus fabric.  It was fun to do even though we decided to make table runners instead.  I end up with a lot of extra quilts just figuring out what to do for programs.  But right now I need a lot to practice on with my Tin Lizzie. 

Eggs and Entertainment

 

These are our five Cayuga ducks.  We got a pair last year just by a fluke and then we incubated some of their eggs and lo and behold we had duckings.  The original pair are both gone, probably to a bobcat or raccoon but so far these guys are staying safe.  We put them in at night and the dogs protect them during the day.  We get an average of 3 eggs a day but not always in their pen.  Lots of days it's an Easter egg hunt.  They dump them everywhere, including in their water dish, the pond, the irrigation ditch and the driveway.  I think the pond must be full of them.  It looks they are all females but Mark is sure one or two are males.  They all look identical so unless the males develop a lot later these are girls.  They stay busy all day long, waddling around looking for bugs, swimming or napping and are pure entertainment to watch.

Route 66quilt in process

 

This is a work in progress that I'm making for my son in law.  He brews beer and wants to call a future business Mother Road Brewing.  The letters will be outlined so they'll show.  Hopefully I'll finish this by his birthday and it will garner me some beer.

Journal Quilt

This month and for a year I will be making journal quilts. My theme will be about time, something of which I always run out and am anxious to get more of. Each month there will be some sort of concept or idea or something to try. This month it was recycling. so everything I used in this little quilt, only 12" square, was recycled. The background was a Liz Claiborn shirt, sorry Liz, the binding is from a really crummy bunch of lone star pieces I bought in Santa Fe, there is a fork I found at a dump site, and can lids ditto, buttons from an old mattress, needles from a yard sale, an old linen calendar, pottery shards, and my grandmothers rick rack. I'm calling it "You can't recycle time". I like the way it turned out and am excited to do more of them. I have a box I'm putting future scraps in that relate and I'd like to use. I have a shirt label that says AM/PM, so a future journal quilt will be about that. I also am writing about each piece in a paper journal. So far I've gathered all sorts of quotes about time as well as all those thing we say like, I'm running out of time, time out, time waits for no man etc. There are a lot of them. This should be fun!

This was the scene at the cabin in Marble. The river is icing over and creating pools. In front of the house it was 4 feet down when we arrived and then after two 13 degree days it rose to 1 foot down. That makes it a lot easier to get water since we have to get it from the river when we go up in winter. As usual we snow shoed in dragging a toboggan full of food etc. Mostly we sat around the wood stove but I did cook a goose which smelled wonderful but had very little meat on it. It was very peaceful to do nothing but gaze at the snow for a few days. Any longer and I'd go stir crazy.