Calendar Girls Meeting

Thank you for all of the nice comments on Ruby Red Wine! I'm flattered!

I've worked 2 days this week. The weather hasn't been the sort of summer weather we've become accustomed to up here. As my friend Jackie called "purgatory summer", which seems pretty appropriate. It's been cool, & cloudy. It looks like it's threatening to rain, but never quite follows through on the threat. I really wish it would rain. That yellow on my deck is pollen off of the trees. We could use a good cleansing rain.
The Lupin on the hillside seem quite happy with the weather. They were everywhere up by my friend Mary's house. We had our Calendar Girls meeting there today.
This is the 2nd of 2 group quilts we started several years ago. Both were from photographs that I took & blew up on to freezer paper for a pattern. The first was Nasturtiums, which we got a blue ribbon at the State Fair with last year. Betty Bivens finished this second quilt after 6 people did the applique'. It is a scene at the State Fair.
Yesterday in my email at work, we got a note talking about the benefits of laughter in healing. It said we should try to get at least 15 minutes a day of good healthy laughter to reap the benefits. They encouraged us to try & help out patients & our coworkers find things to laugh about. Not just smiles but good deep belly laughs (though that could be a bit rough on the patient who just had their gall bladder out).

At Calendar Girls we got a good week's worth of laughter in today.

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Further content deleted by author, since it made Mindy speechless!

Red Ruby Wine & A Yam Surprise

Sounds a bit like a food post, doesn't it? Nope just some silliness. Here I thought I didn't have any house plants, & look what I found in my cupboard! I love the leaves on it. They look like dragon's wing to me.

I've finished quilting the "Red Ruby Wine" quilt. That's what I've decided to name it. I wish I would've done less circles, & put straight lines around the water lily motifs, but I enjoyed this quilt so much I may try it again in a different color & size. Here it is, pinned to a blocking screen. It's still quite wet.

Here are a couple of detail shots.

Well I proved to myself I can do small detail circles & Sliver metallic thread on my Longarm Lily!

Well I zipped that comfort quilt off & folded it away. This is the back side of a Trapunto top I started ages ago. My own design.

It's only about 20" square.

I decided to see how detailed & small I could get with Lily. The other thing I am experimenting with is the thread. It's Sulky Holoshimmer Ruby red. It's working beautifully. I am very happy with it. The white thread you see is a wash-away thread, so when I'm all done, I'll wash it & all that will be left is the red sparkles.
We took a run up the mountain to my friend Mary's today. She gave us some baby Alder bushes to plant in our back yard. Ours were decimated when the big equipment came in to raise up the cabin & build our basement foundation. We miss the privacy they gave us.

Mary's house is near the top of our mountain. Her view of the inlet is pretty spectacular.

She had some clematis starting to fill out & bloom.

Afterwards we went downtown Anchorage to have dinner at Simon & Seafort's. We don't usually do downtown in the summer months, due to too many tourists, & long waits at the restaurants, but today we got there early enough, the wait was only going to be 10 minutes, or we could sit in the bar side. There was a nice table in the bar, & since there's no public smoking anyway, the bar was great. I had a Pomegranate Lemonade to drink ( very unusual for me to drink anything with calories). It was Sweet-Tart & good)! Dinner was very good too. I had fresh caught King Salmon with a garlic-herb butter.

This was the view through the window by our table. That's Sleeping Lady, or Mount Susitna.

After dinner we took a short walk to the observation deck looking out over the Cook Inlet. Captain Cook looks out over the water named after him.

It's been a nice day here in Anchorage.

ALCQ Guild Show & Tell

I went to quilt guild yesterday, & promised I would post the Show & Tell, so here it is...

My friend Mary Lee modeled her new jewelry that Jackie & Gene Carley picked up for her when the were on vacation.

Mary showed her donation for this years small quilt auction.
& Another quilt she just finished.

My sister would love this next one.

Linda made a "Turd-le quilt" for her son. When he was first learning how to write he tried to write turtle on a piece of paper, & was told by his teacher to "sound it out". He only got "TURD" written & the bell rang, & when he took his paper home, Linda wanted to know why he had written "TURD" on the paper...hence the inspiration for this quilt.

Delberta was her prolific self....1

2

3

This is Glenda.

Who is that masked quilter?Oh , it's Margaret.

This is for an auction too.

Lavonne Deboer is working on clam shells.

President Kay.

Elaine with another auction quilt.

That's it for Guild show & tell. Next is my handwork piece for this summer, & maybe the next year or 2. I arranged pieces of the fragile silk beaded cloth on to the batik background, then pinned them in place. That's what the little yellow dots are, pin heads. I'll work on tacking it all down then over lay with tulle. after that I may add more stuff, photo transfers, or something else, & turn it into a variation of a crazy quilt eventually.

As far as work in the studio. I've come to a screeching hault tonight. I'd been working on a large comfort quilt. I loaded it on Tuesday evening. Wed. we had dinner company, & she wanted to see the studio & Lily. She wanted to see how the rollers worked, I turned them, but they were dragging, & I couldn't see from where I was standing, why. Well the next morning when I went in to get started quilting, I realized the batting had gotten hung up underneath, & was torn. I patched it, & thought I had everything back in place, but after several HOURS of quilting, I realized the back now has pleats & ripples. Even though it's a comfort quilt, I can't finish it like this, so I've taken it off, & folded it up for now. When we go to a cabing for fishing this month, I'll take it along & unsew everything, & start over fresh later.

So another lesson learned, & the good news is, my feathers are getting really good!

I made this sign about 2 years ago, for our back driveway address. Warren finally put in the post & mounted it on a backboard, & put it out this last week. I felt the black numbers were too dark though, so I went out there this morning with my copper paint & messed around on it a bit. I started with the #1 on the right, painting it solid, bu I think I might actually like it better like the 5 is, just dry brushed, so I'll let it dry, & sand it down, & play with it more later.
I noticed this old stump while I was out there. I love dead old stumps. They have interesting shapes & textures.

I thought this part was interesting.

I liked the fine moss at the base too.

I discovered several fiddle head ferns around it too. I think I may go out tomorrow & pick a bunch for our supper. We're having company over, 2 of the RT girls from Warren's department. It might be fun to have fiddleheads with our Alaskan meal. We're having Red salmon on the grill, & Double Muskey Jalapeno' rolls..

When I got done playing around outside, I went down to my studio & got some work done that I've been putting off for about 3 years now. I have a large quilt mounted, ready to get quilted on Lily, but I'm waiting for a shipment of thread for it, so I decided to finally make the curtains for under the sink in the kitchen. I had intended to use a completely different fabric, but when I started auditioning the fabrics, this was what won. It's an upholstery fabric, with some weight & sheen to it. The color went better with the dishwasher & refrigerator than the other fabric I'd bought for this purpose.

The dark red bands are a cotton batik from Holland. I don't think I ever showed a picture of the fridge, once we got the door panels on.

There's my new red coffee pot too. I love it.

I think I figured out what my hand-work project will be this summer. I got this very fragile old beaded silk from Ebay several years ago.

It's most of an old dress I think. The hand beading is amazing on it.

I've decided to arrange it on this piece of orange-pink batik cotton, & stitch it down by tacking the beads in place (no, not every single bead, but a lot of them). Then I am going to layer a piece of tulle over it, & hand quilt it into a quilt. It's heavy enough, I may eventually mount it on to a canvas frame, I'm not sure yet. I'll see when I get there.

It looks like I had a visitor on my deck some time today. I was in the studio, so didn't hear it.

I would say it was a baby bear though, as Mama bears have feet quite a bit bigger than mine.

Last night I had a moose staring at me through the studio window, while I was putting the quilt on the frame. That's Life in the wild kingdom!

I found a cryptoquote I've kept for a long time. Some day it'll be made into a quilt.

"A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water."

~Eleanor Roosevelt

Ain't that the truth!