Report from Toledo

 So far I have gone walking at one of the Metro-Parks every morning during this vacation. We came across these deer at Swan Creek a couple of days ago. Unfortunately the mosquitoes were watching and waiting for me - I am up to 3 bites so far.

Today was a new first - Tammy and I went to have our nails done. This was my first ever manicure. The picture is not great, but I picked a nice pink color. Now I am very conscience of nicking or damaging the polish. I also realized that I do not own any nail polish remover so in a week or so when I get home and need to take it off I have to go out and buy some.

Off to Ann Arbor on Wed and in Columbus for the Quilt Show on Thurs.

 

 

Ska Last Weekend

Still catching up after last weekend. Damon and I took off for NYC for the Apple Stomp concert. Had a blast! The bands were great. Can't remember the last time we went to a ska concert together.

It was actually 90+degrees in NYC and now here I am back in the Adirondacks where it is in the low 60s and rainy.

Memorial Day 2013

I have spent the last month or so scanning the old family photos. Today I got to some of Grandpa Toth's Army photos. The first is a group portrait at Lourdes in France. I spent some time trying to find him in the photo and I think I spotted him in the upper left-hand corner of the group. This photo was taken in 1945.

In not so historical news, the rain has stopped, which is a relief as the flood plains were really filling up and the closest road over the Saranac River was closed yesterday due to flooding. The High Peaks in the Adirondacks are reported to have gotten 3 feet of snow in the last day, but we lucked out and didn't even have a frost - thank goodness, as I had already planted my tomato plants.

A busy May

Last weekend I took a workshop on Ribbon Embroidery. Pictured are the few flowers I made in class. We learned four different types of flowers and one type of leaf. Obviously there are lots of other possibilities but this was a good way to get introduced to the process and learn the basic knots and how to work with silk ribbons.   

Then this past week I did a road trip to Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada for the WILU conference. As you can see from the photo there was still some snow on the peaks in New England on Tuesday. The conference was great - funny, entertaining and full of great content, tips and ideas. 

Busy, but still getting stuff done

 Haven't been blogging much as I worked the last two weekends and didn't take any time off during the week to compensate. I am proud to say that I did manage to maximize my time by combining two projects.
When I got grandma's baking board a few years ago a side piece was missing and as it had been sitting the basement it wasn't in great shape. When my latest quilt needed border fabric (nothing I currently had worked with it) I went up to Fibre Junction my friend Carole's quilt shop. Carole's husband does woodworking so when I went up to the quilt shop I dropped off the board for him to repair and clean up. I found the border fabric I wanted and a week later I went and picked up the board.
It always feels good to cross off another project off the list.

A note on the weather. Yes it is April, no it is not Spring. Heck, we haven't even started Mud Season yet - everything is still frozen and covered in snow/ice. 

Spring Quilt Retreat Report

OK, the weather was anything but spring-like but the quilt retreat was great as usual. I am always so surprised by how much I get done at these retreats, so I did pack plenty of in-progress and possible new projects.

One of the last minute project I brought was the collection of orphan blocks which came together in this quilt top. Obviously these are not all of my orphan and test blocks. I tried to pull ones that looked fairly good together. I was  pleasantly surprised how easily they came together I only needed five or six extra scrap strips to fit them all evenly. I think it still needs some sort of border. 

By the last day of the retreat, which is only really a half-day, I usually have my bigger projects done and I am reluctant to start something completely new. So for my Sunday project this retreat I took out the scrap box and tried out the Trash to Treasure Pineapple block ruler and technique by Gyleen Fitzgerald. I started playing with different color layouts for this block. I like how they are coming out. A pineapple block quilt is on my to-do list, but it is a very versatile block and I am not sure what color layout I want to go with. I can totally see these test blocks (once I make a couple more) being the corner blocks for the border on the orphan block quilt.

Block Testing

Getting ready for the Spring quilting retreat. I dug out some fabric and a pattern that I bought in Paducah, KY last year called 'Tall Pines' by Irish Chain. The fabric I bought was expensive hand-dyed fabrics. The pattern uses their own custom templates for cutting the pieces. Given that I didn't want to make any mistakes trying this new process on the pricey fabric I jumped into the box-o-scraps and tried out the pattern and the templates. I noted a few minor adjustments, but it turned out pretty well. Here it is. This is a mini version, it is about 20 inches long. The version I will be making with the specialty fabric is the 4 foot version.

One of these days I am going to have to gather up my sample and test blocks and make a quilt. I didn't do it on purpose, but the background fabric used here, was also used in some of the Lemoyne Star blocks I made a while ago. So I know a few blocks will go together pretty well.