Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Just Do it

So I'm thinking about what I gotta do and what I wanna do. Then I stall and nothing gets done. I've been back since Sunday from a wonderful trip to Quilt Nebraska in Norfolk and can now make the time to organize and prioritize my quilting. It's not really a "got to" kinda thing but I do think I should. I've got piles of this, that, there, his, mine, theirs and miscellaneous and who knows what else.  So I straightened some piles and pretty soon I am going to get something done. Perhaps tomorrow at Studio3. I've uncovered these 3 recent projects. It is not like me to abandon them the way I did. I do have PHD's but they usually become that way because I don't know what I want to do about them next. Two of these I simply lost interest in. The third I've recently begun and just haven't gotten back to.

I don't wonder where my mojo's gone. I've been gone on several trips this summer and when I am home I'd rather be outside. Now that it is too hot I am back indoors so with any luck I should be back in the groove in no time. Besides I want to get a few of the comfort quilts from church quilted up before our festival. It helps me to have a reason.




Sunday on the way home from the airport we detoured by my sister-in-law's place to say goodbye to a nephew and his family leaving for a job in Texas. They were thrilled when I said I would take their cat. No need to think about it. It has been almost 2 years since we've had a cat leaving it's fur all over my quilts. So Buster is ours now. He is a bit neurotic. I can only hope with time he will relax and be happy here. He comes from a home with one dog and two young children. Quite a contrast to our place. Isn't he handsome?




Monday, July 6, 2015

One month later

   Wow, it's been a whole month. I didn't think I'd write much this last month since I was gone to California for 10 days and otherwise across the street.
Quilting has definitely been put on the back burner temporarily. I have even missed meetings at church. I am hoping to get things back on track re: my quilting starting with the comfort quilts. We have a meeting tomorrow so I will prepare for that later today.

  It is supposed to be hot and humid today so I will retreat to my sewing room later but only after I finish the three passes left with the long arm on the raffle quilt.  Only a few classes at Studio 3 have been cancelled cause I was gone and the holiday was in there.  So see, I have been doing some quilting.
  Re: quilting, the rest of this summer I want to focus on making comfort tops with the ever-growing pile of orphan blocks. Here is just a few more from the stack that I am auditioning. I will collect the rest from Studio 3 and sort through them. Perhaps even preparing a kit and passing it on to the gals at church.






    Our trip to California was fantastic. After flying overhead all these years I decided to take a slower route to see the scenery. I'd wanted to see the giant Sequoias since I first learned about them as a girl and never had the opportunity when I'd gone west to teach. I told Mark we could wait till he retired, so finally we went. I didn't want to drive there (we are in SE Wisconsin) and I didn't want to fly so we took the train. I really enjoyed it.  We took the train as far as Reno then rented a car and drove down the East side of the Sierra's to Yosemite Park. Then we drove through Yosemite and south to Kings Canyon  and Sequoia Parks. I never thought to fly back from there so we reversed the route and took the train back home. It is indeed a beautiful country and the trees are really awesome.  So glad we went. I won't share pictures cause really all you need to do is google images of the trees or parks.

     And as it is summer I've been outside. I've taken to calling my restoration project across the street my 18 acre garden. We are not doing a complete restoration but the removal of all the invasives still  qualifies it as a restoration. Between 11 acres of woods and 7 acres of the wetland we have our work cut out for ourselves. Some days we do nothing and others finds us "weeding" as we cut and/or poison the most invasive non-native species. I am continually amazed at all the wildflowers I keep finding. Though I am sure they have been there all along, because of our work we now have access to them and they can thrive and be enjoyed. This patch of Canadian Anemone was actually found growing along side the road a few miles from here. A huge patch that would fill my house, that we'd never noticed before.