Turning Off the Sewing Machine

Yep. Its that time of the year. We're working cattle here and there and if I'm not in the kitchen cooking,

                                       

 I'm washing dishes, or syringes

Or hauling some of the boys to one end of the ranch or another

Or watching the weather

And the good Lord has been incredibly gracious to us this year. We've been rained out and no one is complaining. We're very excited...and thankful... for pastures covered in tall grass:

                                        

Even mowing has been a challenge because we had about 2 weeks where it was just too wet. Praise God! We've got lots of little surprises popping up in the yard:

Its rare to see mushrooms in the desert and these little fuzzy fellas are everywhere as well.

Its been a joy to actually have mud in my mud room. And look at these sweet boys:

                           

They shucked their boots instead of tracking in mud. I have never asked them to do that. I don't mind sweeping and mopping. I was in the dining room when they padded in in their stocking-ed feet and I smiled at their thoughtfulness. I don't expect them to do that, but its very sweet. They're practically family already.

The other evening, they were hauling calves down the road and a wild storm rolled in at dusk. The boys said they drove through intense rain and hail. The wind was wild here and we got a good rain here at the house, but no hail. They tromped in, unexpectedly, about 8, in the dark, wet and bedraggled looking, their calf hauling temporarily interrupted. I pulled out and heated up leftovers from dinner in a hurry and we settled in for a hot meal and a good visit while the storm raged outside.

Home-cooked  meal. Good friends. Rain blessings. Life is good.

First New Quilt Project of the Year

I've been chipping away at the UFO list thus far, but I got a hankering to start a new project a few months ago, and yes, I am just now getting it posted. :)  I've been working on it here and there and now its October and this is my my first new project of the year. I know - I'm a sad excuse for a quilter.

I have a long list of projects I want to start and since I haven't made a Christmas quilt, I decided this was the year to fix that. I saw this quilt last year and knew I wanted to make it. I pulled lots of reds and greens from my stash

and then broke my fabric fast for some background earlier this summer. I have some white with snowflakes, but I'm thinking I might prefer a cream like they used in the original. I tend to use a lot of the Moda Marbles Vanilla when I'm looking for a cream so I used the yard I had in my stash and picked up 3 yards at the little LQS. I'm using lots of scrappy reds and greens and keeping the background a constant and I haven't a clue as to where that picture is. :)

And then I pieced the little 6 patches

and the applique began:

I didn't want to use any fusible web as I wanted to keep the quilt soft and snuggable , so I used  the Sewline glue pen to keep the holly in place as I stitched. This is the first time I've used a glue pen and I found that I really liked it. Someone else likes it too:

In fact, she pretty much helped walk me through the entire process. Always willing to lend a paw:

Each little pair of holly leaves takes me about 10 minutes to applique so I'm able to pop behind my machine every now and then and add another block to the pile.

I've been playing around with the layout and getting blocks stitched together:

Its been so long since I started a new project that I almost forgot how good it feels!

Irish Flower Garden Quilt

And here's my oldest UFO - finished!

 I started this quilt in November of 2010. I bought Eleanor Burns' Irish Chain book and began collecting 30's prints.

Looking back at these fabrics and my box of leftovers, I am still smitten with these prints.

I knew I wanted to add something in the empty spaces between the chains and hexagon flowers seemed to be a perfect fit so I commenced to learning English Paper Piecing and then I hand appliqued the flowers:

The finished quilt is 70" x 89". This was the second quilt I dropped off at Jackie's that needed custom quilting, which is why it's taken this long to finish. Again though, I did not need it for anything in particular. Jackie  has a fast turn around time if you need something quilted in a certain time frame, but I rarely need that. There are only 2 quilts I asked her to quilt a quickly. One I need in 7 weeks and she had it to me in a week and the other I needed ASAP for a little 5 yr old girl who was getting a new heart and she had that to me in 2 days. 99% of the time, I tell her to just put it on the back burner because I'm in no hurry and I know others might be. I told Jackie she could never, ever retire. :)

I like the little swirls she added to the border:

It took me a long time to settle on a backing and I didn't particularly care for the one I chose at the time, but I like it better now:

And I think this is the first time in 5 years that she hasn't had one of my quilts. So I hurried up and finished one up, pieced the backing and dropped it off... along with a dozen eggs. :)

This quilt feels fresh and sweet and reminds me of a bygone era before I was even born.

Can one be reminded of something before their time? I'm not sure if the 30's were a fresh and sweet time though. I am currently reading 'The Worst Hard Time' and I'm fairly certain I would not be strong enough to weather what people from that time endured.

I'm adding this one to the quilt ladder that is now full:

Wonder if Grandpa will mind making another one...or two. :)

When the People Are Away

Ever wonder what your pets are up to when you're not looking?  DH and I walked into the house the other day and this is what we saw:

Our girl left one of her cats here when she headed back to school. She's pretty much the perfect cat. She is sweet, likes to stay outside at night (which is why our girl didn't take her back with her) and comes in to sleep all day...unless she hears the sewing machine. Then she wakes up and assumes her sewing assistant duties.  She follows me around when we're both outside and she gets along with the rest of the feline barn crew. I love this cat.

When we walked in, she was perched atop the buffet, had these two cattle feed tags between her paws, and seemed for all the world to be studying them intensely. We burst out laughing and she glared at us as if she didn't appreciate the interruption, and then went back to her inspection of the ingredients. 

Wonder if I can convince her to tend to our taxes.