wee hours of friday

went to lambeau field last weekend, well actually, green bay. got to see a bunch of players show up for practice or something. boy! they sure don't care about green house effect, all drove big gross suvs or monster trucks. that t-shirt i have on is great. it reads "im not buying fabric, its a bailout for the textile industry". went to the three quilt shops there and it was a hit at everyone of them. i like the silver thimble the best. i think we had our bit of summer, maybe four days of mid 80s and its getting cold again. the first summer i was here was beautiful, oh well, as long as it is not snowing i am happy.
i will be teaching the WOW top mid september and then a gradation dye class first saturday in october up in marquette. i have to get on the ball and send quilt top and class info this weekend. i hate mailing that top plus info to kat on where she can get the 12" templates.
better get to bed, it is pretty late and got lots to do this weekend.

July 28th 2009

and if you look real closely you will see Snakey ( I call him Lucky since I almost ran him over with the lawn mower). He has been pretty shy, but let me get close to him today. He was sunning himself. He is a Smooth Green snake and will only get 12-18" long. He is so kool.

I was afraid this was going to happen! While we were away, most the of raspberries ripened, so I was out there for hours yesterday picking what I could. Today I turned them into a gallon of puree divided into four bags which I put in freezer. I will make jam another day. I have to still go out everyday and pick. There is a ton that are only about half way done. But this year, we took out so many plants (still have too many) and I used these really neat tall bamboo stakes to hold them "up". It worked so good. I just need a bit more room between rows for easier picking. But I will resolve this this fall when I cut out the dead canes and widen the rows. It looks scary at first but you know what is left will really fill out. Got more berries cause they had more air and also more room to grow. There are also two heads of brocolli...wish I would of picked those before I left, just starting to try and flower but still so good and tender, better than from the store. Next year our garden is going to be way big and I am planting lots of brocolli, this was my first attempt. In fact, we are having porkchops, pasta and fresh steamed brocolli for dinner tonight.

We went to Train Festival 2009 and got to go on an all day excursion on this beauty...the Nickel Plate #765. Since there were crossing less than a mile apart this baby was on it whistle almost all the time. There is nothing like the sound of a big locomotive in all its glory!

Happy Friday

Well, another week is ending here in da UP. Aren't my morning glories glorious?!! I was hoping for some blue ones, I bought at a nursery. Mark stapled some chicken wire to the fence so they can climb up the fence more easily, I will plant them much closer to the fence next year. You can barely see the lupins I grabbed...they look very stragely but they will drop their seeds and we will have some nice ones next year. There was a traffic triangle a couple blocks from the house, we had never seen them and now we know why...they decided to only mow once this summer to save money...they mowed them down in full bloom and left all the other wild weeds. I am so angry, they could have let them go to seed...creeps....

Here is my little garden. I have brocolli and red cabbage and brussel sprouts and green beans. They handled the frost way better than the tomatoes but they are coming around too. We have such a short season up here.

Who would of thought a week ago we would have a pet snake...Snakee (but I call him Lucky, cause I ran out of gas in the lawn mower and was just about to refill when I saw this green wiggly thing in the grass). Bought him a 10 gallon fish tank, Jayde dug up a section of lawn just the right size, a few other goodies and he is a happy snake...as happy a snake can be in a big fish tank. He will only get 12 to 20 inches. He is a "smooth green snake" but some people call them grass snakes cause of their color. But there is a real grass snake and he isn't half as cute as Snakee.

Well...we are off to the store. The weather has been glorious and the Pentoga Lake is WARM. I got out year pass so I can go swimming as much as I like. Very nice place. Next time I go I will take pictures. Later..............

June 4th and the sun shined today!

Well after many days of cold we have had two warm and beautiful days. It is funny what I now consider warm and wonderful...it was in the 60's today which used to be my winter temps. No longies today! :-)
The above photo was taken by Mark a couple weeks ago. The weather was deary and we had spent the whole weekend indoors so I pried Mark out of the house for a little drive and we ended up at Paint River Boardwalk right here in town. It is very nice and I thought this photo exceptional. I even had it printed to an 8x10 so we can hang on wall.
The garden is in and we are still getting frost here and there, but so far, it look like everything is hanging in there.
I go up to Marquette tomorrow for a dye class I am giving on Saturday. I cannot believe all the junk I have to take. I decided we will mix the gallons of soda ash first thing in class...a bit of exercise for everyone. All the dye will be mixed and in bottles with yorker spouts and extra quarts of the more popular colors. I have to mix the dye first thing tomorrow morning. But I will have everything else ready and packed. I have made myself a list that I can check off as Mark loads the car. We will sent Saturday night so we can noodle around Marquette on Sunday. I will be pooped for sure. Monday I probably won't do much of anything. Well, I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

WOW top finished

I am so stoked this top is finally finished. When I got home from Wednesday quilt group two weeks ago, I had laid out all the squares and staked and labeled the piles, i sewed the top together that night...didn't go to bed until about 3:30 a.m. but it was worth it. All the colored fabrics I hand dyed over the years. I am so happy with this top...now I just need to figure out how to quilt the darn thing. I do know I will be using either a wool or alpaca batting.
Still about a foot of snow all over the place but it is melting fast.

IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!

As you can see it is snowing pretty hard, its supposed to snow all day and night and again tomorrow. We probably have about 6" already! and it is very wet and heavy...the cave your roof in kind. Break branches off your trees kind.....when we were in Ohio, we had three days of 70 and it was lovely. All the trees are covered with blossoms and all the bulbs are up and flowering. i hope this doesn't hurt my daffodils...they are about 6" high now. the robins are freaking out cause all the ground is covered up and they cannot get to the worms and bugs they love to eat!

I am tired from all the driving around we did the last week. We left Dola about 8:30 a.m. and got back home at 6:30 p.m. with just stops to buy gas and hit the rest stops. No sightseeing on the way back up except a few pictures from the moving car.

I am going upstairs to rest and maybe work on my cardinal quilt. Shauna, Mark's best friend in high school (Tom) wife gave me a beautiful crocheted afghan and a pair of socks. Maybe I will give her the cardinal wall quilt since the cardinal is the state bird.

Felted Bags

This is a close up of my bag...it is 100% wool, I am learning that the alpaca felts much nicer. The gal who took the class with me, Deb, I think...she chose on skein of 100% wool and the other was 50% wool and 50% alpaca and it felted better than mine. I guess that I could re felt it, but I am just going to make a lining a nice big felted button. The icord was fun to make and went quickly.

Here we are pre felt process. When I get back from Ohio, I get to start on my afghan, am really excited about this project. Should take me a while and will learn more stuff doing it too. Hope I am not biting off more than I can chew. I am always up for a challenge. Speaking of challenges, I started another paper piece project...it was on the cover of Quilt Maker years ago, the cardinal wall hanging. My last bird was definitely easier than the first that is for sure. I am getting better at the paper piecing too. I find if I fold the sew line and trim a quarter of an inch, makes placement of the next fabric easier and no trimming again. Something else to work on when I get back from Ohio. Have a great week everybody!