Nutmeg Stars Quilt

I've been talking about this one for a while - and now my Nutmeg Stars quilt is quilted, bound, fini! I thought the beautiful foliage would be a great backdrop for this quilt of blues and greens!

I used a FQ bundle of Color Me Happy and some earlier pieces by Vanessa Christenson along with a few stash fabrics.

The pattern is by Fig Tree Quilts and you can find out more about the pattern and how I changed it here.

I quilted it fairly heavily with swirls and pebbles in the background...

and bound in one of my current binding favorites - Art Gallery Squared Elements.

Pretty happy with this one!

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13th Lake

Last year L and I took a drive to North Creek, NY,  and we went to 13th Lake.  It was so beautiful, I said right then that I wanted desperately to kayak the length of it.  I took pictures from the launch site, and wrote a blog post about it.  I even made some greeting cards with the photos.

But of course kayaking 13th Lake  was not meant to be last year.  Surgery #2 arrived, then my mother got sick, and was sick all summer, then my headache came back with a fury, and my mother died, and on to surgery #3.
So over this past winter, I made a list, of all the lakes and ponds that I want to kayak, and 13th Lake was at the top.

L tried to convince me to go somewhere closer, maybe easier.
But my mind was made up.
I am not putting off until tomorrow what makes me happy today.
I have found out the painful, hard way that life, quality life, is short.

  So daughter #1 and I headed out this morning.  She had never been there, but I don't think that she was disappointed.

 The day could not have been more perfect.
The sun was warm, the breeze was lovely, and though we were warned about "black fly" season, and were prepared, we never saw them.
We didn't even use the bug spray.

And loons were everywhere.
We love loons.

 We paddled two miles to the far end, and then two miles back.

Every day that allows me to live my life like this, is a day to be grateful for, to cherish.

There is nothing quite like the Adirondacks.  It is a special place.  Winding roads, small towns, towering mountains, crystal clear lakes.
If you haven't been, you should put it on YOUR bucket list.

Days like today make me  wish I had never wasted a minute of my life to drama.
It's such a waste.

I may look like I'm scowling, but it's just the sun, and concentrating.
I am really happier out in that kayak than a body has a right to be.

 Check it off:   13th Lake.  What a wonderful beginning to the summer.

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Big doings.

Can I just say that baby chicks are a pain in the..............well, you know.
They are a lot of work.   I have had chickens in the past, but NEVER chicks.
omg.
One night I actually stayed over at the studio, so I could run out there every couple of hours to make sure the light was at the right height that they didn't freeze.
I had them in a huge metal water trough inside the chicken coop.  They are growing so fast, I think they were getting overcrowded.
The other day I noticed one little barred rock crouched down and not moving.
I picked her up to find that her neck was pecked and in rough shape.

 So I put her in a box by herself....with food and water.  I have fed her a little boiled egg, and while I was expecting to find her dead, she is actually doing much better.
But she wants out.
Chickens are social birds.  She doesn't like being alone.
So today, after two days of being in this box, I tried her in with the rest.  They immediately started pecking the back of her neck.

I fetched her out quickly.

Then I had a bit of a brain storm.   I went to the barn, where I had a bird cage hanging.....cleaned it out, put some shavings in it, some food and water, and put her in it.
As you can see, she can see them, and hear them, and while it may not be a perfect solution, it is the only one I could come up with for the time being.
I would love to hear any suggestions.

Oh, and I did take them out of the metal container, and put up this corrugated cardboard, so they wouldn't hide under the nesting boxes, where I couldn't keep a good eye on them.

I think they will be easier when they are grown.

Finally the kitchen construction is done.  And while I could have opted for the "Country Living" completely new kitchen, I am pretty happy with my old/new kitchen.  
It's perfect.

I have to get knobs for the cupboards, and the floor needs to be sanded and refinished around the new ones, where the bathroom used to be.

I love my old house, and it's important to me that any renovation I do feels right.

This does.

It's especially fun, when an idea that was brewing in my head, comes to fruition, and is even nicer than I expected it to be.

I'm not keeping you awake, am I Sydney???

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6" Sampler Quilt

I'm sure you're familiar with the Farmer's Wife Quilt that was bit of a craze a while back. There are tons of gorgeous versions out there and many horror stories about making it. It seems all the blocks are made with templates - not our favorite thing in this rotary cut quilting world.

I was on the fence about doing one until I saw my friend Carla's quilt. Beautiful!

To avoid the template hassle, I decided to use several of my block design books, graph paper and pencil to create my block choices. All easily rotary cut. It will be an ongoing project for much of this year - I'm going for 64 blocks - 8x8.

Here are the first 25:

And it seems I have a few favorites {which just happen to be my most recent ones}...

Maybe I should call it The Salesman's Wife Quilt :-)

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Low Volume Churn Dash

Have you seen all the pretty "Low Volume" quilts around the blogosphere? Though not usually my style {I love some color!}, after admiring so many, I thought I would give it a try.

A simple Churn Dash block, combined with some cute fabric from the Littlest line and here's what I came up with...

It's very sweet and soft

And features the border print in several of the Churn Dash blocks...

I quilted it myself in a design similar to a Dogwood quilting pattern...

And the back is super cute with the border print!

I have to admit, I prefer a little more color, but I think it will be lovely for just the right person!

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Easier days.

6am.   Every morning.  Wide awake.
That's me.

What better time to make rhubarb pies?

I don't put strawberries in my rhubarb pies.  I might have told you that before.  When it comes to rhubarb, I am a firm believer that it is fine all by itself.

Then I made some whole grain orange quinoa  muffins.... and I didn't take a picture, and my daughters took them all home.  They were met with rave reviews.
It is good to have family that appreciates what I cook up.

We found some sherbert loopers in the attic and L wove them up into 3 nice rugs.  One of them is sold, just from putting them in my newsletter.   
I love the sherbert rugs, but bleaching out the color to get those shades is a giant pain.

I have been going to my chiropractor for a few weeks.  He has been helping me with the pain and stiffness in my neck and shoulders, from all the trauma of three surgeries, and the presence of rods holding my cervical spine straight.
I think it's helping, and maybe the reason my headaches seem to be better.  
I am almost afraid to say that.

But being joyful  is easy with this girl around.
She lights up our whole family with her smile. 
We all love her so much.

So much to be grateful for.

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good news

I finally got the AVL up and running.   I was beside myself for a week.
I could not get a shed.
I was convinced that something had happened to the loom, and that I needed to figure it out.
I reread the manual.  I called AVL.  I posted on a weaving group on Facebook, and got a lot of advice.
I tried everything I could think of, still I could not get a clean shed.

Finally the other day, after crawling under the loom for the third time, and seeing nothing that might help me understand it, I sat at my computer, and stared at the loom.

Then I had an "aha" moment.  I could see that there were tight and loose groups of threads across the warp.  I got up and checked them out, and they were not specific to any particular harnesses.  As my eyes followed the threads back to the warp beam, I suddenly realized that the sections on the warp beam were not flat.  There was a slight rise  on one side, and the loose threads were coming from that rise.   The tight threads were coming from the low side of the bout.
Embarrassing to admit, but the problem was not the loom, it was the warp.  I was not careful enough when I wound the warp on, and the sections were not even.
The problem was simple............I didn't do a good job putting the warp on.

My friend, Chris from Homestead Weaving, suggested that I try to even out the sections with a tapestry beater.  I did just that, and the problem disappeared.
I guess you can get away with a little deviation in the height of the sections of the warp beam on a 2 harness rug loom.
You cannot get away with it on this 16 harness AVL.
I am humbled.  I have put on hundreds of warps, and have never had this problem.
It is a reminder, to slow down, and do it right, and that no matter how much you think you know, there is always something to learn.

 

 The baby wrap is well on its way.  I am loving it, and loving the loom again.

I am actually happy that it was me, and not the loom.

Two happy little chick mamas have been with me for two days.
Feeding, cleaning, checking for pasty butt, they have settled right into it.
They tried to talk me into letting them sleep out there.
That didn't happen.

 It's been a busy couple of days, but in a productive, happy way.

Today, on several different occasions, for long periods at a time, I had almost NO headache.

Gulp.  It was so alien, and such a surprise.  I felt giddy.

I can't say more.  I am joyful.  Grateful.  Hopeful.

Happy, happy day.

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