Spring in AZ

During this time of year there are a lot of trees in bloom. I love it when the trees are blooming. I always want to take pictures and never have my camera with me. The other day I took my blackberry out and took a couple of pictures when I left work. The yellow flowered trees are Palo Verde Trees.
They are lovely when in bloom. This trees are in front of the hospital where I work.

This is an ocotillo bush, this branches were used as fences by the early AZ Pioneers.

A close up of the blooms. Yes I was in my car, waiting for the light to change.
There is one more tree I want to get a picture of that has purple flowers, but I haven't been close enough to take a picture. Maybe tomorrow.
Vacation officially starts at 2:30 PM tomorrow May 1st!! I'm so ready!!

Rosie - My Spoiled Cat

Here are a couple of pictures of my spoiled cat Rosie. She is usually in the same room I'm in. She especially love it when I sit in my recliner, a raw occurrence since I seldom sit and just watch TV. I'm usually at my sewing machine or computer. She also loves it when I sit in my rocking chair in my sewing room. When I sit in either of these chairs she will be on my lap. Since I have been doing this cross stitch project she has been on my lap every night. One night she was laying on my legs, and had her chin propped up on my magnetic broad that holds my pattern. It was so cute with her cute little face just laying on that board and looking at me. I thought, where is my camera when I need it. So for the next two nights when I sat in my chairs I took the camera with me, and here at the results.
Look at how happy she is getting her belly scratched.

Sunday Quilting Upate

Well I haven't done much quilting this week, been busy working on the cross stitch project. It is turning out nice now that I have the right color in the right place. I would like to post a picture but my friend may check my blog and I don't want her to see the surprise. So you will have to wait to see it. I would be so much farther ahead if only I had used the right color in the right place.
The only quilting related project I did was draw a block in EQ6. A bunch of us are doing a BOM and one of my friends wanted me to draw it in EQ6 for her, so I did. So here it is for you to see. If I wasn't so hot to finish the "project" I would have made this block. This is my Carribean Sea quilt.
OK I figured out how to post a picture and hide the pretty stuff! I'm just showing a little of the right color in the right place. These colors are really pretty in person. To post this picture I took a picture with my camera, edited in my HP photo program, captured it on my screen with Snagit, added the block out square, copied it to a word document, printed it, scanned it and saved it as a .jpg file to upload it to my blog. I'm sure there is an easier way to do it but I just don't know what it is. Any way here it is.
The fabric is Slime Green!

Someone Please Shoot me...

...and put me out of my misery. OK I know that sounds a bit like a drama queen type of a statement. But let me tell you why I feel that way. I finished cross stitching the main outline area of the big flower on my cross stitch design I'm doing for my friend in FL, that I'm going to see on May 5th. I looked at the design key to see what color I needed next and flip over to the color picture and what did I see? You guessed it. I used the wrong color!
Now to be honest I vaguely remember having a thought, that it was strange to have a brown flower, but this was a modern color scheme, so I guessed I pushed it from my mind. Why didn't I listen? Why didn't I look at my colored picture? I have no idea.
So now what, cut it all out or buy another piece of fabric?
The fabric is a bright slime green, the color is off in the photo.

Early Triple Digits

Early Triple Digits that is what the weather man reports. We hit 102 today. Ugh! We are 16 degrees above normal. Ugh! We normally hit triple digits around May 13th, the latest recorded dates is May 18, the previously early date was May 2. We broke the record today. It looks like a long hot summer. Thank Heaven for air conditioning, it is now on and will be on until the end of Oct. The next record they will start to count is the number of consecutive days at triple digits. But it is a Dry Heat!

Another Project Done!

I was going to wait until tomorrow night to report on my weeks progress. But it always a good feeling to get something done! I finished my May Flowers Mini wall hanging. YES!! It's not a big thing but it is a done thing!
I also have been working on a Mystery Project, I'm trying to do a cross stitch picture for my friend. I purchased the lime green fabric I needed with out checking out the size of the thread count. I'm suppose to use two threads but it looked to heavy, so I took it out and tried one strand. It looks OK but I had such problems seeing the threads I had to cross I gave up. That's even with my light and the magnifying glass and new glasses. So today I ran to Hobby Lobby and found some Aida cloth in a slightly different shade of lime green but it is 14 count. I hope it works easier, it won't look as nice as the linen but it will be done. I won't post pictures until it has been delivered, only because I don't want to spoil the surprise. She know she is getting something because I'm going to see her for her Birthday in May. She lives in Miami FL. After 17 years of marriage I'm finally taking my husband back to my old stomping grounds. Last year when she was in town for my birthday we made plans for me to be in town for her Birthday this year. I'm counting the days until I'm on vacation and out of here!

A very Late Quilting Update

I had planned to do this Monday night after work, but I was working on cleaning out my EQ5 files and moving them to EQ6. I had done some of this re-organizing on Sunday also, between cooking Easter dinner. I also was working on my handouts and lesson plan for tonight's EQ6 club meeting. Last Saturday I also taught an EQ6 Beginner's Class. I had four students and they had a very good time. I love teaching this class because I can see the lights come on when they start to understand how the software works.
I only had one student for the EQ6 club tonight, but she sure enjoyed her private lesson. We got a lot accomplished and I was able to teach her lots of tricks and answer a lot of her questions. We had a good time and I missed my other regulars.

Here is a link to an interesting blog. Every Tuesday she posts a tool tip. Today it is a carrier for sewing supplies while traveling in the car. It's a cute idea.
Tool Time Tuesday

Of course I did have some machine time and did the machine applique on May's Monthly Mini quilt. I was also able to finish the hand embroidery for the stems on the flowers.

Beatuiful Screen Saver

Are you like me and like beautiful pictures? Do you like positive statements to remind you of your divine nature and purpose. I have just the screen saver for you. Click on this link and do the downloads. I hope you enjoy! http://deseretbook.com/pages/screensavers
The pictures and quotes are from Sheri Dew's newest book.

Link to pictures of the Easter Pageant

One of my friends sent me this link to pictures taken during the Easter Pageant. Thanks Jane! http://www.azcentral.com/commphotos/cox.net/10561/1/15
They missed the best one when Christ is resurrected and rises above the 4 story stage in glory.
I hope all had a good Easter day, I made dinner for my husband's sister Judy and her husband Tom & Richard, Kinsen & I. We all ate too much but it was good!
I'll do a quilt update tomorrow. It will be small. Night all!

30 Fat Quarters Give Away

I was looking at Colleen's blog that I follow once in awhile. She had a link to this give away at Pig Tales & Quilts. So I'm posting a link and a comment on her blog.

Now all those who know me, know I don't need any more fabric. So why would I want to participate in this give away. Well it's not for me. I'm going to ask for Red, White and Blue fabrics, because I was looking at the Quilts of Valor project and I thought I really would like to make a quilt for this project and donate it. I have a future son-in-law, well I hope he will be anyway, who severed in Afghanistan & a nephew who is in Iraq now. My bother was in the Navy, he was accepted to the Naval academy two days before his draft notice for the Vietnam War came. My Mom was an army nurse during WWII, she would never talk about it other than she was on the Philippines. My Mom died when I was 16, so I never heard the story of her army days other than she severed and it was hard. She didn't want me to go into the army or to be a nurse. She got the first wish but not the second one. And I never regret my decision to become a nurse, even if it was hard to be one sometimes. So anyway I digress.

So as a support to the family who have severed in the armed forces I thought I would make a quick quilt and send it off.

If you are interested in the give away or the QOV check it out!

Also Happy Easter!!

Easter Pageant

Thursday evening my friend Christina & I went to the Mesa Arizona Easter Pageant. I haven't been for a few years and it was marvelous to to see it again. It began in 1928 as a sunrise service and has grown over the years. The entire cast is about 425 people and a backstage crew of 100, all volunteers. There are over 2000 articles of costumes that are maintained. The stage is four stories high and take many weeks to assemble.
They set up 10,000 chairs, and many people start saving seats about 4 PM in the afternoon. I went by the temple grounds Friday afternoon and they were saving seats and parked out on blankets about 3:30 PM. People bring food to eat and wait. Yesterday the high was in the high 80s. Today (Saturday) it was only in the 60's and it rained. I'm glad we went Thursday high it was in the high 80's but once the sun goes down it is cool. This time of year the temperature can drop almost 30 degrees. I had a sweater on and brought a quilt to wrap up in and I did use it.
After the show we did tour the visitor's center for a few minutes. It was a good way to celebrate the Easter season, and remember all the Savior has done for us.
Have a Happy & Blessed Easter.

Bolivia Santa Cruz Mini Mission Reunion

This evening a very pleasant event occurred. Three former missionaries from the Bolivia Santa Cruz Mission visited over dinner at the Macayo's Restaurant in Phoenix AZ. From right to left. Brenda Wilding Hutchings is visiting from Fallon Nevada, Brent Cope lives in Gilbert and myself. It was fun to reminisce, catch up and be edified by the company. Every one also have very nice spouses, who helped make the evening more enjoyable.

Just so you can see the then pictures. Here is one of
Brenda & I with a little baby in Trinidad, Bolivia,
here name is Mary Brenda, that is right she was named after us. Now that is an honor. I did have a perm at the time, I actually allowed a Bolivian to give me a permanent.


Here is Brent Cope in Santa Cruz.

Sunday Quilting Upate

Hi again!
I hope everyone is well out there in Blog Land! I'm well and happy. I just heard from one of my missionary companions and we will be meeting for dinner tomorrow night. It will be fun to see her again. It was 30 years ago that I was on my mission. I went to the Bolivia Santa Cruz Mission and I entered the MTC on July 5, 1979 and returned home Jan of 1981. I was an Hermana de Bienestar, or Welfare Missionary. I loved my mission. I started my mission just 2 years after I was baptized.




Well I'll have more details tomorrow. Tonight is for the quilting update. I have been a little beaver of activity all week and this weekend. No students signed up for my paper piecing class yesterday so I had more time to sew!
Let's see, yesterday I finished quilting the quilt for my friend. I like how it turned out. Here it is with a close up of the quilting.

Today I finished the next part of the Washington Medallion quilt. Of course I had one of the borders on upside down and I had to rip it out and reapply it the right side up. That's after I decided I made my floating border a little too narrow, and I needed to trim down the center square a little more. I like my new blue borders better than the fabric they sent, so all is well that ends well.

This evening I also started my May Mini Quilt. Need to get this finished before the end of April so it can hang on my cubical wall at work.

This morning I cut, tied and finished this little baby blanket for my neighbor who had a little baby girl the end of March. She really like the little blanket. I took less than an hour to make. A simple thing to bring a little happiness to a person. This is her first girl after 3 boys.

I think that enough don't you. Have a good week and take care! Now to go to bed and get ready to start my work week.