Friday, July 31, 2009

Blogging Fun

Well July is over and I found some new background that I like but it leaves my signature with a white square around it. How do I solve that? It will have to wait until tomorrow. Now it is time to go to bed.

Mary Mary

Thursday, July 30, 2009

A Surprise!

On Wednesday evening our daughter Kierra and her boyfriend Will had us over for dinner, with his parents. So I thought they were just having us over to dinner to show us how much they have done on their home, to meet the new puppy and to celebrate her graduation from the Community College. But after dinner she said, "We have an annoucment to make." "We have decided to get married." Music to my ears!

My husband always the tradition fellow asked, "Did Will get done on one knee and ask?" "No, it came about as a result of a discussion. We had talked about it a couple of times and we decided to get married. We do everything together and share everything, so we are going to get married." Kierra is not a romantic, not a tradition gal or a foo foo type of girl, which is OK and she seems happy, which is very good. So it's all good.

The big day will be on Oct 31st, Halloween her favorite day of the year at 11 PM in a wedding chapel in Las Vegas. Well I'm happy they are getting married, Will has been good for her, she is happy. They are both working she has graduated with her Associates Degrees in Computer Science. Her goal this summer is to obtain her A+ Certification and her Cisco Networking Certification and plan a wedding. So she is a busy girl.


MySpace Countdowns


Kierra we are happy for you & Congratulations to you & Will!!
Mary Mary

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Sunday Quilting Upate


The first thing I did for quilting this week when I came home was go to a quilt store for their Christmas in July sale, everything was 30% off. That was on Friday. On Saturday I drew the 11th block in EQ6 for my Caribbean Sea Block of the Month. I probably won't make it until I finish my August monthly mini.


I did finish all my flying geese and pin wheels for the Washington Medallion while in CO. I finished all the half square triangles but I haven't made the blocks yet. So I didn't take a picture of them. That also will wait until I finish the August mini.


Here it is the August mini, the Sand Castles. I pieced the background and the borders last night. I had traced the designs for the sand castles on the fusing material before I left for CO. Tonight I fused the sand, and cut all the pieces and fused them to the background. I hope to have this finished to take to work on Monday August 3rd.

Mary Mary

Sights from CO


This is the first time I have had to post some of the fun things I saw in CO. On Saturday I had a day off and I went to the Rocky Mountain National Park. I saw lots of beautiful things, only a few of them are here. It was free admission day, what an extra bonus that was. Yes even thought it is summer, there is still snow on the mountains. I understand that it is present all year long. But what would I know I live in AZ.


I learned how to take black & white pictures with my camera and I took a few just to try it. This is the same scene as the color one above.


I took a dirt road up to the top, it was the Old Falls River road. It was 9 miles long with lots of switch backs. Luckily it was one way only. There were lots of beautiful water falls, here is the biggest one I saw and I walked a ways down the path. My husband was very surprised I took the rental car on a dirt road. I look at it this way if I would do it with my car, I can do it with a rental car.


If you click on this picture you can enlarge the picture. You will notice as the rocks and snow meet, there is a start of a stream. There were lots of these streams that all merged into the big stream below, where I took pictures of the water falls. Since I never spent a lot of times in the mountains I found this very interesting.


Well I finally reached the top. I could have gone on a hike and go a little higher, but something told me I'm a lot higher than usual and I'm not as young as I used to be, so maybe you better not climb that hill. So I didn't. I think it was a good thing I listened to myself, because after I ate lunch I had a little issue with altitude sickness. I began to feel mildly nauseated and dizzy. So I drank more water, rested and looked out a window at the scenery for a while. And I moved to lower altitude, as the directions on the wall said to do. I can follow instructions. It was amazing at how deep the snow was in places. This store is above the tree line.


On my trip back to the bottom of the mountain I was scared. The road was narrow plus on the passenger side of the car, there was no guard rail and a very big drop off. I'm a girl, so I know my depth perception is a little off. Needless to say I hugged the double yellow line. I didn't want to be anywhere close to that edge. This was a magnificent elk I saw sitting in this field. He hardly moved, he was so statuesque. Lots of people had their tripods out and were taking pictures, it was almost like he was posing. I did finally see him move his head. So he was real. My next sight was a herd of elk. I would say there was about 50 of them. I took a picture but I didn't post it. I didn't want to bore you to tears.


The night before I left to come home I and two co-workers Lydia and Andrea went to Estes Park, we went to the Stanley Hotel and we were able to join a tour. Our tour guide was Patti and she was excellent. It was the last tour of the day, so she took her time, it was two hours long. She told us all the ghost stories. Steven King, the movie The Shinning and of course the Stanleys. Afterwards we had a great dinner at Twin Oaks. It was a good way to end the trip.

It was nice to see all this but it is nice to be home.

Mary Mary

Charmed Gift Bag Giveaway


Charmed Gift Bag Giveaway
I see many give aways while I'm out there in Blogland, but I don't sign up for them all. Here is a quilter I like to follow. She does lovely work. Anyway take a minute or two to check out her blog and her giveaway. She has a great tutorial at Moda Bake Shop on how to make this little gift bag. I might have to make one to take to my Quilt Get-A-Way in Sept to put my door prize in.


Mary Mary

Monday, July 20, 2009

New Books


While checking out the local quilt shops here in CO. I found some interesting books. Now I need another quilt book like a hole in the head, but I can't resist them. I'm really excited about the new techniques each these books demonstrate. The Shifting Perspectives really peaked my curiosity I almost have a block design in mind to do with this technique.

The Beyond the Block has a design in it I want to use for my Boo DJ Swap blocks. That one has really taken over in my mind and I have all the fabric for that one, so I just might have to move that up my list of things to do soon. This will be a more interesting quilt then the off center blocks I was thinking of doing. Plus it will allow me to use a larger variety of fabric and I have a lot fabric set aside for this project.

The Miniatures in Minutes looks interesting also but doesn't grab me like the Beyond the Block. So I will have to wait and see which one wins out but for now my bet is on the Beyond the Block book.

Mary Mary

Monday Quilting Update from CO


See how much progress I made this week sewing flying geese for my Washington Medallion. I made 92 of the required 100! I have 8 more to make but I have to wait to see if I have any background fabric left from the other blocks I'm making this week. I also made 6 pin wheel blocks for the WM and started some of the other blocks.

In this picture you can see the pile of preparation I did for the rest of the pin wheel blocks and border blocks. Lots of half square triangles to make.


Work has been going good, but I'm ready for Thursday to be here and to head back home. Enough for now!
Mary Mary