I got a new card for my postcard wall.  It's from Val and it's a picture of the house where "The Christmas Story" was filmed.  You know, the movie about the little boy and the bb gun he wanted for Christmas.  "You'll shoot your eye out."
The house is in Cleveland, Ohio.  They must have gone on a family field trip. 

This is my picture postcard wall in the kitchen.  Years ago when I was staying at a B&B, don't remember where, the hostess showed us her wall where patrons mail back cards of their hometowns.  I thought this would be fun in  my house

The card in the middle right here is my last card, from my friend, Louise.  It is a card from the J.Paul Getty Museum in LA.  Vere and I went there once, when we were out visiting Karleen.  Memorable museum, traffic there and back even more memorable.

 The green and white plaque in the middle is made from painted tiles Jill made for me.  It was to be tiles for the wall above the stove in our Maplewood house.  Then I realized we would be selling the house and moving and I didn't want to leave the tiles.  So I had Vere mount them on a piece of plywood, to bring along with us. 

 My picture postcard wall - From Houston, the Black Hills, Hershey, Pa, New Jersey (of course), Utah, Massachusetts, Colorado, Alaska, Nova Scotia,  - Brazil, Guatamala, Italy, Ireland, England, Austria, Germany, Norway, Sweden, St.Petersburg, Russia, Singapore, India, and more.  If you want to be on my wall, send a card.

Halloween?

Debbie was throwing out these little Halloween appliques, and of course I rescued them.  In the interest of trying to clean out my piles of things, I made this wall hanging with some left over bits of fabrics,and some plaid for the back.  I machine quilted it for practice. 

Cobblestone quilt

When Sonya was here at Christmas we saw this quilt in my latest magazine.  She expressed interest in it and I was amazed because I thought immediately that I'd like to make it too.  I like to make quilts using many different fabrics, obviously.  So when I go to cut one out, I just pull out piles of my fabrics and start cutting.  Often I cut pieces for 2 or 3 quilts at the same time.  That way I only have to pull out the fabric once and I sew one together, then move on to the next.  I made this to give to one of the Lysenko boys (2 boys got married, different families) who got married over a year ago.  But I'm not sure I want to give it away.  It took a very long time to cut out and a lot of time sewing together and I rather love it.  The long-arm quilter in our guild machine quilted it for me.

kids in crisis, again

Before my surgery, I took some time to use up some scraps of fabric I had around.  I'm trying to clean up the bits and pieces around my sewing room.  Anyway, I had a box of the flannel pieces.  The top two are flannel and the bottom is more like decorator fabric used for upholstery or drapes, just small quilts, not fancy, to keep a small child cozy.

When I was at Sandra's house, I stayed in her guest room where she had a beautiful quilt.  It is new but made of reproduction 30's fabric.  She's trying to keep down the clutter in her new place, but I decided she needed a coordinating pillow for that quilt.

Dying in the desert

Last week I drove over to St.George for 2 reasons.  First, my friend, Sandra Maycock moved there from here about a year ago.  I got there about 8:30 because I drove over after my work in the Monticello Temple and I spent three days with her.  We had such a good visit.  Second, on Friday I took a class at the Quilt Show in town.  It was a class on dying fabric, which I've always been interested in.  Don't know why I would want to dye my own fabric, there is soooo much out there to buy. 

We started out with white, prepared for dye fabric.  This first picture I dyed by putting a piece of fabric in a plastic bag and pouring yellow dye in.  It set for an hour or so, then I rinsed it and then using thickener in some peach colored dye, I stamped it.

 This second piece is made by watering down shaving cream and spreading it in a large pan, then dropping dye in blobs onto the cream, then swirling the dye around, then laying the fabric over it.  After an hour or two, you lift the fabric off, and rinse it.

This piece was just fabric crumpled in a plastic container, then handfuls of crushed ice was put on top of it, then powdered dye was carefully spooned over the ice.  The container was left sitting till the ice melted away.  Then I lifted the fabric out, rinsed it, and hung it to dry.  Amazing.

This last one was also dyed in a plastic bag, but after I had stamped it with thickened dye.  The stamps didn't stay in very well but you can kind of see the leaves I stamped in the lower/middle on the left. 

crumb quilts

A few weeks ago I posted a picture of stacks of blocks I made from the basket of small scraps I had.  The person who introduced this idea called the blocks, "crumbs".  I got really hyped up about putting these scraps together and sewed for days, and when I quit and decided to just leave what was left, I had enough blocks to make 5 quilts.  They are not huge.  I'm not quite sure what I'll do with these, but I decided maybe they would be good as "car quilts" for the trunks of our cars and for the kids' cars.  Meanwhile, I haven't put backing on them, they're just done.  The top is sashed with gray, and the bottom is sashed with black.  Which do you like best?

baby quilt

Somebody at Quilt Guild gave me a bag of quilt scraps.  I saved out these similar colored pieces and put them together.  Yesterday, I found the perfect fabric for the border and finished off the quilt.  I was actually able to finish off the binding last night.  It's baby sized, and I could save it for a gift, give it over to Relief Society for babies in the ward, or give it to Humanitarian aid.  Wherever, it will certainly keep the baby entertained, and maybe just awake.

QOV quilt

I put this quilt on earlier, but it wasn't finished.  I just finished the binding this weekend.  It's for the project "Quilts of Valor" which is quilts for veterans which we do mostly in red, white and blue.  The back is from red and blue plaids from my stash.  I really enjoy piecing backs a little, nothing intricate.  It just adds interest.

Moab town pool.

 These are pictures of our new town pool.  The top two pictures show the most fun and unusual part.  The inner circle is bubbly, and the outside circle has forced flow of water so that you can walk against the current.  Or you can sit in a tube and let the flow carry you around, or as some do, you can swim against the current, round and round.  It's very fun.

 These two pictures are of the kid's pool, it's quite shallow with the (I guess) fiberglass mountain in the middle.  I would have loved to have this for my kids.  You can see the raised doors on the building which leads to the indoor pool.  In the winter, the doors would be closed and we can swim all winter long.

 This picture is of the indoor pool, the top from the outside doors.  It really is a fancy pool, probably very expensive. 

Las Vegas, Summer!!

This is the hotel room we had in Las Vegas - $50 a night in this new hotel/casino.  All you have to do is fight your way through the slots and other sparkling games downstairs.  Paul Anka had a show Saturday night which we didn't go to of course.  But Sunday morning we went down for breakfast, and he came in and had breakfast across the aisle from us. 

A few pictures of the lunch/celebration for Brenda at the church hall after the temple sealing.  That's Brenda in the left/center.

Dennis, Vere, and Conrad facing in this one.

 Playing with various sizes of balls.  The big boy on the left in the red shirt is Katrina's son and he's an amazing athlete.

There is Kevin, Darleen's husband, and Dennis.

Shanell's husband, Shane holding one of the twins, Shanell and Heather, Mathew's wife.

Shanell and Heather.

 There is Brenda and her husband.  The other man is married to one of Conrad's daughter.  

Karleen and Darleen with our doo-rag.  Usually she had a wig on that makes her look exactly as she always has.

This is Katrina and Kendra holding Shanell's twins.  They (the twins) are very cute, active. 

Oregon #7

Signs on the lightposts for the show.

Antique quilts for sale.  I didn't stop to look.

 The center of town was shut to car traffice, so the street was full.  There were a few men, but of course, mostly women.  The day was sunny and warm, but not too hot.  Clouds started building up by noon and we heard it started sprinkling rain about 2:00.

This was a small park off the main road, called "Manland" - see the sign on the tree.  These are quilts made by - men. 

A few extra quilts that caught my eye.

Oregon #6

Talk about quilt overload.  There were soooo many to look at.  But these pictures give you an idea of how the town looked.  The day before, there were no quilts, and magically overnight the town was covered with them.  Then the quilts are gone at about 5:00 in the afternoon. 

 Hanging from an upper balcony.

The end wall of this building was covered in the challenge quilts from the fabric store, which is in the building, the front being to the right.