Quilter's Run 2019

Ah...the Quilter's Run...

We Did It Again!

It was a blast as usual...we ended up in Norco at Quilted Together and they had this cute photo station set up. The theme for their shop had something to do with cooking so they made cute aprons and we had mixing bowls and rolling pins and spatulas as props. I forget what the whole theme of the Run was.

This year the theme will be Parties...if they even HAVE it this year and if we decide to go, if they do have it. With the Quarantine/Stay at home requests, I don't know if its a good idea to even plan for it.

I do love going on our journey though...the four of us have done it every year but one since we started. And we get our I DID IT bars for our pin collections (The husbands claim those are IDIOT bars). Sometimes its pretty close to the closing time for that last couple of stores and we hold our breath but somehow we have managed it...with careful planning, timed visits to the stores (we usually plan 20 minutes per store with a couple of our favorites getting a bit more and a few of our non-favorites getting a bit less), using the GPS in several devices, and praying that the traffic will not mess us up.

Road To California - Party Time

This year was a bit skimpy for the classes...I thought about going for some of the lectures but just did not have more than the Monday and Thursday reserved for Road - we have been super busy at work and since I hadn't paid any money for them, I decided to just skip them.

I did go to Party Time...that is always a blast and we came away with a bunch of goodies.

I met my friend Sabrina in the afternoon - she had gone to the preview night they always have on Wednesday night before the full show opens, so she had already seen the quilts. I went about an hour or so earlier than we were meeting and looked at the quilts until she got there - she was taking a class on Dresden Plates. We went thru the vendor mall, I bough a couple of things, she bought a couple of things. We went over to line up for Party Time as soon as they closed the show for the evening...and that was not quite soon enough to get into the very front of the line, though we were closer than we have ever been. Sabrina's hubby went and got us food from Wendy's and we ate it in line. We were hoping to meet up with some other friends that come to the show from Las Vegas, but one of them had a medical emergency in the family so they all stayed home.

So we played games, we won prizes, we laughed, we ate tasty snacks...it was a fun night!

Road To California - Day One

This year I took a class from Rosa Rojas, the inventor of the Appliquick Tools. I used the tools for the 'For Ann' piece that I started the prior Road and wanted to learn if Rosa had more tricks that would be useful. Indeed she did have more tricks and I got done with prepping this piece that Rosa called 'Little Boy' and learned a lot. Those wee little buttons...you turn them with the tools and amazingly, they come out perfect. I have the pattern for her even SMALLER figures ice skating...there they are on the bottom picture!

An 'Exciting' Night

I wrote this on October 15th....

I had an 'exciting' night last night...I was down at my parents. We ate dinner and then it was time for me to go home - we put my Mom in bed and my Dad was in the bathroom..my Sis walked out with me to my car - she wanted to see the Moon since it was still close to being the full Hunter's Moon...I kinda turned around a bit and o.m.g...I saw smoke  and an eerie  red glow and it was CLOSE... both my Sis and I were instantly terrified...we kinda ran down the sidewalk and the passageway between the next door neighbor and his next neighbor was on FIRE!!!! Flames were shooting up over the top of the building - its two story...so my Sis called 9-1-1 and I went up and banged really loudly on the screen door and shouted at the top of my lungs...THERE IS FIRE IN YOUR HOUSE!!! The flames were roaring and I could feel the heat...I scurried back to the sidewalk as both houses the residents came out (saving me from having to bang on the other neighbor's door - he came out to see what the racket was!)...Sis called out to the next door neighbor's kid to get a hose...they started hoses from both houses...and we found out a bit later that the neighbor behind them also had a hose going full bore...about this time 4 or 5 police cars came roaring up...and started to take charge of the situation.. a minute or two later 4 large firetrucks and the fire captain showed up - actually a bit late to the party as the hoses had reduced the fire to just embers...meanwhile...I moved my car from the street into my parents driveway to get out of the way of the firetrucks...there was no leaving that street at that point!....all the neighbors were out in the street...and so many were in front of the houses that had the fire that the firemen bellowed 'GET OFF THE SIDEWALK! My parents have lived in that house since 1975 and I think this was the first time we meet all those neighbors!! Dad and Mom are both profoundly deaf...but my Mom could see all the flashing lights and sent my Dad out to see what was going on..we were so scared that we were going to have to evacuate them...but..all's well that ends well...someone said it was a couch between the houses that was on fire..how?..that is one for the mystery books.

My Sis says the next order of business is to clear out THEIR passageway!! it has some overgrowth...

My poor knuckles are bruised purple...but we got to see hunky firemen in their uniforms!

The House Hippo

One of the Facebook groups I belong to has this thing about House Hippos. The notion of a House Hippo comes from a Canadian PSA. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBfi8OEz0rA

So everyone in that group is constantly looking for their very own House Hippo.

My granny lived in a mobile home park called the Fountain of Youth Spa in Niland, near the Salton Sea for many years, She had a friend, Glenn, who carved many wooden items as a hobby. I found the hippo in a container of things that he carved and gave to my granny. I have a couple of his birds - a goose and a quail - with flappy wings hanging from my planters in the living room. 

So my very own House Hippo came to live with me. I named him Henry.

Do you have your own House Hippo?

Fruits and Vegetables

This is a hexie piece that I worked on most of the spring and summer in 2019. In October, I started putting it together. It will be a table runner when it gets done. The main body is done, but it needs...something...

I thought about appliqueing it to a couple of yellow linen placemats. May still do that. It is waiting to be finished.

I started out glue basting the pieces, but ran out of glue when I was staying at my parents. I remembered on of the gals from Retreat uses a thread basting technique where you leave the basting in when you take the paper hexie pieces out... so I tried that and discovered I like that method much better than the glue. 

The hexies were put together using the 'flat back' stitch. Nothing shows on the right side of the seam so it looks very elegant. 

The 'fruits' part of the fabrics were from one of the Quilter's Runs in the last few years. I got a packet of 2.5 inch squares stuff with these yummy fruit fabrics. The oranges are the centers of the flowers. The other fruits, apples, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries are the petals on the hexie flowers. The leaves are veggie prints I have collected over the years. I used three different greens.

In October I went to Texas for work. It was interesting to meet team members who were mostly just voices up to that point. We stayed in a very nice hotel and my boss, who has club privileges, let me join her for dinner and breakfast..and the food was very tasty! We had dinner one night at an Indian food place. I got 'gajar halwa' which is a very tasty carrot pudding...YUM!

The Attack of the Micro Mini Ants

I loathe red ants... big ones, small ones and especially these almost microscopic red ants that infested us in August of 2019. You would not believe how big the welts were from something that small. It's that wee brown spot to the left of the dime. I put my arm down at the kitchen sink and man, those wee beasties were all over my arm in nothing flat. 

It was time to Amdro the house again. Not quite sure why it works or how it works, but it is a barrier bait that ants that turn up their noses (antlers? feelers?) at normal ant poison will happily ingest. Which gets rid of the colonies for at least 3 months. Best stuff on the market.

A Long Time, No Posts..

Has it really been over a year since last I blogged?

During that time Blogger changed! Working thru what changed is interesting.

Many things have happened over this last year. I probably won't remember all of them, but I have found having a record is very useful.

I will try to catch up.  And...not be so bad about posting!

May of last year...we went to a little town in Nevada for a mini vacation. Pahrump. Means 'Water Rock'. This was taken at a very nice lake. We stayed over night in an RV. That was an experience. It was a nice RV, albeit shaky. Not sure, but we probably won't be buying one anytime soon! The drive out to Pahrump is pretty lonely once you get past Baker. We did see a couple of donkeys grazing on the sparse vegetation but other than that, only a few cars. We rented a Chrysler 300 so we went in style.