Happy New's Eve/Farewell 2012

It is hard to believe that 2012 is ending tonight. It seems like every year goes by so fast. As I look back on the year I count my blessings which are having a wonderful husband and family, great friends and good health. It has been a challenging year for me to end my career in nursing but start on new adventure in my quilting business. I'm looking forward to 2013. I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year 2013!!! Happy Happy Quilting!!!

Merry Christmas

This will be my 61st Christmas. My husband and I have a quiet Christmas with our cat, Sassy and our dog, Maddie. Our family is in CO, Kansas and CA so don't have family near us. We enjoy the day with a few gifts for each other and gifts for the "kids". It is so much fun having them get into their sacks for the toys. I have every wonderful memories of my childhood Christmas. I miss my parents but especially during the holiday. I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2013. I will post a few pictures of past Christmas in Nebrasaka.

Happy 12-12-2012

This is be the last day in my lifetime that the date is all the same number. The next time this happens will be 2101. It is a perfect day to reflect about how precious live is and to live every day to the fullest.

Happy December

I love the holiday season. We cut a Christmas tree after Thanksgiving at our favorite tree farm near Kings Valley. We use to go up in the mountains in Colorado to cut a tree every year. Boy, was that hard going in heavy snow up to your waist at times but have great memories playing in the snow with our dogs. After a LONG search we found the Christmas tree, haul it down the slope and then have some HOT CHOC to warm up. We enjoy our GREEN Oregon Christmas with wonderful Christmas tree farms all over the state. I wanted to do a Christmas quilt project this year but didn't get it done. I'm going over to Craftwarehouse tomorrow and check out the Christmas fabric on sale. I may try to get a project started for next year. I have been working on my Quilt Guild challenge quilt which has to be done by the end of Jan. It is "Come Sail Away" for the theme "Your Dream Vacation". I'm almost finished quilting it and then will turn it to do the sides. It has been alot of work doing block by block with different designs in it. I have been busy with the State Fair on the Quilting Committee. The State Fair went thur a HUGE SHAKEUP which ruined the Creative Living exhibits. More information later about our committee.

Thanksgiving

I can't believe that next week is Thanksgiving Day. I have always liked Thanksgiving because of Macy's Day parade and of course the food. I love to cook so it is fun to make the tradition side dishes. Thanksgving is more than food and parades. It reminds me that I'm thankful for my health, my family and friends. Last week, I meet Martha and her husband that live near us. We have been following each others quilt blog plus we are both RN. They came over to our house to check out my quilt machine/studio. The husbands had a great time talking about fishing, hunting, etc and both are retired teachers. We really enjoyed meeting them and will keep in touch. My sister-in-law, Mary called me Thurs to let us know she won Best of Show for the Red Chair quilt and 1st place for her Red Banana at the River City Quilt Guild Show in Sacramento, CA. She couldn't believe that she won and wanted me to know which I was so Happy for her. I will try to post a picture of them. I will work on my challenge quilt called " Come Sail Way" doing the quilting this week. Happy Quilting and Happy Thanksgiving week/Day.

Barn Quilt

I was able to take several pictures of my barn quilt that is on the side of our RV shed. It looks great from the road and in our pasture. Here are a few pictures of my Barn Quilt.

MQX West Quilt Show

MQX West Quilt Show

MQX West

I took several pictures of all the beautiful quilts at the MQX Quilt Show. I really enjoyed the classes and the Quilt Show. I found a new quilt friend, my roommate Cindy. She was able to come over to my house before she went home on Thurs. She has family in Keizer. We have alot in common and enjoy computerized quilt. When I got home I put a new practice fabric on the machine. Here are several pictures of the MQX Quilt Show in the 2 postings.

MQX West

Last week I attended the Machine Quilting Expo(MQX)from Wed to Sat in Portland. I stayed at the Red Lion Inn near the convention center. That was great to be close to the convention center so after class you could go back to your room. I was able find a roommate from MQX. Cindy was a great roommate. She is from Alpine, Utah and has a longarm business. I have a new quilt friend plus she has family in Oregon too. I took several classes on how to start a quilting business and computerized quilting. I was disappointed that Wenda Coburn had to cancel her classes due to low enrollment. I took several classes from her in Tacoma(Innovations)several years ago on short arm. She has a mid arm with Quilt Motion which she was going to teach classes on it at MQX. I took 2 classes from Sally Terry about websites and starting a business. She was super and full of energy. MQX has classes plus a Quilt Show/Vendors. The quilts were fabulous. I will post a few pictures of Quilt Show. I really enjoyed going to MQX and my new friend Cindy. I got alot of great ideas for the business. This week I'm working on my quilting machine with a plain piece of cloth for practice.

Barn Quilt

I have always wanted a Barn Quilt to place on our RV Shed or Shop. It is very popular to place the Barn Quilts on barns in the Midwest(Iowa) and East. We have several in Tillamook, OR on their dairy farms. I finished making my Barn Quilt with plywood, paint and a quilt design. I found a design in a book with traditional blocks from the 18th century and liked the Star Shadow. It was popular in 1860-1880. I liked using 2 colors for it. Wayne placed on the side of the RV shed that has 2 brown stars which are for good luck last week. I will take a picture of it soon. I have a few pictures of it after I finisned it. It was alot of fun painting it and may do another

soon. Here are pictures of Star Shadow Barn Quilt

Rain

The rain has finally come back to Oregon yesterday. We have over 80 days or more of little or no rain. Everything was very dry with low humidity was a receipe for FIRES. We got a good rain yesterday with 1/2" by evening. I'm so happy to see and hear the rain to make Oregon Green again. We are transplants from Colorado. It is fun to hear people complain of the rain but why move here if you don't like the RAIN and GREEN. That was one of the reason we moved here was because it was GREEN most of the year. It was so BROWN in CO during the winter but here it will be a beautiful GREEN. We love Oregon and are so glad we moved here 11 1/2 years ago.

Northwest Quilting Expo

Here are a series of different quilts at the show. There were alot to vendors at the show. They had 4 different national quilters( Rob Appell Margaret Miller, Deb Karasik, Marci Baker and Helen Knott doing classes but decided not to take a class this year.

12x12 International Quilt Challenge

More pictures of the 12x12 IQC. I took individual pictures of the group challenge.

Northwest Quilting Expo

Here are some more pictures of the 12x12 International Quilt Challenge.

Northwest Quilting Expo

I went with my friend Paige to the Northwest Quilting Expo on Thurs in Portland. It was the 12nd show with over 300 quilts. There was a display of the 12x12 Quilt art group which was great. It is 12 women for different parts of the country and overseas that make a art quilt the size of 12x12. They pick out a theme and have 2 months to make it. There is a book about the group. My sister-in-law Mary suggested we start a group which she will get organized to start next year. There were alot of fanastic quilts. Everyone of them is a winner even if they didn't win a award. I will post several pictures of the 12x12 first and then a few pictures of some of the quilts at the show.

Hokey Pokey

I finished a twin size quilt from a pattern called Hokey Pokey this summer. It is so big to get a nice picture of it. I'm going to get a photo set up with stand and backgrounds to take pictures of my quilts. I want to use it to take pictures of my customers quilt when I get my quilting business started end of this year. I have a few pictures of the quilt but will take more when I get the photo set-up.

Happy September

It is hard to believe that summer is almost over but I love the fall. I grew up in Nebraska and the end of summer was called Indian summer. It was sunny/warm days with crisp nights and football season. I love the fall colors of the trees. Fall is apple season with all different kinds of apples, apple cider and caramel apples. I took a class at our local quilt store(Grandma's Attic) in June called Applefest. It was a paper piecing class. I went with 2 friends and had a great time. I finished my Applefest quilt this week. It is perfect for the fall and have it hanging up. I have posted a few pictures of it.