March Sewing I Kept Mum

This morning I was cleaning out my emails when I found several pictures I had sent to myself in March (my dropbox is full so that is how my pictures get put on the blog) and in searching the blog I guess I never posted them!  So here are a few of the things I didn't mean to keep mum about sewing in March!

If I already did blog about this, I cannot find it but I am only on my first cup of coffee so...I had to make this block so I could complete this Tula Pink Stacks top.  I won the blocks at Nimble Thimbles  awhile back but did not have the right fabric to complete it..the other winner shared it with me later on and then it just hung out waiting.  It is all ready to be quilted, might have to talk Barb into doing it...too big for me!

 I also finished putting together the 35th Ave BOM so I can send it to Alycia.  I made a backing and binding too. Barb's joined it (I did blog about hers) and Kathy is almost done with hers so all three will go out together once Kathy is done.  Hopefully they will make some veterans feel our support!

 This is the March block for Pat Sloan's Children's Library BOM.  I have been keeping up on the blocks, just not the blogging about it!

My video relay interpreting job update.  So the company I work for bought out another company and I won't get into the reasons they are telling us versus the reasons we suspect, but they are shutting down all the Arizona centers on July 15th.  So since that is my main income in the summer that was a shocker.  Quite a few interpreters are scrambling to find other work.  I have applied for another high school teaching position...HR has my stuff and if the negotiations go well as far as money, I will accept the job.  I am kind of excited about it though my last high school teaching job was hell.  I do not think I was ready to go from University students to high school students at the time.  I have now taught community college and my expectations are more in line than they were!  Cross your fingers something works out for me please!
Yes it is about 120 degrees here in Arizona.  I have been grabbing all the hours I can get at my job before it shuts down, so today I will do the second nine hour day this week. It is not a nine hour type job...most people come in for two to four hours because it is so demanding.  I will be happy when today is over!
In better news, Barb is coming to sew tomorrow and I do not work at all tomorrow!  I plan to get borders on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler from 2015. Then I want to get a backing made so I can cross it off my list.  After that maybe back to my latest March on Green Bay Packers quilt.

Rainbow Scrap Sampler 2015

 It still needs borders (and I will follow Angela's lead with a pale yellow solid but am skipping the tear drop applique pieces) and that will come soon, but I am SUPER happy to have made so much progress on this UFO!  The chain blocks were worth the effort and make the quilt amazing!  If you want the patter you can find it here.

Rainbow Goodness Going On!

 This is the lone block I got from my recently passed friend Michelle.  I made it into a pillow.  I love it!

 I have been working on my UFO pick from All People Quilt for this month which is the rainbow scrap challenge sampler from 2015!  That requires a huge mess of every color so as you can see I have been making progress--and a mess!

 The alternate blocks got worked on all week when I had some time and I finished the last three today!  The monthly blocks were done each month in 2015.

 Today before work (worked yesterday and today--my main job is closing up shop in AZ so I am taking whatever I can get while I can--I am typing at work between calls now!

 I am a bit more than half way done with the rows...four done and three to go. It is so big it is hard to get a good picture inside the house!

Nevermind the mess everywhere...I am looking forward to finishing this when I can get a few hours again!  Linking up with the RSC on Angela's blog!

Weekend Sewing

 At my last Nimble Thimbles meeting I picked up a charity quilt kit with cute robots...I did not like anything else in the kit to go with the robots so I used my own fabrics to make the robots complete.

Then the leftovers had people..some talking on the phone, so I pulled my phone fabric and some others that would match and made another charity quilt.  I will return the not so cute squares for them to add to another kit.  While I was at it, I was then motivated to cut two more for my future baby quilts. One out of robots and one out of cowboy fabric.

 Meanwhile, I sent a suitcase back to Wisconsin with six quilt gifts in it.Brayden appears to have liked his Packer quilt and promptly ran around like it was a cape!

Barb gave me some bunnies on thimble shapes that she had leftover from a huge project she was doing.  I decided to make two tableunners for Easter to give as Christmas gifts to my mom and sister this year.  

 Kathy was sewing too and is finally working on the sashing (she is now up to borders) on her QOV from 35th Ave. last year.  We were watching Orange is the New Black and so after I cut our 35th Ave BOM for June for this year,

I decided to cut out and start sewing another Packer quilt from Amy's pattern.  I can never have too many Packer quilts.

Tuesday Fun

I did not get many hours at work this week so I am enjoying the sewing while I can.  I got caught up on the Pat Sloan BOM for June.

I went to Barb's for the afternoon and hung with her and sewed til Guild time.

 I sewed the June yellow BOM blocks and decided to to light purple for the rainbow choice a few months ago.

 When I got home I had to take a picture of all of the blocks together.

rs

Antics at My End

I am now doing the blog and calendar for my quilt guild Nimble Thimbles.  Today I wrote a post that some of you might be interested in--organization for quilters.  I have mentioned these pages here before but thought I would share again.  Also, if you are local or visiting, feel free to join in on one of our Tuesday night meetings.  We would love to have you!

 Here is our sweet Rosie plopped down before I could even grab my camera.  Rosie is heading over the Rainbow Bridge in less than a week...we are really going to miss her but it is time.

 Stash Kitty also never misses a change to plop down on a quilt before I can grab the camera!

 I am sending a suitcase full of quilts (and a few other gifts) to Wisconsin with my siblings going for a wedding.  I did not go as I was scheduled to teach but the class fell through..too expensive to get tickets at this point.  Anyways, I posted about the quilts I was sending back (wedding quilt for Luke and Ashley and Linc and Christin, baby quilts for Luke and Ashley's soon to be born son, my other cousin Ashley's just born son Knoxton, and my cousin Crystal's already born daughter London) and my other aunt popped in to the conversation to complain her daughters and grandson did not have a quilt.  Her daughters are not yet married (and they will get one when they get married) and I swear I sent one to her grandson...in any event I finished up this Packer quilt (blocks were gifted to me but I sadly cannot recall who gave them to me-if you read my blog remind me!) and so Brayden will be getting it.

 I did some Skype cutting with Barb on Sunday.  I got the next Pat Sloan Children's Library block cut and laid out.  I also cut Straits of Mackinac blocks in yellow and in light purple (to make up for the rainbow month I skipped for the RSC.  I will be sewing these later today at Barb's before our guild meeting tonight.

 I had to share these fun pictures from the Denver Art Museum.  Hannah and I ran across these statues and immediately wanted the other to take a picture.  We had different ideas, but sort of the same.  We are definitely related!

Gotta love art that speaks to us!

Second Annual Mama Daughter Trip: Denver 2017!

Hannah and I met in Denver for our second annual mama daughter city trip last Wednesday!  We covered a lot of ground (over 20,000 steps one day) and saw so much of Denver.  I even tried to talk Hannah into all of us moving there in a year or two.  We are tentatively planning to move back to Wisconsin when Hannah starts having babies but Colorado is warmer!
Our first stop after the hotel was Starbucks, I found another mug to add to my collection.

We walked around and found the blue bear at the convention center.  On our last day we ran back there to each buy a little blue bear for this year's ornament.

We started at the aquarium and then we went for ice cream to Little Man Ice Cream.  It was a walk uphill to get there and there was quite a line!  It was delicious though.

After that we went to Union Station and Lodo to explore and found The Tattered Cover bookstore.

 It just so happened there was a panel and we stayed for that and got autographed books"Anatomy of Innocence Testimonies of the Wrongfully Convicted" edited by Laura Caldwell and Leslie S. Klinger.  Since we stayed for that we had to change our dinner plans.

We went to Adrift, a tiki hut place and shared some Hawaiian food and each had a fun drink.

Thursday we went to the Denver Zoo and saw lots of animal babies.  It is really a nice zoo and the tiger exhibit was just updated.  The tigers can walk over the people and they had paper towels all over their homes for that days enrichment.  They had a fabulous seal show too!  One of our favorite things was the lorakeets. They were not hungry while we were there so I like the ones here at the Ostrich Ranch better but these were just as pretty.

We stopped for lunch at Jelly.  I had a salad...and a donut hole since that is their specialty.  We went past this place again on Saturday and the line was out the door.  We got super lucky since we went in late for lunch.

We went to the Molly Brown Historic Home Museum but did not have time for the tour since we had tickets to the US Treasury at 3:30.  After that disappointment, we went to the Brown Hotel and looked around.  It was a stunning building, in fact we decided Denver really had a lot of nice old buildings.  We then dashed back to the hotel to drop off our purses before hitting the treasury.  After that back to the hotel to change and walk to the p!at!  We saw The Secret Garden, the musical.  We found a great Indian place for dinner, then walked back to the hotel...see how we got record breaking steps?Friday we hiked Red Rocks and saw the amphitheater.  It is breathtaking out there.

I had to buy this cool rock!

Hannah surprised me by telling me we could check out the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum so we did that next.  Just in time as there was a downpour while we were.  I bought a few fun things for quilty gifts and about two yards of fabric, neutrals and a cheddar!  The show was about the Wild West.  This was one of our favorites though.  This butterfly looked like it would fly right off the quilt!  I had to really resist just touching the gorgeous threads.  People have such amazing talent!

We went to Casa Bonita for lunch since we ran out of time our first night.  It was an experience like no other restaurant! They have a huge waterfall in the restaurant and people, divers, lo! dive into it.  They also have gunfights and gorillas and lots of crazy entertainment.  Apparently the show is featured on South Park.

Next up was the fast version of the Denver Art Museum.  We took so e fun pictures, made and mailed some postcards and checked out the gift shops.  We wanted the little blue bears, but they were out...so we returned to the hotel and put our feet up for a few
On Friday night we went to the botanical gardens with Hannah's newly approved car2go.   We decided they were the best ones we had ever seen.  Water, waterfalls, flowers, rabbits, greenery. Bonus was at sunset on Friday night few people were there too!

We then decided to skip dinner and go have a flight of ice cream at High Point Creamery.  I had basil blueberry and earl grey I've cream.  Super fun!  

Saturday morning we had planned to do the Amazing Race type adventure but we were exhausted and worried we would not have enough time.  We decided for future cities we would do that first thing!  So instead we got coffee and returned to the Molly Brown House Museum!  

This time we toured the inside.  Really learned a lot of history and now I want to find a biography of Molly Brown.  We stopped in at a Fire Museum and bought Kathy a patch since she collects them, did some quick shopping on 16th, ate lunch at Mad Greens then got our luggage to go.  Uber had issues...or our drivers did which put us a bit behind schedule.  We had to catch the train to the airport and Hannah missed her flight.  I was at my gate. Before she even got up to the luggage counter.  Luckily they rebooked her to Chicago and all was well.  We are super excited for next year already!