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!

On a Roll!

 Ros quilted up my En Provence this week!  I need to pick it up and get a binding on it.

Here is a close up of the quilting she did.

 Here is my Bonnie signed label.  I have to right my name on it.

I also was on a roll this week--I quilted up this Bonnie inspired tablerunner.  I was super excited to see Bonnie's pattern will be coming out in Quiltmaker but here is what I came up with after seeing her pumpkins! I may be keeping this one.

Barb gave me this tablerunner and so I finally got it quilted. It will be gifted to someone soon.

I also finished the piano key border on the Betty's Choice and Amy's alternate blocks.  I made a backing and this one is ready to go to the longarmer.

Linking up with Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Angela's Blog!

May Catch Up!

Way behind on my blogging!  I did finish the green May blocks (Straits of Mackinac) for the Rainbow Block of the Month!  Looking forward to the next color.  I skipped the "rainbow" choice for last month so I need to pick a color Angela is not going to pick to replace it.  One of these days!

Barb quilted this beauty for me!  This is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge from 2014!  I did not include the sashings as Angela did, but I am super happy with it.  This will be for my cousin Linc and his new wife Christin's wedding gift in June.  

I also finally managed to get the center and the first border on my Betty's Choice and Amy exchange blocks!  I am working on a piano key border in all the colors for this one.  

I completed the 35th Ave. BOM for May.  Here they all are.

This is the All People Quilt UFO choice from my list this month.  I got these blocks somewhere (guild maybe) and they were mostly done.  I am not an applique person (love it but not to do myself!) so I am super happy with my quilting around all the leaf parts so hold it all down.  I think this will be for my mom for her birthday in August.

Barb gave me these cool embroidered frogs playing baseball.  Linc's older brother Luke and his wife Ashley are having their first little one, a boy and Luke LOVES baseball so I made this one to send back for him.

I am also sending  back Danny's braid for Luke and Ashley's wedding quilt (I never sent one!).  Luke and Linc's sister Crystal had a little girl so am sending London the pastel paisley quilt  made awhile back.  Not to be outdone, my other cousin Ashley had baby number three (another boy) named Knoxton a few days ago so I am sending him the nine patch and snowballs quilt.  I think that catches me up on all the gifts!

I won a blog drawing over at Stash Bandit!  This is all the loot I got!  Diane sent me two magazines with her own patterns in them.  I love the windmills in different sizes and may have to make at least one!  Thanks!

Monday Stitching with a Friend

 I worked early today so after that and Pilates I went to Barb's to sew.  I first cut out a bunch of hexagons for more potholders.  I have a whole stack cut and ready to sew.  Next I finally put together this Betty's Choice top which I made in 2015 as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Linking up with the  RSC .
Amy of Amy's Passions made the alternate connector block and we swapped a set each.  Super happy with this and may take Amy's suggestion to put a thin white border on it and then a colorful piano key border of 4.5 inches.  Really fun!

I also took apart my Little Bit Hexie quilt and made scanter seams so it would fit together better.  Happy with this one too!  Pattern is from Quiltville.

Kevin the Quilter posted cute trees last Christmas and though I kitted it up with scraps I had, I never had time to get to it.Today I made two trees, they were really fun. I may make a couple more and do a little wallhanging.  You can find his pattern here!
Now to update my Pinterest UFO list!

Three UFO's are Quilted and Bound

 Quilted and bound another Simple Gifts quilt and the blocks I got from Michelle recently.

 I did the April BOM for Pat Sloan's Childrens' Storytime.

 I finally quilted and bound this drunkard's path from a challenge I did for the modern quilt guild.

En Provence!  So happy it is done.  Did I mention that before?

Spring Quilt Camp with NimbleThimbles

 I went up to quilt camp at Emmanuel Pines last Friday for the weekend.  It started snowing on the ride up and snowed and snowed!  Very little of it stuck, but it was snowing for hours.  I have not seen snow in quite awhile so it was fun--really felt like Christmas on April 1st!  I worked all day Friday and a good bit of Saturday on making Bonnie Hunter's Love Shack!  I love how it came out. It was a super fun project to do at camp because it involves lots of different  blocks.

 I have wanted to make Love Shack for a long time but it involves several patterns on quiltville (maverick stars, strings, happy scrappy houses, wonky hearts and letters) and also lots of size adjustments which are not my thing.  I was so proud of myself for figuring all this out--even though I counted the blocks wrong in the one column and so made the blocks too big and had to eliminate a maverick star or start over!  I will be keeping this one and hanging it in the living room or dining room.

 Saturday Kathy, Kathy, Becky and I took a hike to stretch after all that sewing. We wound up going four a half miles (20 min for each mile) and made it out to the road.  Really good conversation all the way too. So glad to have quilty friends who sneak exercise in too!

 Saturday night Barb helped me make sixteen trivet Christmas presents.  I made them all out of Christmas fabric and will be making more in other fabric too.  They are made from a hexie ruler and lots of fabric folding.  The tricky part is pinning them just so.  That is the part Barb is much better at than me!  You stitch around the outside and flip them out at the center and they look great!  When I was done with all that and the quilt auction I continued working on En Provence.  This quilt A is for Adaminaby from 2012 was my auction quilt and Kathy O (the tall Kathy from the walk picture) won it for 25 dollars.  I ran across this little quilt which I had forgotten I made two of and decided it was a good auction quilt.

 Sunday morning we hung out some of the quilts (some people did not hang anything out--not sure why) and you can see the center of my En Provence on the right top.

I would never have even gotten it out if not for the fact that Marguerite had not brought her finished top and her daughter Laura was busting butt working on hers all weekend (along with other stuff).  Seeing Laura making progress motivated me to get to it!  Not sure why I was dragging my feet on it as I usually am right on schedule with getting the mysteries done but this year the trip to New Mexico to get my my son and his girlfriend and her kids (flat tire, no money and diabetic ketoacidosis and hospitalization was involved) knocked me off track.  This quilt has his hospital gown fabric in it.  Stitching the memories in.  Sunday morning I got the borders mostly made but thought I was four star point units short...turns out I was not.  I got home and discovered I started with the wrong star point color.  Of course I did not figure that out til I made the four star point and attached them.  HAHA!  Last night I fixed and attached the first borders and did some ironing.  So this morning (Monday) I attached the last border, did ironing and made the backing and cut the binding.  I still need to get a picture of it though.