Bucket List Checks!

 

 Last Sunday my cousins and I met up at the Grand Canyon to hike Bright Angel Trail and Plateau Point!  My Uncle Rick and his daughter Lindy flew in from Wisconsin with their exchange student Caca (Katja) and a good friend of the family Kersten.  My Aunt Lisa was unable to come so Kersten was a last minute substitution and she decided to hike too.  My cousin Tricia flew in from Minnesota. We left about 8:45 AM and this first picture is the before picture!

 Rick and Kathy stayed above and spent much of the day spotting us!  I texted all day as we reached different points and they used the color of our ever changing clothes to find us!  Here we go!

 

 I had my first blister about a mile in!  It is so steep.  In the end I wrapped both my first and second toes on both feet.  I will prewrap and buy sock liners (a friend told me about after) if I ever undertake something like that again!  It was beautiful and so amazing to do this journey at this point in my life.  We made it to Plateau Point and saw the Hudson River far below.  Very few people were out there and it was like being alone!

 

One of us has a picture of the five of us out there, but I don't have it yet, so here is the one of the four of us that Tricia took.

On the way up we separated into two, sometimes three, groups.  It was 301 flights of stairs up, 12.7 miles total and took me 8 hours and 55 minutes!  The average time is 9 hours so I was pretty happy with that! Caca is a hiker she beat us by 45 minutes--she is 17.  Kersten got a migraine and was sick all the next day and in the ER.  I think she didn't have time to train though she is 20 and in great shape.  She beat us by 30 minutes.  Tricia stayed back with Lindy and I and cheered us on or she would have been up with or before the others.  The altitude was killer.  My body held up great and I felt strong, but my heart would get pounding and I needed more air way too often.  It was so much harder to breathe on the way up than I have ever experienced. 

T

 Here we are with a group hug at the top!  I will cherish this day always and am so proud to check it off my bucket list!

 

 Here are the after pictures.  We are still smiling and there is still daylight! 

 And now for bucket list item number two--you may be more interested in this one as it is quilt related! Kathy and I put some quilts in the Arizona Quilt Guild Show this year.  We ran over there and took some pictures late this afternoon. 

Kathy with Allietare!

Me with Talkin' Turkey!

Meet Up at Ros' and the Quiltville Quilts We Found There!

Saturday Kathy and I finally got to see Ros in person!  It has been forever.  She was out of town during our Mystery Kickoff Party (the first one she has missed) and she lives about an hour from us so we just do not see her as often as we would like.  This year we may see her more often since we are signed up at the same store for a BOM on her end of town again.
Ann was our host and Sheila was the birthday girl.  Susan, Jen, Celeste, and McKenna also came.  It was really nice to get to talk to some of them more as when I do see some of these folks there are always so many people that I don't really get to talk to anyone enough.

We made the boards from Bee in My Bonnet (Lori Holt's blog) that have been on my to be made list for a long time.  Really simple to make once you get going.  I made two there and two more at home this morning.  You can see Stash Kitty approved of them.

 

Tried out the design boards while making my last 35th Ave. BOM Patriotic block.  Kathy made hers yesterday (but still has about four or five to go from the past few months).  We plan to get them together and send them off to Alycia for QOV.

So happy to move on to the next BOM!

Kathy picked up her Allietare quilt from Ros.  It turned out great...her piecing has improved so much in the few years she has been sewing!  

 I picked up my Garden Party (started on the Quiltville Caribbean Cruise in October 2015) too.  I LOVE this one.  Maybe because it will forever remind me of my bucket list cruise with Bonnie (and Becky) where I made many more quilty friends!  I miss those gals and am so glad for facebook so I can feel a part of their lives while we are apart.

 I need to update from Quiltville Parade of Quilts page now that this is one step more toward done.  I have not decided on the binding color for it yet.  I am tempted to do yellow sunshine but am afraid it is too light for a binding.  What do you think?

We just decided on a nice red for Kathy's Allietare border and are trying to decided between these two for my Garden Party.  Tell me what you think please!

Johnny 5 sews Christmas Gifts for 2016! (And Garden Party is a Flimsy!)

Last Thursday I went to Barb's for a sew day  I put the borders for Garden Party on finally! So happy to have this one done. I need to get a backing together so I can get it quilted before Bonnie's visit in January!  I love how it came out and it reminds me of the cruise and all the good memories there and new friends made there too!

 When I got to Barb's I told her that I woke up that morning thinking I needed a Bernina.  She has three and when I sew at her place I use one of her machines.  So while we were sewing I pulled up Craig's list and found one!  Barb and I took a sewing break and drove an hour or so to Peoria and picked her up from a pawn shop.  She is in great shape and came with a case, CD, book, embroidery foot and all the parts to run her.  She was missing her quilting foot and walking foot, or any others and only had one bobbin, but we will remedy all that soon.  Barb cleaned her out and showed me how and gave me the basics of what does what on her.  I am in love!  We decided to name her Johnny 5 after the Short Circuit smart robot thought that made me think of Wall-E and then Bern-E but Johnny 5 she is. 

 

 I grabbed the nearest thing to me when I got home so I could try her out.  It was my crumber (tumbler leader/ender from awhile back) that was in rows but never made it to a top.  It went together in a jiffy and the machine was fabulous!   This quilt is long and thin.  I was trying not to duplicate any reds so this is what  I had or begged, borrowed or stole.  I may use this as part of a backing on something--maybe Garden Party--not sure yet.

Yesterday we picked up the next BOM for 35th Ave. and then came home and sewed.  I made 28 Kleenex cases for Christmas presents.  I can make more...everyone loves these and they are super easy to make and use up random small bits of fabric 

 Kathy has been working very hard to complete her  Allietare!  She now has the top together and trimmed and is ready for her borders!  It really looks great and even she commented on how much her sewing has improved with each Quiltville mystery quilt!

 I was gifted a bunch of fabric awhile back from Tiffany and I think this little bag was in there--not sure where it is from but I did not make it or buy the fabric.  Anyways I added drawstrings and now it is a gift bag!

 I also made EIGHT aprons for kids for Christmas gifts.  The pattern is made by a gal who was in the modern quit guild when I was in it.  She gifted some of her patterns and I have always meant to make it. I have to say I love how they came out!

The pattern is easy, directions are so clear!  I will be making more.  The fabric came from Mexico and is heavier than cotton but lighter than canvas.  The bias tape went on with the zig zag on Johnny 5 (new Bernina) super well.  Finished them all up today after picking up more bias tape.  Pattern says you can make it, but I went quick and lazy since time is of the essence!

These are the child size aprons below...so cute!  Colton gets the red pocket one, Lilly gets the bottom one since she is the only girl getting one so far and it has rick rack on it. Koi (my Godson) gets the one with the shark on the pocket and Ollie will get black polka dots as will Leon in Norway.  Last year the boys got tool belts, this year aprons.  LOL good for boys to cook too.  Ollie's dad (and Ben's stepdad) is a chef so these boys like cooking!

  Two of the aprons are for older kids--my nephew Ben gets the flames and sort of nephew Christian (brother's gf's son) gets the dinosaurs.

I also started on pillowcases for my best friend Monica and her husband Bob.  I saw cool deer fabric and could not resist it for them.  He is a avid hunter and just was written about in a magazine back home since his whole family deer hunts by tradition.
I also spent some time tidying up the quilting studio and organizing things too. 
I updated my machines, WIPS and Quiltville Parade Page Posts too if you want to check them out!

NYE with a Different Mystery!

Every year for the past ten years (except last year) Kathy and I reserve the day for sewing a mystery.  Last year there was no new one on EVE day and I usually work on New Year's Day so I don't usually do that one.  So Kathy worked on Allietare all day--she is over half way through the longest clue--4.  I started by sewing some boy bag gifts that I did not have time to do before Christmas.  I am now ahead of birthdays or whatever.  Shark bag for Koi and the other three are randomly are for Ollie, Colton and Leon.  

 I wanted to make a homemade gift for a few of my sewing friends that gave me cool gifts this year.  So made a few sets of these selvage potholders (Ros has made me several and I love them so I copied hers!).  I have been saving selvages for awhile but have never really used them. I discovered that some were WAY TOO small to use and I had to toss them and I found my missing bag of elastic shoved in there too. I knew I had more of that stuff.

 Kathy made us some Weight Watchers Cherry Cocktails.  Pretty tasty and since I rarely drink and have lost weight I should have backed away from the rotary cutter.  Instead I switched to coffee and kept on sewing!

 

 Every year we make Burgundy Beef in the crockpot.  I always add carrots and we smash them into the gravy before we eat.  Like my new crockpot courteousy of mom and dad?  Me too!

 Right about the time I was mid potholder sewing, I saw that Miss Bonnie had released the final clue of Allietare!  So a mystery was worked on after all.  Seems like last year we worked on the mystery too when Bonnie surprised us with the clue.  So I put the first block of each together and could not figure out why mine looked so different.  I thought my color choices must have ruined the effect or something.  I continued working on the yellow center blocks awhile and then...

 I realized that I had used the wrong unit (and turned it the wrong way to boot) so I redid the second block and was MUCH HAPPIER with the look of it!

I also had suspected the Bonnie would have us make string blocks for the centers of the blocks since her next book is strings again.  I decided not to make them since it would take me much longer and then I saw Briony on Quiltville Open Studio had added strings and posted a picture.  Well that did it, I had to try it!

 I think I will add some string blocks to it but just a few.  I made a few corner triangles and added them so here is what it is shaping up to look like so far!

I had to see what Kathy's will look like too:

We had a great day!  We binge watched "Making of a Murderer" on Netflix and caught up on "Alone" and watched an "Orange is the New Black".  Ball is dropping so this will be it for this year!

Mini Modern Maples

A little over two years ago I saw this cute little modern mini maples and though there was no pattern I printed out the picture below (taken from Lovely Little Handmade) and have longingly looked at it here and there and thought I should really just make it!

So today I was all caught up on all the stuff I had to sew and actually had a day to do something just for me because I felt like it!  So I pulled out my HST bin and found all the hst's in that bonus hst bin!  I went ahead and trimmed and cut extra squares and kitted up a second one for a camp project or something down the road.  It was a really nice day of sewing!

 This one just makes me smile! **edit** linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge because this is certainly a rainbow!

Kathy is doing great on the mystery too! She is on clue four already and has four sets made and 26 to go!  Really proud of her for keeping up better than last year (which was finished a few days before this mystery started!) and am loving seeing hers come together too!

Linky # 4 Allietare!

Linking up with Bonnie on Quiltville as soon as I get a chance in the morning!  I have been trying to comment on EVERY link each week but there are so many I missed a lot two weeks ago and think I have 30 or so to go from this past week.  Unfortunately when the new linky comes out I start over.  Really fun to have so many people all over the world to sew with!

 I spent some time this past week cutting clue four--this clue is the first doozy we have had.  I loved digging through all my scraps and getting lots of good variety for both the turquoise and the browns.

 The clue was a little labor intensive with drawing all the lines (the way I did them) and all that.  I spent several hours sewing today and still have six sets left to go!

 They will be done before the next clue comes out so I am not worried about that!

I have been helping Kathy keep up by cutting up some of her fabrics as I cut mine.  She is on the four patches--clue three but has been keeping up pretty well!  She is using Bonnie's colors but used a dusty 80's blue instead of grey since we had it in the stash.  Looking forward to seeing both of these take shape!