Free Day

We took the day off from riding yesterday. We were still optimistic that we'd be able to get new tires on the ATV's, and we needed to take care of life's business in the way of grocery shopping and laundry. It turned out to be a nice day. I spent quite a bit of time on my slow stitching in the morning.

Also, I made some changes to the cubby situation. From previous posts, you might recall I was leaving the left-most of the three doors open. We aren't using this space at all since it requires climbing over the bed to get to it. It's a perfect place for the kitties to claim their cubby quiet areas. Sadie, especially, needs her purrivacy. This was working okay, except that once one cat (usually Sadie) took up residence there, then Smitty couldn't get past her to inhabit the remainder of the space available.

They like to lie in the space where the closed doors are. It's a small area, and the closed door allows them to sleep without falling out...kind of like the rails on a bunk bed.

So yesterday, it occurred to me that if I opened the center door, they could each use the space to either side without having to get around one another. (I hope that makes sense.) So I opened the center door, and moved their little quilts to either side.

But kitties do not like change, and they were very suspicious of this new arrangement. Sadie was the first to try it out. Then, I tried lifting Smitty up to show him that he too could have a space, but nothing doing. You can lead a cat to the cubby, but you can't make him jump. Instead, he moved to the space beside the bed. You never know. There could be a veterinarian in there, or something, and he was taking no chances.

By afternoon, they had it figured out. Smitty took the right side.

Sadie took the left.

And everything was right in their world.

Driving into town, our first stop was the quilt shop.

It's my third or fourth visit to this shop. When we visited Moab the first time, I don't think I'd taken up quilting yet. Since then, we've visited every time we've come. It's a great little shop. I've written about it before, and so I won't go over all of that again. If you want to read more about it, you can check this old blog post right here.

Insofar as blooming things are concerned, the desert sunflowers have been our constant companions this trip. There was a pretty bed full of them just outside the front door.

Just inside the door were these little cards, wrapped in cellophane, and suitable for framing. I knew you'd want to see them.

Also just inside the door was this pretty line of fabric. I never pay much attention to manufacturers or the names of lines. I just loved the colors in these with their corals and navy blues.

They had a nice selection of patriotic fabrics. I looked at these for a while. A dear friend from high school asked me to make him a quilt featuring the Marine Corps emblem a while back. I know what I'm going to do for him, but I need some fabrics. I've been looking at each quilt shop for something suitable, and I looked at these for a long time. The one on the bottom shelf and to the right caught my eye. I'd need it in both red and blue, however, and with only blue available, I passed these by.

Moving on, there seems to be a resurgence in ombre prints. I looked for something for a project a few years ago and couldn't find anything suitable. Now, I'm seeing them everywhere I go.

This shop always features patterns from local artists. There were kits made up for these patterns depicting different formations from Arches National Park. That's Delicate Arch on the left, Balanced Rock in the middle, and the Three Gossips on the right.

Also, these stained glass peppers. I've seen this one on previous visits.

In their back room was a good supply of pretty batiks.

Also, more patterns from a different local artist. I like this little quilt of the claret cup cactus.

The artist is Charlotte Purcell Gary, and there were several of her patterns available. You can see her gallery right here.

I was on the hunt for my regional print, and these held promise. I was wishing there was something ATV related, but they were all about Jeeps. We have a Jeep, and we've driven a Jeep rental on the backroads in Canyonlands National Park. I kept looking, but didn't rule these out.

When I was ready to leave, I made my selection. I picked up a fat quarter of this one for my future Polaroid quilt.

And this one from that first line I'd seen just inside the door. There was only 7/8 of a yard left on the bolt, and so I purchased all of it. She only charged me for 3/4 of a yard.

From there, we did our grocery shopping and then headed back to the RV for lunch and relaxation. By late afternoon, we got the call that our tires were in, and the shop was able to mount them for today's ride. Take a look at these babies. If you want to spend a whole lot of money on something completely boring, consider tires for your next bank-account-emptying purchase.

We figure we'll be dead before they need to be replaced again.

While Mike was off getting tires, I finished up what remained of the current hoop on my slow-stitching project.

I couldn't fit quite all of it when I moved my hoop, but I'm very close to having this one finished. Good thing we're heading for home tomorrow.

We'll do some more riding today on this, our last day in Moab. Tomorrow we'll head out. Many of you encouraged us to go back to Dinosaur National Monument, and I'll admit, we were sorely tempted. Nevertheless, we've decided to save that for another trip. If we do that, it will mean a mad dash for home, and I think the "mad dashing" part would make it hard to enjoy the monument. We'd like to make it a leisurely trip home, and take a few days to get organized before picking up with life as usual.

We haven't made any decisions about where we'll be riding today, but I'll be back tomorrow to tell you about it.

Edited to say I neglected to post a picture of my completed yo-yo's from earlier in the month. I finished these up during the week I was offline.

Finishing them up was my September OMG, and with this being the time to link up, there's no time like the present to show them off.