Yard Art

Good morning, my friends. The weather is still chilly here in Pahrump, but things are looking up. Each day grows warmer in the coming week. We were treated to a pretty sunset yesterday evening. Of course, the sun sets in the west, but to the east, it lights up the hills behind us.

To the south, it turned those snow-covered peaks a pretty shade of coral.

The kitties are still optimistic they'll get the morning sunshine on their window hammocks one of these days. They spent their morning like this:

We'll try to face the right direction when we get to Death Valley next week.

It's still cold here. Yesterday there was a cold wind blowing. Still, I was determined to get out for a walk, and so I bundled up and headed out. Once I found the shelter of the surrounding neighborhood homes, the wind was less troublesome. So here's what I saw.

This first home was in the process of adding old rusty things to its landscape decor. I love this stuff. First, I saw this wagon with a barrel/keg on the back. Hard to tell what this might have been used for at one time.

As I've mentioned, these hubs and spoked wheels always capture my photographer's eye. I'm not sure why. 

They also had this old woodstove.

There was a door on the other side for loading wood. Sorry about cutting off the bottom. It was hard to see my camera screen in the bright sunshine.

I like these lanterns too. There were several of these hanging in various places. This one had Christmas lights strung out to it, and I expect they light this place up at night.

This was at the next house over. I thought it was a sort of a mill, but it's hard to tell in this picture.

There were bird houses attached to this mailbox post.

This one was around the other side.

And then, there were these two.

Of course, I took pictures of every blooming and fruiting thing. This prickly pear was loaded with pears. (They serve prickly pear margaritas at a restaurant in Death Valley. I'm already looking forward to those.)

This is a blooming cholla.

I almost walked past this next one, but then noticed the little bloom at the top.

This is a pencil cholla. It looks like the cholla above, but the "branches" are no wider than the width of a #1 pencil.

I couldn't tell if these were flowers or just new growth, but I liked the color change from the darker green to the nearly chartreuse at the ends.

Here is a nearly-spent rose. That looks like Queen Anne's Lace beside it. The yards in this neighborhood were mostly done in rock, but there were plenty of weeds growing too. 

Here's a potted geranium.

And another rose. I was standing way back and zooming way in for some of these shots. If I lived in this neighborhood, I wouldn't be happy about some stranger walking around taking pictures, and so I try not to make myself obvious.

I might think this is lithodora like what we have back home, but the greenery is different. My phone tells me it's rosemary. I could be, I suppose.

In the fake flower category, these sunflowers. They don't require water.

There were plenty of fake animals too. Here's a song dog, aka coyote.

This turtle...you can see he has a friend in the lower left corner of the image below.

There were plenty of deer. 

Do deer live here in the desert? If they do, I haven't seen any.

A frog in a bird bath.

These were parked on the top of a brick wall. You can see the painted rocks there too.

Behind the wall was this next blowing object. You'll have to look carefully. It's the head of a peacock in the lower left corner, and then the tail "feathers" were blowing in the wind.

Beside the peacock was this donkey.

Here's a white rabbit. No word on whether this is the white rabbit.

A swan. I was trying to figure out what this is made of, but I didn't come any closer than this picture.

More deer and rabbits.

I like the pattern on the trunk of this palm tree. This happens as the lower fronds are cut off.

There was also this take a book, leave a book little library. I have always loved this idea.

We've seen this house as we drive by. We think they've coiled some black hoses on their roof for a sort of jerry-rigged solar water heating system. Kinda clever, actually.

And that was the end of my walk. Back at the RV, I finished off the 5th stitchery for the Snowmen & Reindeer project. That button is supposed to be a little bluebird. It took me a while to figure out which button belonged here.

And I'm happy to say there's still this much floss on my first spool of Perle cotton. I doubt there's enough to finish the next block, but these have a way of lasting a lot longer than I thought they would.

Here are the five blocks I have so far.

And now I've traced the next one. This one is called "Snowman with Mittens."

And now, that's hooped up and ready to go.

Probably I won't have time for stitching today, although Mike has gone back to bed, so maybe I will. Anyway...the plan for the day is to drive the half-hour or so over to Shoshone, which is across the state line in California. There's a historic mining town called Dublin Gulch we can see there. You can read more about it at that link I've given you. There's also an associated 3-mile trail, and we'll probably do that too.

So that will keep us busy for most of the day. I'm happy to see some better weather. These days cooped up in the RV have been disappointing, and so it'll be nice to get outside more. I'm hopeful y'all are seeing some warmer weather too.

Tulip Time

It was a rainy and windy day yesterday. It was a good day for sewing. My goal was to sew together the quilt top I'd kitted up before we left home back in December...this one.

All the pieces were cut. It was just a matter of sewing everything together. Smitty was my helper cat for this. When he wasn't overseeing my sewing efforts...

He was keeping an eye out for invading forces.

We were keeping a special eye on this thug hummingbird viciously guarding the feeder. (This was the first day we've had visitors to our hummingbird feeder.)

So, like I said, the pieces were all cut. The first step was to make 16 half square triangles and then trim them to two inches.

Next, I created the bottoms of the tulips.

And then, I laid them out with their points.

The points were sewn together...

And then they were sewn to the bottom of the flowers.

Next, I created the leaves. It was a little tricky trying to understand the directions. I wanted eight total divided half and half into mirror images.

Then, I sewed the top to create the leaf shape...one for each side of the flower.

A small strip was then sewn to the top.

And then they were sewn together with a "stem" down the center.

Then, I sewed the flowers to the stems and leaves.

And then they were sewn into a row.

The next step was to make 16 more half square triangles, and then trim them to 3-1/2 inches.

Then, they were sewn into pinwheels.

And then the pinwheels were sewn into a row.

The next step was to sew the tops and bottoms together.

From there, I just needed to add borders. It ends up at 26 x 28-1/2 inches. The pattern calls it a "wall-hanging," but I like it as a table topper.

When I had it all sewn together, I was sorry the pinwheels didn't match the flowers above. I was confused by the instructions, and I laid the flowers out in the order they were pictured in the pattern.

But when you look at the finished picture, they've been rearranged. 

So...oh well. I'm not changing it. I'm happy with how it looks. This was a free pattern from Inspired by Fabric. 

I have just one more kit along with me, this one:

And then I have two huge zip-lock bags full of bonus triangles, orphan blocks and cut-off ends of things. We have one more week here in Pahrump. If I'm going to do any more sewing on this trip, it will have to happen before we leave Pahrump. We won't have electricity when we move on to Death Valley next week, and so I won't be able to use my sewing machine. And all of that to say that I never intended to finish all the sewing I brought with me, but that doesn't mean I won't try.

Having stayed inside all day because of the rain, we decided to go out for Mexican food last night. It was good to get out of the RV, and the food was tasty. A crew is coming to wash and wax our RV today. Probably, I'll get out for a walk in the neighborhood to the east of us. Mainly, I just want to get out for a walk. With the bad weather, there's been way too much sitting around, and I can feel it in my hip joints. (Does that happen to you?)

If you've enjoyed this post today, you can thank my cat editor-in-chief for her careful proofreading. There's so much I could never accomplish without the help of my cat crew.

Okay then. With sunshine streaming in, how can it be anything other than a good day? I hope you have a good day too.