Lunch in Boulder City

Good morning, my friends. We had a slow day yesterday. Our only plan was to go have lunch in Boulder City, and then get some fudge to enjoy with our afternoon cup of espresso. Before leaving, I spent some time on my embroidery, filling my hoop.

While I worked on that, the kitties shared some of their wheat grass. 

We waited for the noon crowd to clear out, and then headed over to the Boulder Dam Brewing Co. We try to have at least one meal here each time we're in Boulder City. I inadvertantly caught a selfie when I took the picture below.

It was good, as it always is. Mike had their club sandwich.

I had a Reuben. We each ate half, and brought half home to enjoy for today's lunch.

While we ate, we enjoyed the sounds of the grackles. There were several in the tree right beside us.

This one offered to help us eat our lunches.

If you've never heard the sound of a grackle, you can here it with the video below. They have quite a repertoire.

Walking the sidewalks of Boulder City, one sees dozens of bronze statues with plaques. I sent this one to my pig-loving friend, Sue.

Boulder City is proud of its heritage as the location of Hoover Dam, and it honors the many who built the dam with statues and other works of art. The plaques accompanying the statues follow the image.

It was only about a block to walk to the fudge place.

It wasn't as much fun as some of the other fudge venues we've visited. These were the flavors. On the far right was chocolate walnut. They were sold by the quarter-pound slice, and so we got a slice of each.

Wrapped in paper, they aren't as easy to see as when they're wrapped in plastic wrap.

Back at the RV we cut off a hunk of the peanut butter and enjoyed that with our espresso. And then we all took naps...kitties too. Kitties like to take naps.

From there, we just relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. Mike went out for a short bike ride. I spent a little more time on my stitching. Today we're going to visit the dam. As Mike said this morning, “We’ll be dammed.” My friend, Dorothy, sent me a link to an item at the dam we might have missed on our many previous visits. We'll search it out today, and then I'll tell you about it in tomorrow's post. For now, it's back to my slow-stitching. I expect to finish my piece today or tomorrow. 

The Reveal: Freckled Frog

Good morning my friends. It's time to reveal my quilt for the "Patterns in Nature" prompt. My quilt was inspired by the Northern Leopard Frogs we encountered while hiking in Fort Ransom State Park in North Dakota. This is my original photograph. You can see more pictures from our hike at that link I've given you.

Initially, I didn't see how I was going to recreate him with the fabrics I had available. Then, I came across a swatch of this McKenna Ryan fabric in my stash. Doing a quick internet search, I was able to find more of it. Yahoo! It was just what I needed to create frog skin. 

So I went to work rendering my photograph into fabric.

These are time-consuming, and they can be frustrating. This one actually went together more easily than anticipated.

Hour by hour...a little more.

Until the whole frog was constructed. I added the chalk lines on the legs so I’d know where to focus my stitching to bring out the detail.

Then, I created a background for it. This would have been a good fabric for the recent "Sky Color" challenge.

From there, I peeled him up off the teflon pressing sheet and fused him to the background.

Then it was ready for quilting and binding. These are the thread colors I used.

I wanted to quilt a dragonfly above his head, and I wanted it to have sparkly wings.

First, I went to work thread-painting and stitching down the edges of the frog.

That was done just through the quilt batting and prior to adding the back.

When it was finished, it looked like this:

Searching through my stash, I didn't have a fabric I liked for the back. I went searching online and found the perfect back for the frog. The rest of the quilting was done after the back was added.

And then I went to work quilting a place for the frog to live...and some friends to have over for dinner.

This is my rendering of a dragonfly.

Also, he wanted some lilypads and cattails in his pond.

On both sides, if you don't mind.

When the quilting was finished, I found this binding in my leftover binding scrap bag.

The quilt was actually all finished and hanging on the wall. Every time I entered the sewing room, I felt as if it needed something else on the right side. And so I carefully fused this rising sun (or setting sun...not really sure), and quilted in a few rays.

And then I could call it finished. 

I hope you like my quilt. It finishes up at 17 x 22 inches. To see more quilts created for the "Patterns in Nature" prompt, head on over to The Endeavourers blog.

All Sewing, All the Time

Well, I had big ideas about things I was going to do yesterday, including making a lasagna for our visit with California friends. There was at least one housekeeping chore on yesterday's agenda too. Did I do any of that? Are you kidding? Well...the answer is no. I was close to finishing my quilt, and nothing was going to stand in my way. Unless you include my cat. He stands in my way a lot when I'm quilting.

When he sees me quilting, he thinks it's time to call in reinforcements: Him.

Okay, but just moving Himself out of the way, I was able to get on with things. In yesterday's journey, I encountered the one block that had me a little bamboozled about how to quilt this quilt. It's the cutest block...one of the first I made for this project. It's a little three-dimensional bow tie. These are easier to make than they look. You can find the tutorial right here. Someday I'd like to make a whole quilt from these.

I might have quilted this in a diagonal grid, but I didn't want to stitch over the center of the bow tie. Since the blocks were small (4.5 inches), I decided a terry twist would get the job done for all of them, and it would leave the center of this block unstitched. You might say, this tiny block was King when it came to choosing a quilting design.

I was approaching the end of the line when I reached that block. For the outer border, I did this insy-outsy wavy ribbon thing. (Technical quilting terms.)

When I was finished, I walked across the room to where my desktop computer is, and checked into internet land. (It's important to keep abreast of virtual happenings at all times.) When I stood up to gather my quilt and take it downstairs, I noticed this standoff in progress.

Ordinarily, Smitty draws a bright red line at having Sadie upstairs in his exclusive territory. She was doing her best to ignore his stern warning glare. 

As I'm writing this, it occurs to me that when I lay a quilt across my chair to relax wrinkles out of it, it makes the best kitty fort where Sadie can lie, hiding from Smitty. It's the one way she gets to be upstairs sometimes, and it drives him crazy. Maybe just the idea of a kitty fort in this area gave him pause, and, at least on this day, he didn't attack her.

Okay, but we had important quilting finish photos to take, and so I laid it out on the living room floor.

Had it not been for the standoff upstairs, I'm sure I would have had some kitty inspectors. Here's how it looks from a side-long view. It's easier to see the quilting this way.

Here's how it looks from the back.

Here's another look at the front. I like how this turned out. It's quilted simply, and not too dense. I think we get used to seeing very dense quilting when it's done by machine, and so I'm liking this lighter touch.

The only thing left to do was to sew on the binding. Since it's a "rainbow" quilt, I used that rainbow fabric for the inner border and binding.

While we watched the news last night, I was able to clip it all around for hand-sewing today.

Also, I was close to filling my embroidery hoop, and so I spent a little time on that too.

Now I've moved my hoop to the next position. I can't quite fit the whole of the plate into my hoop, but this block is close to being finished. It's probably time to trace out and make the next block for the Domestic Affairs quilt. 

So with all that sewing and absolutely nothing else happening yesterday, I need to buckle down and get some things done today. The coming week will be a busy one, getting ready to leave, and hosting Christmas dinner for the family on Christmas Eve. If I can get all the to-do's on my list crossed off, I'll get back to doing some sewing. I said earlier there were two projects I wanted to finish before we went. The first was to finish the quilt top for An Irish Blessing, finished last week. The Tiny Tuesday quilt was the second of those two, and so the remainder of our time at home will be a free-for-all on whatever I have time for. 

I'm thinking I'd like to make a new mask to wear for Valentine's Day season. I wanted to make one last year, but then never got around to it. And then, I figured surely we'll be done with masking by Valentine's Day 2022. Ha! Wishful thinking for sure. Maybe I'll start a quest for a 365 Mask stitch-along. A new mask every day!!! (No, just no.) So, I'll do that, and then I'll just start working my way through quilt blocks for my WIP's list. 

Before I go today, though, I wanted to share something I read on Facebook last week. Although I've never really spoken this aloud, it has occurred to me that our quilts will outlive us. Maybe I'm particularly aware of this since I have so many of the quilts my grandmother made. Several are still in use, and my grandmother died on New Year's Day, 1973. Nearly 50 years on, I'm still using her quilts. So, when I saw this meme on Facebook, it touched me:

When I came upstairs this morning, I spied this little quilt, received when I participated in Another Little Quilt Swap...no longer in progress, sadly. What I didn't know at the time is that this could very well be the last quilt ever made by Mary Jane Cardwell, who died from cancer shortly after this swap. It fit the top of my craft table perfectly, and that is its permanent home

Here's the label from the back of the quilt.

You can read the memorial post from the blog about Mary Jane's passing right here.

The quilt served as the logo for the final swap in this group.

So there you go...proof positive that quilting will make you immortal. I'm happy to provide a final resting place for what might have been Mary Jane's final quilt. RIP, friend I never met. Even though I didn't know you, I know that you were here! And you made this quilt for me. Thank you.

Okay, so all work and no play...you know the rest. I'll start my day with a little slow-stitching, but then, I really must accomplish something today.

How are your Christmas preparations coming?