Quilt As You Go, Simply Done

Simply Done

Marguerita

Valdez Quilt Festival Sept. 11-14, 2008

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We are going to Valdez!! Sarah and I haven’t been there for years and we are looking forward to seeing the town again, cruising through Thompson Pass, taking photos of Bridal Veil Falls and Horse Tail Falls, and maybe finding some salmonberries.

I used to drag Sarah (and sometimes her friends and cousins) all over the state as she was growing up. I love traveling in Alaska!

At the Festival we will be teaching the Crazy Shortcut Quilting in a two day marathon class (Sarah will stay up with the night owls and I’ll get up with the early birds) and I’ll also be teaching what I know about using a mid-arm quilting system to quilt for yourself and others. I am *SO* looking forward to the drive, it has always been one of my favorite trips. The mountains up at Eureka are just breathtaking, the St. Elias range is so impressive and so far, unless I’ve been in an airplane, I haven’t found a view like the one from the top of Thompson Pass. You can almost see to Cordova!

Here’s info about the Festival, we hope to see you there!

Stitch Envy

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Whenever Sarah does a demonstration of our Crazy Shortcut Quilt techniques she mentions “stitch envy”. It happens during class when the students are quilting their squares using the decorative stitches of their sewing machines. They look at the quilters next to them and the stitches they have on their machines, and well, you get the idea.

We teach a lot of ways to get the most from your machine no matter how many stitches it has and I’ve quilted on machines with just 5 or 6 stitches – changing width and stitch length just to get some variety.

Today I got an email from a really cool lady who couldn’t wait to show me what she’d stitched up after reading our book. “We inspired her” she said, “and be sure to look at that crown stitch” she said. So I looked at her photos and now I have stitch envy!

She has crowns!

I want crowns!

Look at those stitches. I am so broke that I just couldn’t ask what machine she has – – I’m afraid to ask! LOL I’ll be dreaming of stitches tonight….thanks to Sandra Wucher of the Stashbusters Group on Yahoo!

Empty Nest

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At what point does “whew, I am so glad I don’t have to clean up after them anymore!” turn to “Oh, how I miss the pitter patter of their little feet…”?

My answer – -‘not yet’! LOL 🙂 Hehehehe

The baby bunnies went back to their outside home, as healthy as I can get them, my 22 month old granddaughter is home in Anchorage after spending the weekend with me and Tom is fishing in Homer (a long way away). I am……home alone!

Let’s see if I can finally be productive. You should see my ‘to do’ list. I was remembering quilts that I need to finish in my sleep last night. Then there’s some painting I’ve been putting off, cleaning out more stash, scanning photos & backing up computers….

My little helper got me started yesterday before she left….

Baby Bunnies

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On July 5th Tom brought home 2 baby bunnies that each had conjunctivitis in one eye. It just broke my heart. I didn’t post about them, or take photos, because I was sure that they were going to die. They were very, very infected, starved and barely 10 days old. The only hope I had was that they moved around and wanted to eat. So, we regularly soaked and cleaned their bad eyes, painstakingly cleaned up their fur, fed them alfalfa hay, fresh dandelion greens, ground pellets and goat’s milk (by eyedropper). They lived.

They are still under “clean up” care in my living room but they are eating, playing, grooming themselves and each other and their fur is almost totally clean. I believe that they will both be blind in their infected eyes, but I am not positive. The white rabbit’s bad eye almost looks normal now. I just can’t figure out how to give an eye test to a bunny! Lol 🙂

Gone Fishing

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Here’s the F/V Dolly B towing her jitney and skiff out of the harbor and in the second picture you can see the boats as a tiny spec. They are on their way to Nuka Bay. It’s about an 8 hour run and fishing there opens at 6am tomorrow morning. Please wish them safe travels and successful fishing. This trip is for Wild Alaskan Red Salmon.

So, what this really means is that I am free!!!! Yayyyy!

I’ve been working my day job and then working on either the property (clearing & cleaning) or the boats (endless maintenance) afternoons and early evenings, and in between caring for the baby bunnies Tom rescued (long story – coming soon). No quilting. I want to finish my funky quilt and now Sarah has posted a design that I like and want to try too… And my pal Margie has found a great plugin for WordPress photo management and it looks both incredibly learning intensive but everything and more that I’ve been looking for!

A few baby days

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I made the mistake of being tired and worn out just before spending a weekend with Audrey. At one and three quarters, she has about twenty thousand times the energy that I do! Lucky baby 🙂

We had fun in the front yard watching people and their kids and dogs walk past the house on their way to the festivities on Third and Fourth Avenues downtown. Here’s Audrey reading the instruction book for Sarah’s videocam. Can you see the baby foot in the second picture? That’s her taking a nap while I work on the computer. Why didn’t I sleep then too?

Adams Street, Seward, Alaska

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Here are a few photos from today. We took our two vehicles out of the driveway to accommodate visitors to the festivities and at one point we had 4 vehicles in front of the house and 5 in the driveway.

The street, as usual for the Fourth of July, was packed. The men’s race is the biggest draw and it starts at 3pm so the crescendo builds up until then. Look at the difference in photos from a few days ago in the post below.

If you click on the close up of the mountain you might just barely make out some of the runners on the right of the lower snow patch. The runners had to ascend through the clouds this year and although it might be harder to see, it’s cool and refreshing in this grueling race.

F/V Melissa B

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The Melissa B has been in the driveway for renovations. She gets a lot of looks from passers by! She was originally owned by Perry Buchanan and he taught his sons, Steve & Tom to fish on her. She’s seen a lot of modifications over the years.

Eventually Steve bought a boat, the F/V Marathon, and Perry commissioned a new boat, the F/V Dolly B, and Tom bought the boat and renamed her to his daughters’ name – Melissa. Tom fished the boat for many years, and taught his son Thomas and daughter Melissa to fish on her.

In 1998 Perry retired from fishing, Tom bought the Dolly B, and his son owns the Melissa B. Here they are working on her today.

4th of July Weekend in Seward, Alaska

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Sarah and Audrey are coming to see me on Thursday, and Audrey will stay with me for a few days. Seward is known for it’s 4th of July celebrations, the most famous of which is the Mt. Marathon Race. This internationally known race begins 2 blocks from our house, which is downtown. The race trail goes to the top of Mt. Marathon and down some snow slews and ends back at it’s starting point. It’s a rough trail race. If you look closely, you can see the trail to the peak in this photo.

Seward is a small town of about 3,500 people. No traffic lights. One main street. Several thousand people will be here for the 4th – even more if there is a cruise ship in port. Fourth Avenue is blocked off completely for about a mile, as is most of Adams Street – the street we live on (seen here). Usually we stock up on groceries in advance and just don’t plan on leaving the house because it’s almost impossible to do so with the traffic that converges on downtown.

Audrey and I will have a front row seat for the festivities – it should be a blast! Here’s a list of the events – if you are coming here please note that the fireworks are on Thursday night not Friday night.

I have not had time to do any more sewing on the Funky Fuzzy Quilt, but I will post as soon as I am able to get back to the project 🙂