What a week this has been! The computer guy had to come back and redo the set up, I told you there would be bumps in the road! Hopefully it is ok now, but I have not had time to check it out! I had lots of administrative stuff to attend to and entry deadlines to meet. Finished “In The Bleak Midwinter”.  32w x 34h”.

My husband had surgery (nothing serious), so I am cooking again, temporarily, I hope!

We drove to Lawrence Friday to deliver “Longhorn Splashdown”, Spring Encounter” and “Just Dandy” for display at the Kaw Valley Quilt Guild Show. I will have to go by and pick them up this afternoon. It’s always a nice show and I am looking forward to seeing it. Yesterday was the annual Kansas Art Quilter’s Conference – also in Lawrence- and what a wonderful day it was!  The theme was “Compositional Strategies and Personal Vocabularies” with presentations by Barbara Lee Smith and Carol Ann Carter. I think everyone came away with renewed enthusiasm!

Strange weather this spring for the morels, they have been hard to find. I think we’ve had 3 meals, with only a few at a time. This is probably the last of them along with asparagus from the garden. Isn’t that a weird curly one? The curl was very woody and had to be discarded.

I cooked them up in butter with some red onions and the asparagus. Quite good, but we decided they are better dredged in seasoned flour and fried!

Finally, the handwork on the binding of Prairie Fire is finished, and I photographed it yesterday. I need to find or make a stick to hang it from and get it into place in the living room!  I love how the hand dyes from Ghana worked in the hills! It ended up measuring 70.5 X 26″.

I’ve spent parts of the last two days layering, pin basting and getting started on quilting the Foxglove Fairy.   Here she is ready to be quilted:

So far she, plus three of her wings are finished. Today should see progress on the background.

The floors are finished and they look good! It’s been a long haul but it was worth it. We need to give it 24 hours and then we can start moving back in. Can’t wait!!!

Also, yesterday I trimmed the new wall hanging and it is ready to bind, so soon that will be finished, too. Things are looking up!

I finished the SAQA entry yesterday, so it could be mailed today, but there is no mail service today! Oh, well. I still think it has time to get there. If you compare it to the before quilting photo you will see that I made a few changes. Brightened the bit over one ear and darkened one eye; the white eye sparkles brings it to life.

It is quite amazing how much life that little touch gives! In comparing the two , I think I will go back in with a Pigma pen and darken that little bit of  light on dark quilting that grabs your eye by his mouth – then I think I will be happy with it and it will be on it’s way tomorrow.

Yesterday I finished the fire top, removed all of the freezer paper and tweaked a few places that were not right. My other prairie fire quilts were night scenes, but I wanted this one which will go in my living room to be lighter.

While it is less dramatic, perhaps, than the others, it is pretty much what I wanted. I hope to start the quilting today.

It is snowing hard outside; truly a lovely if unwanted sight!

Now that Annie has passed her nursing tests, (we KNEW she would!) I can reveal what I have been working on! And you thought I was just being lazy!

I found the panel with the nurse images on line and thought it would make the perfect graduation gift for her. Each one is surrounded by bright colored “logs” from my stash, which was a wonderful way to use up some fabrics that really don’t fit into the type of pictorial work I am doing now. The quilting is by machine, in the ditch and outlining the nurses – not a lot of quilting so that it would remain soft.

She was surprised and really happy with it!

The goat quilt is finally finished! It seems like everything takes so long now with so much else going on. I put in the last hand stitches on the binding yesterday evening while watching TV.

It measures 20 x 27.5″ If you scroll back to June 13 you can see the original photo that I was working from.

The background fabric is a piece of home dec fabric, a sample that I’ve had a long time. I liked the geometric qualities that it had. I had nothing that gave the feeling of the chain collar but I think the red is dapper. Just right for this country kid come to town for the 4-H Fair!

Close up of the eye. I LOVE that fabric in the eye and use it a lot for animal eyes. I will add a little white for sparkle so I guess it’s not quite finished after all!

We ordered the tile for the floor yesterday and have a couple of more sub-contractors to schedule which is part of the reason I am so behind. It’s sure not like on TV where everything gets done in a hour!!

We finished the new rock work for the pond and I think it looks better than before the leak! These are all rocks picked up on our property. They match the rocks on the side of the house and the fireplace.  Often you can see fossils embedded in them, like little scallops or clams as this used to be a sea!

I wish I had put the cushions on the furniture before I took the photo, but you can see a bit of the hammock down in the shade garden where I like to read.

The stuff floating and littering everywhere are tiny flowers off the tree that is over the deck. We have had wind and rain and it is a mess! I blow the deck off to try and lessen the amount that gets in the pool but it is a loosing battle for now. The filter needs cleaning often.

Some of the rocks are BIG and HEAVY! Thank goodness my husband is a willing helper!

“Longhorn Splashdown” 47.5 x 33.5″ Done at last!

It took all day, but the top is done and the paper is removed, ready to layer and quilt.

This is a scene that I saw driving to Arkansas last summer. My camera was not handy enough to grab a photo – really, it was only a second in time- so even if the camera had been already in my hand, the moment would have been past. So this is from a sketch from memory, and captures the scene as I remember it.

I had been searching for a speckled fabric for the Longhorn for awhile, even bought a piece of hand dyed  in Lancaster but the one I ended up using was already in my stash! A combination of 5 or 6 different fabrics make up the water.

At this point the piece measures 51 X 36″. I’m having a hard time coming up with a name and decided to read Prairyerth for inspiration – nothing yet!