Long Time Friends

Sunday I met up with a friend I hadn't seen in (40) years.  I'm sure we were like negative 5 yrs old last time we saw each ofther.  LOL.  

Her and her husband came to town for a  bowling tournament and were staying at the Stratosphere in Vegas,  so my hubby and I drove up there to meet visit and have lunch.
After visiting for a couple hours and catching up a little - we went to the top of the tower and looked out. 

Up at the top they have 3 rides.  As much as I like rides hmmm - I don't think so.  :) 

I only got a video of the next one, so I got this image from their website here.

Appropriately named "Insanity" it swings way over the edge. 

They also have bungee jump and a free fall. 

We had a wonderful visit for another couple hours and then decided we needed to head back home.  Jeannie got a great shot of my hubby and I from the viewing deck. 

As I was leaving, I got a little shot through the back window of the Stratosphere.  

It was super fun.  Glad we connected again.  They were super nice and I'm sure when we head through Reno we'll be calling them to hook up again.

Have a Blessed day - Lynn 

Seven Through Nine and WWIT

Working on my Bee Blocks and as of last night (day 6)  I have 9 done.  Yay.   #7

 #8

 #9

I'm not doing these in any special order, I won't know where I want to put them until I'm all done, I'm just numbering them for the sake of knowing how many I've done.  :)

Okay next.... WWIT.  (What Was I Thinking)...

My scrap and piece drawers the ones that have around a half yard or fat quarters or less - that I use for applique - are so tight I am having trouble getting more in.  The last couple of years I've made some blocks and quilts with them, but they are still bulging.  So I have a plan. I have 3-4 quilt types in mind that I can fit these scraps into.  

1.  I'm cutting Fat Quarters to use in Turning Twenty Quilts.  

2.  I'm cutting 5" Squares for On Point Charm Quilts. 

3.  2 1/2" squares to make some kind of 16 patch Quilt such as a Good Night Irene Quilt.

4.  2 1/2"  or other strips and be for the scrappy strip quilts. 

Since my machine was in the shop I thought yesterday would be a good day to start cutting.  OMG... WWIT. (What Was I Thinking)  I cut all day and made progress but not a dent.  LOL   

There are some different sizes as well - 6 1/2", 4 1/2" and 3 1/2".  I guess I'll figure out something for those when I get there.  

I'm not convinced I will get every one of my scraps cut into these sizes - but every little bit will help.  And since I will be making these into charity quilts - it's a win win.  

I have some plans for some of my other stash for stash busting, but I'll write more about that later.  

Today we're going to the gym, then cleaning up and going to pick up my machine.  We also have pick up a couple things from the store.  I doubt I will get a chance to do any sewing, but I'll work on getting some more Bee Blocks done. 

Have a Blessed day - 

Lynn 

Nice day for a Drive

I love going for rides - it's so soothing.  Today Hubby and I dove to Kingman, AZ it's about 45 mins  to an hour from us.  I needed to take my machine into get it checked out.  It had some issues.  At first she thought it just needed to have the timing checked out since my bobbin case was popping out and the needle actually punctured the case about 3 times.  See the two holes here and then the big scratch on the bottom part? 

 You can see more of the damage from the bottom side too. 

But after we got it in there it ended up having a broken feed dog and a spring came off.  (The stinking spring that is so hard for her to put on)   We dropped it off - went to lunch - came back and walked around shop for awhile - then decided to just come back and pick it up on Thursday.   It was a beautiful day for a ride and a lot of the desert cactus and wildflowers were in bloom. I took several pictures from the moving vehicle to get pictures of them - this is the best I came up with.   

Once we got back into town, we stopped at the park to see if they stocked the river again.  I think they did.  I see fishing in my honey's future.  :)  

Someone was having fun with a Ski-Doo on the river.

I'm not good at selfies but gave it a try.

Here's my honey visiting a lady that was fishing - and my shadow self.

Looking back that's where we were standing. 

It was a beautiful day out.  Hope you had a great day too. 

Blessings,  Lynn 

30 Day Goals

There are all kinds of 30 Day Goals out there right now, concerning diet and exercise - and I have participated in a couple of these and may again, but that's not what I am talking about right now.  I'm challenging myself to 30 days of embroidery blocks.  I am working on my cornerstone blocks ( 30 of them) for the Bee-Utiful QAL quilt. 
The other day I decided that if I challenge myself to 1 per day - it will not only keep me focused, but only take me a month to get them done so I can finish the top of my quilt.  And if by chance I get more than one a day done, it will make up for a possible day I can't make it or an early finish. 
Here's where I am so far.  

 

I am one ahead - but want to keep going maybe I can do 30 in 20 days.  :)

Okay what else have I done.  I got part of the sashing done for the Minecraft quilt - I'll show you that later.  

Yesterday I made up some new labels for charity quilts for one of our guilds. 

I try to do them in a rainbow of colors since I really don't know what color quilts will come in.  I may add a few plain cream ones just in case.  I try to do this a couple times a year to help out. 
Okay and last but now least, I'm still working on healthy eating.  Here's my Low Carb Meatloaf, Roasted Vegetables and Cauliflower Rice. 

Someday I'll get better at presentation for these food pictures.  I start eating then think - oh ya - a picture.  :). I used pork rinds, instead of bread crumbs or crackers. 
I also made some Low Carb Peanut Butter cookies.  I used Almond flour and granulated Stevia, made from Stevia Extract. 

They turned out pretty good.   About 100 cal and 4.5 g carbs per cookie.  Not too bad if you need a sweet treat. 
Well I'm off to start the day.  Breakfast, Gym and may need to take my machine into get repaired.  

The bobbin case is popping out of place.  YIKES!  It's not supposed to do that.  
Update:  While I was writing this and making breakfast, repair person called and it may just need an adjustment.  I'm going to go check and hopefully that will work.  
I'll let you know later,
Have a Blessed day -
Lynn 

Shiny Things

This is a double whammy on shiny things.  It is a "shiny thing" distraction to quilting, but it is also shiny.  I took a class in stain glass making.  Uh oh.  I'll show you our finished project then I'll back up and tell you part of a very long story. 

Have you every heard the saying "Be careful what you wish for"? Yep - I have and am experiencing that.  I have a friend that has done stain glass.  Here is one of the pieces she has done.  

Here's a few more. 

The recap of the long story: I made the comment one day that I thought it would be fun to learn how to do that some day.  She told me she would teach me.  Fast forward 2 years... one of our ladies we sew with is moving and has all kinds of stain glass stuff, she wants to get rid of it, free - just come and get it.  Friend one says oh... Lynn wants it.  I'm thinking okay I'll go get a few tools and a couple pieces of glass to do a project or two.  UH OH.  I got her whole stash... What little I left behind after loading my whole pickup full - she brought over to my house.  I did not want even a 1/4 of that... be careful what you wish for.  
So friend 3 pictured above says - Oh I'd like to learn how to do that too.  Yay... I say tell you what.  Lets learn and I'll share my stash.  I'm really hoping I can get to to take at least half.  
Alright - now to show what we did.  Here was our pattern. 

Here is the glass she laid out for us to choose from. 

She taught us how to score the glass and cut it with the special plier things.  Once we got all our pieces cut to the right shape, and grind smooth, we put the little bumper things up on the edge our our pattern. 

Next you have to put the foil tape around all edges of each piece of glass you cut.  Then you do a step where you take a tool and really press that foil into the glass. 

Once that is done you paint this flux liquid stuff on all the edges and then you solder each line.  Once you solder one side you turn over and solder the other side.  

Then it gets a bath, then you put this acid stuff on the solder with a tooth brush scrubbing until it's the right color (which ever you choose) we did copper.  Then another bath, then polish. 

We were new so it took us longer I'm sure but we were able to finish in one day.  Each of us had some problems a long the way but all in all it was fun.  We used all of her tools and supplies for the class, now I need to go through the stash I was given to see what all I have in tools and supplies.  I already know there is way too much glass.  :)

As always I will keep you posted on the things I make.  

Have a Blessed Day!

Lynn 

Steps Toward Finishing

I'm oh so close.  

My embroidery quilt Frog works is down to a block and half of embroidery to being done.  I made all the setting blocks over a year ago before I even started the embroidery.  Now as I get the blocks done I have been trimming and then assembling. Once I get the top left and middle left done, I can put the border on and the top will be done.  Yay.  
Next up - as I mentioned on an earlier post Here -   I decided to put little embroideries in the corner stones of my Bee-Utiful quilt. 

Here are a few of the "30" cornerstones I prepped. 

I took parts of the blocks that had already been stitched as you can see here.  

So it will be a little longer before I get this one finished up, but I think I will be very happy with how it will look. 

It's all steps toward getting things finished - someday I'll be done. 

Have a great day 

Blessings, 

Lynn