Quilter’s Garage Sale

So to speak—I invited my quilt retreat buddies up this afternoon for a look see at all the quilting stuff left from our purchase in Billings the other day.  Everyone went home with a bag full of goodies so why do I still have so much stuff downstairs??? If I were ambitious (or had a little more time) I would cut the fabric into strips or squares and make scrappy quilts.  I may donate the remainder of the fabric to the Catholic church ladies—they make quilts for charity projects.  The ladies all placed thread orders too so I have to get the thread ordered tomorrow.  I made brownies and pumpkin bars—sent care packages home to all the husbands and still have way too much left over! 

Another nasty cold day—bitter wind.  My poor husband plowed the driveway this morning and about froze!

One more quilt to quilt before we leave—it’s going on the frame tomorrow. 

I am so excited to learn there is a group of quilting ladies at the RV park in Aransas Pass.  Rollie met Judy, one of the quilters and she left the nicest comment on yesterday’s blog.  We quilters are everywhere aren’t we! 

A big thank you to all our past and present military folks—you are appreciated!! 

Winter Wonderland and A Happy Quilter

It’s cold, mighty cold—5 degrees above zero as I type this blog—that’s cold!!  We received more snow overnight and at these temps there’s not much melting going on!

Cleaning house was my agenda today and working inside where it was warm was on Michael’s agenda!

But after lunch we ventured out and at one point I thought the jeep was going into the Boulder River!!  We have to make a sharp turn across the bridge, we weren’t going very fast at all but when we went to make the sharp turn the jeep began to slide.  And slide and slide—the concrete bridge barriers were approaching a little too rapidly for me, I was clutching the door handle and emitting little “oh, oh, oh’s!!”  About a foot from the concrete we came to a stop, put the jeep in four wheel drive and backed back onto the road.  Alrighty then!!!

We were heading up the Boulder to Mary’s—she needed help with the final assembly of the new to her Liberty longarm quilting machine she recently purchased.   A few hours after our arrival we had Mary happily quilting away—a few minutes later we were drinking some mighty fine wine in Ron and Mary’s cozy little cabin.

Just as I walked in the door the phone rang, it was our neighbor and friend Roger—seems some hunters on his land wounded a deer and the deer came across onto our land.  The hunters did not come onto our land—instead they sought the help of Roger—those are the hunters we like!!!  Roger was calling to see if he could bring the hunters up and help them retrieve their deer—absolutely!! 

We are now relaxing, browsing the internet, eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate—warming up!!  The heaters in jeeps at 5 above don’t seem to work well!! 

Everyone Wants A Piece Of The Action

The last time we went to Billings and Costco, we purchased a new HP printer—wireless.  Today was the first time I’ve had a moment to do what should have been a very easy install.  NOT!!!  Four hours later and with phone calls to various tech supports I finally have a wireless printer in the basement working well with my laptop.  Why does it have to be so hard???  The install program gave me the option of choosing which of the Hewlett-Packard megabyte hungry softwares I wished to install—of course they recommended installing all of the options—I chose to install three of the six software options.  I got nowhere—the printer was recognizing my router—the IP address and connected with great signal icon appeared on the printer touch screen but I couldn’t print anything—my computer would not recognize the printer. 

I called our local telephone company thinking I might be having issues with our oddball router but no, they couldn’t help me—the printer was recognizing and connecting to the router.  I then took advantage of the Costco free concierge service for electronics and while the guy didn’t speak very good English, he got me up and running.  When we got to the screen which asked which of the software options I wanted to install the technician suggested installing all of them, “you can always remove the ones you don’t want.”  All of a sudden I can print—now imagine that!  HP just wanted inside my computer—well guess what HP, once I was printing I went back and removed all your MB hungry crap!!!

It’s been a long day—we both woke too early in spite of our late night!  I spent the day arranging my sewing room for the little gathering I am giving for my quilting buddies on Sunday.  Michael spent the day packing a little, puttering a little.

We woke to about six inches of new snow and nasty, windy, cold weather. 

Now after all that computer frustration I am having a slice of Sarah’s incredible flourless chocolate cake—to die for!!! 

Just in time for Veteran’s Day on Sunday, our granddaughter Laci arrived home from her tour of duty in Italy with the USAF.  She will be stationed at the air base in Great Falls, MT—closer to home for a while!

Hey, Who Changed The Weather

Geez, old man winter has arrived with a bang!  Wind is howling and instead of the nice 60 degree day we had yesterday, it is 33 degrees and snowing—of course the snow is all ready in the next county the wind is blowing so hard.

We are off to run errands in just a while—judging by all these boxes which need shipping, all full of quilts—I’ve been busy!

Michael had a list of little things he wanted to accomplish today—fence fixing, wrap the trunks of the apple trees and cut down a dead aspen tree which might fall on the fence while we are gone.  I finished up Pat’s quilt last night and then quilted her pillowcases this morning. 

Whew, it is almost midnight and this girl is up way past her bedtime!  We had an absolutely wonderful evening spent with friends over in the Paradise Valley.  Sarge and Sarah invited us over to sample some of the halibut Sarge caught while fishing in Alaska this summer.  We both decided we’ve never had fish so good!  It was a delicious meal and we enjoyed their company immensely!  The roads weren’t too bad going over and it has just started to snow really hard.  A fabulous day!

More Quilting and Some Moving

While visiting summer before last, my Mom noticed a quilt she liked in a magazine I had—we talked about her piecing this quilt—bear in mind—my Mom is a seamstress—she has made wedding dresses for brides, she made all our clothes when we were growing up but she has made one other quilt in her lifetime—it was a very simple one with just rectangles.  This magazine quilt was a mass of tiny pieces and triangles.  That didn’t deter my Mom—for her birthday last year my sister Ann and I gave Mom the fabric for making this quilt.  She did a fabulous job and here’s the results:

The folks who bought our ranch are kind enough to allow us the use of a huge barn which they don’t use. We store all sorts of treasures in there, mostly equipment. Today we moved the Tin Tee Pee into the barn—out of the weather since we won’t be using it for a while. Had to move some other equipment around and I’m certainly glad my dear husband is a good “backer”—it took some tricky backing up to get that little trailer in a very tight spot.

Michael puttered around today getting the trailer completely ready for travel—time is drawing near!  And with that said, I almost finished another quilt today—this one for Pat of Mike and Pat fame.  I love the colors in it—think she would forget I have it??

And that’s our day in Montana.

Still Quilting Away

Loaded another quilt on the frame this morning and finished quilting it this afternoon—amazing the progress I can make when I’m under the gun!!! 

Remember when we helped Lonn and LoraLee work their calves several weeks ago?  And Lonn whacked me in the head with the hydraulic squeeze shoot?  Well, tonight was our “thank you and sorry I whacked you in the head” dinner out.  We drove over to their house and rode over the hill to our favorite place—the Rib and Chop.  Good food and great company.

Michael made a quick trip into town today for jeep parts and to drop packages at the post office.  I’ve been using this Yahoo group—SewItsForSale—to sell bits and pieces of the quilting stuff we purchased with great success.  The group is a private, tightly held clique with a million and one rules—it almost takes an act of Congress to post anything—but people buy stuff so I will continue to persevere!

It was a perfect fall day—60 degrees and absolutely no wind but change is in the wind so to speak—one weather report predicts 2 feet of snow by Saturday and 4 degrees below zero—now how’s that for change???  Time to head down the road!!  Sixteen days and counting!

This photo doesn’t do the actual scene justice—I only had the little point and shoot Canon and it needed new batteries—it was gorgeous going over the mountain to Livingston tonight.

I Hung Up On Jan Brewer

Tomorrow can’t come soon enough for us.  I bet we get at least 4-5 phone calls per day asking us to vote for this or that person.  They are wasting their time, Michael and I all ready voted (of course the callers don’t know that)!  Today the phone rang, I didn’t recognize the number and I answered it.  A voice said, “Hello, I’m Jan Brewer, governor of Arizona………”  Of course it was a recorded message and I hung up almost before she had the word Arizona out of her mouth—at least I think it was a recorded message!  And I even like Jan Brewer! 

I finished up all Marti’s quilts today—YEA—and will get them off in the mail to her about Thursday or so.

 Those roses are each a jazillion pieces all of which had to be stitched in the ditch—my shoulders and neck are feeling it tonight!

Michael was out in the garage working hard all day.  We talked to Rollie—I think he’s ready for us to get there—he sent us a photo of our “lonely RV site” today!!    His rig fits nicely on the site next to us and if he can get that big ole long 5th wheel and semi in those sites, I think we will fit too!

Warm today and cloudy—nasty weather is approaching for the weekend.