OK, so I mostly wasted yesterday. I found out that the Philadelphia parade was shown on my local CBS channel so I had to watch it. No quilting happened but I did pull out this blanket to finish while I watched TV. It's a 24 x 40" wheelchair blanket for donation. I made it with Hobby Lobby Yarn Bee Soft & Chunky. It will look familiar because this is the second one that I've made. The stitch is the linen stitch with alternating single crochet and chain stitches. It's easy and mindless, perfect for watching TV. I used a K hook for this bulky yarn. Before I start another blanket project I will add the leftovers to a scrappy corner to corner blanket. These can be good pet blankets. My mail yesterday brought my Super Bowl t-shirt!
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The weather has warmed up a bit and I could/should have gone outside some but I decided to stay inside and sew. I started on the baby quilt and got the horse block made. I have the goat cut out and ready to sew today. I also got my and Peg's veterans quilts loaded and ready to quilt. I have the machine threaded and ready to start quilting, maybe this evening.
I am going to try to watch the Eagles parade today if I can find it on the web. Then I'm going to visit Mom and run a couple of errands. If I don't get these quilts quilted today they will definately be done Saturday. I got the blue veterans quilt top together. If I have a good blue backing I will get it loaded and start quilting today. I have a quilt from my friend, Peg, that I can pair it with. This was made with the leftover blocks from The Big Blue Quilt and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Next I need to start a baby quilt, It's going to be a smaller version of the Farm Quilt. But first I needed to clean up this mess. I put buttons on the two shawls that I finished over vacation and got the finished crochet projects put away in the donation closet. Then I cut some strips from the leftover blue fabrics for a scrappy binding for the veterans quilts. The rest of the leftovers have all been put away.
Our snow melted some yesterday and should mostly be gone today. Chris is getting stir crazy so that's a good thing. I'm not planning to go anywhere until Friday to run some errands. Today I will start cutting blocks for the baby quilt and, if I have a backing, I will start quilting the blue quilt. Otherwise, I have no other obligations. As we were starting our drive home we realized that we had to alter our 4-day drive to a 3-day drive to avoid arriving home in the snow. The original plan was to spend the second night in Texarkana so we could watch the Super Bowl from the hotel. Instead we (Chris) drove straight through to Nashville. I watched the game on my cell phone and Chris had to listen. My excited screams kept him from getting drowsy. I'm sorry for any KC fans, but that was a textbook beatdown and I'm so happy for this team. A friend offered to drive me to Philly for the parade Friday but the last thing I want to do right now is get in a car. I'll watch on YouTube or TV. But, boy, was that exciting! We drove 10 more hours to get home about 5pm Monday and I'm so glad we didn't wait until Tuesday to try to get home in this! We certainly wouldn't have made it in Chris' car. We did get home early enough Monday that I was able to watch the game again on the big TV and it was even more fun because there were less commercials and inconsequential plays and timeouts were cut. I'll watch it again for sure. Most of Tuesday was spent putting everything away and doing laundry. When I unpack, I try to put things away read for the next trip. So I restock my toiletries bag and my travel kitchen supplies bag. But, honestly, I wasted most of the day on social media reading about the victory. Yes, I'm that kind of fan. I did do a tiny bit of sewing. This is Chris' favorite shirt. It has to be 30 years old and he took it on vacation! I decided to offer to fix it so he can keep wearing it but only if he promised to only wear it around the house or working outside. He agreed so I did a rough patch job. There were about 10 smaller places that I also "fixed". I don't, for a minute, believe that he will not wear this in public. I bet that it shows up on our Maine vacation. Tomorrow I'm going to try to stay off the internet and get the rest of this veterans quilt sewn together so I can start quilting it. Then I need to start on a baby quilt that would be nice to finish before the shower on March 8. By the way, does anyone know why showers are called "sprinkles" now? I've been invited to a sprinkle, not a shower. WTH? I did do quite a bit of crochet in the car. I need to measure this one but I think it's almost done. It's a wheelchair leg blanket. I got this much of the shawl made. I'm a little burned out on crochet for the moment but I'll probably be back to it in a few days. I'd like to do mostly sewing this week. I certainly won't be going anywhere today!
This morning we are on the road to return home. It's been an absolutely fabulous vacation with lots of sun and great time with our friends. We did a lot of relaxing and sunbathing on our last few days Laura and I did head out on one little adventure to visit San Xavier Del Bac Mission, south of Tucson. It is on the Tohono O'odham reservation, as is Kitt Peak Observatory. I believe that it's the oldest mission in Arizona and dates back to 1692. It's an active church and, while it gets a lot of tourist traffic, it's not really set up to be a tourist destination. There's no flyer with confirmation or docents. Of course, there's a very nice gift shop! It was well worth the 40 minute drive. The artwork and craftsmanship is amazing. The Wikipedia article about it is very informative and Google had tons of great images. This little Roadrunner has gotten very accustomed to all the visitors dropping crumbs. I didn't have to use the zoom at all. I think I could have almost petted it. Speaking of wildlife, yesterday morning Chris saw 3 coyotes and a bobcat on the path behind the condo. Very cool. On the crochet front, I've started my new crochet project. It's a poncho that is supposed to be made with bulky weight yarn. I really wanted a lighter weight version so I'm giving this a try. I give it about a 50/50 chance of working out. I started this Monday night when everyone else had a wonderful evening at Kitt Peak Observatory. I didn't go because of the altitude but it gave me a few uninterrupted quiet hours to get this started. I really love this pattern and the stitch is fun. If it doesn't work with this yarn I will get some bulky yarn and make one to the pattern. I'll tell you more about the pattern in another post. I won't work on this again until I get home. You can sort of start to see the pattern starting to develop. I probably need to do at least 20 more rows before I know if it's going to work. Meanwhile, I have 2 projects ready to go in the car for the ride home.
We will take 4 days driving home and will arrive late Tuesday. That means that I'll be watching my Eagles in the Super Bowl from a hotel along the way, probably in or near Texarkana. Last night while everyone else was at the Kitt Peak Observatory I vacuumed enough of the floor to be able to take a few crochet projects. I have finished the two shawls I was working on and I'm happy to report that this is the end of that yarn for shawls. There's a little left over that will go in a scrapghan at some point. The pattern is this one. I've made it so many times now that I don't think I need the pattern anymore. It's such a good one for donation shawls. I already have yarn picked for the next one. Here's the second one. I do like how the yarn makes each one look a little different. I brought along a couple of Caron Cotton Cakes from my stash and started a shawl like the brown one I made last month. This will probably hold me to be one of my car projects for the ride home.
On the critter front we have seen a coyote, lots of quail, javelina, roadrunners and several varieties of hummingbirds. At the Arizona-Sedona Desert Museum we also saw mountain goats and a grey wolf. Everyone else checked out the reptile exhibit. In vacation news the weather is hot and glorious. Yesterday ot got up to 84 and it's supposed to be a couple of degrees warmer today. We've had a couple of good days sunning and reading by the pool. Sunday night we went to a concert at the Hotel Congress in downtown Tucson. It was fun to see downtown Tucson but, I have to admit, it was some of the most boring music I've ever heard. But it was a lovely night to sit outside with friends. Yesterday I skipped the morning walk because my ankle/foot is acting up a little. Today I'll tape it and do a walk, not a hike. Last night everyone but me went to the Kitt Peak Observatory. I passed because I have well documented altitude problems at anything above about 5500'. the observatory is at 6900'. Instead I stayed back and relaxed, made myself some fake bread, read, watched a movie and did some crochet. It was lovely. Since I last posted about the trip we have done more hiking, I finished the two crochet shawls and we visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The hikes were in Saguaro East National Park and Ventana Canyon. In the park we hiked the Cactus Forest Trail to the Lime Falls. The Ventana Canyon Trail is right out the back door of the condo. I didn't take any photos of the Desert Museum yesterday because I decided to just enjoy the day. The days are really warming up so after a morning walk today, we plan to spent the day poolside before going to a local concert this evening. But the highlight of the past few days was a Haws Walk at Sky Island Falconry. I got the idea to look for a falconry experience from the Nate Romanowski character in the Joe Pickett books. I was reading one around December and that sent me on a search to find Sky Island. Everyone had a blast and our guide was actually named Nate! The Harris's Hawk with us is named Nix. Most of the time was spent watching her hunt and following her through the desert trying to flush jackrabbits for her. But at the end we all got to hold her several times. It was so much fun to get to see her up close and personal. At one point during the hunt she landed on the head of one of our friends. If only we could have gotten cameras out fast enough to get a photo! The bird is very gentle and Laura didn't even get a scratch. The day ended with a beautiful sunset.
As I said in the beginning, I did finish the two shawls but I keep forgetting to take photos in daylight. I will try to get those taken today. I took a few days off from crochet to give my hands a rest but I might start a different shawl today. January has been a light reading month and that's OK because it was a fun travel month! I also had 10 sick days and only finished one book during that time. Mostly I watched trash TV. I only finished 4 books. Three were good enough and one, Yours Truly, wasn't good enough to recommend. What good books have you read this month? DNF: Fresh Water For Flowers by Valerie Perrin - This is supposed to be a great book but I couldn't get into it. It might have been because I was not feeling well and distracted by travel. Maybe I'll give it another try later. ![]() The Sweet Blue Distance By Sara Donati, Read By Kate Reading TLDR: A sweeping saga installment in the Into The Wilderness series. In 1857 Carrie Ballentine takes an offer to move to New Mexico Territory to be a nurse and midwife. She needed to get away from her family and past and this was a great opportunity. Her brother travels with her and about half of the book covers the challenging trip. Once she arrives in New Mexico, she discovers that the doctor has not been totally honest with her about her work or his family. It's an adventure story of the time and it's a love story as Carrie builds her new life in New Mexico. If you like westerns and/or family sagas, I think you will like this one. ![]() The Silent Sisters By Robert Dugoni, Read By Eduardo Ballerini TLDR: the 3rd installment in a fast paced international espionage series. This is the 3rd book in the Charles Jenkins series. This was our road-trip-to-Denver book. There were "seven sisters" in Russia. These were female US assets working deep in the Russian government. In the last installment Jenkins barely made it out of Russia trying to bring out some of the assets. Just when he's getting settled back with his family, he's asked to return for the last 2 of the seven sisters. On his first night in Moscow he accidentally gets involved in an altercations outside of a bar. That results in the dealt of the son of the head of a brutal organized crime group. Now he's being chased by the police, the mafia and Russian agents. Like all of the Dugoni books, it's very fast paced. I did have a little trouble keeping up with the Russian names but it was worth the ride. ![]() Yours Truly By Abby Jimenez, Read By Kyla Garcia and Zachary Webber TLDR: If you like the fake dating trope you might like this. I didn't like anything about it. Brianna and Jacob are ER doctors with the emotional maturity of teenagers. These people are in their 30s and have more baggage and anxiety than a 13 year old. Brianna is newly divorced and Jacob's girlfriend broke up with him and is marrying his brother. Brianna's brother needs a kidney transplant quickly. They meet when Jacob starts working in the same ER as Brianna. They meet in a broom closet where both go to hide from the stress of work. This is my first problem with the book. Neither of these people would last a day in an ER department. That whole setting was stupid. Jacob is trying to get through all the ex-girlfriend/brother wedding activities with his outrageously multi-cultural and woke family. Brianna agrees to fake date him to help him through. It's a giant cliche from beginning to end. I read a previous book from Jiminez, Just For the Summer, and it was sweet. I thought this one would be a nice, easy read while I was sick. Instead, it was outrageously annoying. ![]() The Wide Wide Sea By Hampton Sides, Read By Peter Noble TLDR: This one is for true history lovers. This is the book that Chris and I picked for our trip from Richmond to Tucson. It's a long one at 15 and got us through 3 days. It's the story of Captain James Cook's final voyage to search for a Northwest passage. The book is really interesting and it was all new information for me. I don't know if I ever learned much about Captain Cook. I did think it could have been edited a bit but all-in-all it was very interesting. The narrator has some really interesting mispronounciations. Tuesday evening, while we were waiting for Ian and Laura to arrive, I saw a shadow out the kitchen window. I had finally gotten a glimpse of the javelina! We were told that they were wild in the neighborhood but this is the first one I've seen. I've been told over and over that they aren't pigs. To me they look like a wild boar but people around here are adamant that these are unique creatures. As long as I don't have to get up close and personal with one, they can be whatever they want to be. But glad to have checked another Tucson box. The weather was chilly yesterday, about 50F for a high and then it rained in the afternoon. All three of the new guests arrived on time and without incident. We gathered around 8:30 yesterday morning for another hike in the Sabino Canyon recreation Area. Ian is healing from a calf muscle tear so this hike didn't have as much elevation as the Monday hike, although it was still about 5 miles. This is a saguaro blooming out a new arm bud. This saguaro is one of the one of the most mature ones that I've seen. In the back of that last photo is this beautiful rock dam. They didn't get much rain this part year so it's dry right now. But in the afternoon we actually got a good bit of rain so maybe there's a little water in the stream today. In the afternoon, and on a whim, Laura and I decided to visit the Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures. What we expected was a dusty little storefront museum with a few miniatures, no other visitors and a bored docent keeping a close eye on us. You know the type: a little place with someone's beloved small collection and no money to properly keep it up. What we found was a legitimate, big and popular museum in a custom built building and a parking lot full of cars. It was astounding and absolutely overwhelming. I took a few photos to share but you should click on the link and read about the history of the museum and the founder. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of miniatures in this museum that were mostly collected (and made) by one woman. The items date as early as the 1700's. The doll houses date from the late 1700's to contemporary times. This one was called The Yellow Rose of Texas, The Wedding Day. The gallery below had a photo of each section. This had to have taken years to build. This is the work of a Waterford crystal master cutter. When he retired he decided to make miniatures of the pieces that he used to cut in the factory. There is a massive display of Department 56 Christmas Village pieces, including a display set into the floor! In the commercial realm there was also collections of kewpie dolls and a Halloween set similar to Department 56. I had seen the pencil lead carvings from Salavat Fidai online before but it was very cool to see 3 of them in person along with videos of him making each one. There was even a special exhibit of ships made by Gregory Baumgartner. They are 4 models of a collection of 11 model ships he made of the Union Navy ships that were destroyed at the Gosport Navy Yard. These models are all about to be acquired by the US Navy for exhibition in museums around the country. They are beautifully made and there are great photos and videos on the webpage.
We went there expecting to spend about 30 minutes but stayed 2 hours and we could go again and see different things. You can't absorb it in one visit. If you like miniatures and are ever in Tucson, don't miss this museum. The weather starts to improve and warm up today. We will head to the Saguaro National Park East so Ian and Laura can see more of the area. Starting tomorrow we should be able to spend some time at the pool. We also have our falconry adventure tomorrow. On Monday we went on our first hike with our friends, Bill and Laurie. This hike was in sabino Canyon National Forest. The trail isn't marked on maps, it's just one that they know about. I learned that unmarked/unmaintained trails are called "social trails". This view looks back toward Tucson. I think we walked about 4 miles with a healthy elevation gain. It was quite enough for me since I hadn't really exercised for most of the month of January. I had spent 12 days sitting in vehicles on the twoo road trips and 10 days in the recliner with a cold so I was a little out of shape! I was asleep Monday night by 10. That's really early for me. Bill pointed out an old mine entrance but I was fascinated with the Saguaro perched right on the edge of the entrance. You can see two of the roots exposed. A Saguaro with this many arms is supposedly well over 100 years old. There are a few things in bloom around here. This is an ocotillo plant with bright pink flowers on the tips of the stems. This is a cholla and I don't have to tell you what those flowers look like. Yesterday was rather chilly and we didn't do any hiking. Instead we went to the grocery store to prepare for our friends to arrive last night. Chris went with Bill to pick up another friend at the airport and we enjoyed and afternoon of storytelling in Bill and Laurie's patio.
I also made some progress on the two wheelchair shawls. The one in the right is one whole cake of yarn. I only need to add three rows from the new cake and it will be done. The rest of the new cake will finish off the other one. These will be wrapped up pretty soon. Today we plan to go back to sabino Canyon to take the new arrivals on a short introductory hike. It's going to be chilly again so we will probably be pretty lethargic today. The weather warms up later this week and I see pool time in my furture. |
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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