Let it Snow!

I finally finished that wall hanging that I took the class for a couple of weeks ago. Not that I don't have scads of other unfinished projects... but I wanted to hang this over the fireplace.

I used wool and this heavy thread called Renaissance for the applique. I embellished the middle section with white jewels in lieu of snowflake buttons which I just couldn't find anywhere. 

I took some tips from Christine Baker- she has kindly put her machine quilting tips on her blog- and tried to be a bit creative when quilting this. I tried to make the middle section look like blowing snow, on the corners I "wrote" other things we can do when it snows (besides building a snowman like the fabric border says!lol), and on the borders, I outlined the snowbanks and did stars and loops above the snowmen. I still have a long way to go before I am a good machine quilter, but I am having so much fun getting there!

I have really started to get things on the wall this week and I love the way it looks. Empty walls mean echoes. Full walls means it is ours, it means we are staying, it means HOME.

Handbells!

We went to Chloe's Handbell Choir performance at the elementary school last night and we were SO impressed! They sound so pretty and considering the bells are new- so NO ONE has played them before- the fact that they played actual songs was amazing. I don't have a video camera, but my new camera does allow me to do video for short clips and so I "filmed" two of the songs.

One sounds like "God Save the Queen" though it is called "America". The other song was The Great Gate of Kiev. I haven't added video clips on here before, but I am going to try.*

In the meantime, here are a couple of photos. Chloe is on the far left in the closeup photo, and second from the left in the group photo. I didn't have my big lens- the gym is pretty small (especially considering there are more than 750 kids at the school!), so I thought the small lens would be good enough. It wasn't. We had to sit at the back and I really wasn't able to get a good photo of Chloe. Thank goodness for photo-editing software!

*after waiting more than an hour, I have decided NOT to keep waiting for this video to upload. I have both songs uploaded already onto my facebook, if you would like to hear.

Weekend in Grand Junction

We just spent the weekend with Becca in Grand Junction and it was great. Becca showed us around her campus and around town, as well as giving us a cool tour of the Colorado National Monument just outside of town. Her campus is small but pretty and seems very welcoming. We had a nice dinner out together and breakfast too, before we headed back home.

It is a four hour drive from here, but what a drive! I will be putting a huge photo album up on Webshots today if you would like to see it- the terrain changes so much, it is incredible.

As you can see in my title photo at the top of this page, the west coast of Colorado has mesas, not mountains.  A mesa is an elevated area of land with a flat top and sides that are steep cliffs. They are really amazing.

The photos you see here show the Monument- that little rock right in the middle of the first photo is the same one that Rich is perched on in the second photo!!! AAAAHHHH!!!! My heart was in my throat the whole time as Rich and Becca climbed around on those rocks as nimbly as mountain goats!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween all! We didn't have many Trick-or-Treaters, just 15 (not counting Heidi and Chloe! lol)

Chloe had made plans to go out with friends on her own, but they fell through and so Heidi took her out. The neighborhood was very quiet, but we met a few more neighbors and saw little Izze from across the street, who was dressed up as a ballet cheerleader. lol

Chloe carved pumpkins with her friends yesterday and she did a fantastic job as you can see here. The girls decorated the front of the house with Steve (the big dummy) and Tim (the little one).

Chloe is dressed as an exclamation point- it was Holly's idea.

Tomorrow is November... yikes! Rich and I are heading to Grand Junction to see Becca and I have heard the west of Colorado is simply lovely- I will be armed with my camera for sure!

Works in progress...

Yesterday I finally went to a quilt class here in town. The store is called Fabric Expressions and has a lot of really nice people there. I have been there a few times- they don't have a huge selection of notions, but their fabric selection is great and so is their book selection. Plus they are friendly and helpful, so I like it. It isn't Taylor's- but it is the closest I can get here.

The class I took was a wall hanging called "Let it Snow" from the Whimsicals book, Cabin Fever. I learned how to use/cut border fabric and I got the top put together in class. When I got home, I did the applique and embellishing- mine is a little different from the book. Now all I have to do is quilt it and get the binding on. And I have the perfect place to hang this one- over the fireplace! We haven't been able to decide what to hang there yet, and I thought yesterday that a pocket rod would do just fine- then I can change the quilts according to the season- or my whim! lol

I also have two blocks almost done for Nellie's BOM, Be Attitudes by Nancy Halvorsen. I am doing the BOM along with my friends in Brockville! I just have to do the embellishing today and quilt them. I will be making these as a series of wall hangings instead of a quilt.

We are driving to Grand Junction this weekend and so I am hoping to have the binding ready on all three projects so that I can do the hand work in the car. 

Here are the tops so far, I will post photos when I have them finished.