Back from the tropics...

And while I'm glad to be home, I'm not glad that it's still January in Montana. Brrr....Anyway, here are some of my trip highlights.
This is the view from our room. Oooh la la. They did everything at this hotel for you, it's actually kind of awkward to be waited on so much. Cancun Palace was the place and I do highly recommend it. They even bring you drinks (I mostly drank water, mostly :) while you lay around the pool. And there's a swim up bar. We had beautiful 80 degree weather the whole time.
Here's my mom in front of the ruins at Chichen Itza. It was a really long day--12 hours, with 7 of that on a bus. Blech to busrides. Our guide at the ruins was very good with lots of cool information. If you clap near the pyramid, it makes a bird call noise--very cool.
This is me getting a smooch from Kimba, one of the adults dolphins we got to swim with (2 adults and one one-year-old) We got pushed across the pool by the dolphins by putting their noses in the balls of our feet. The baby they had, really really wanted to play with me, so much so that he got in trouble and they made me get out until he calmed down. Dolphins are much stronger and faster than I ever realized, but this was definitely the best part of my trip. I have video of me getting foot pushed, so I'm going to try to put it on Youtube. I'll let you know how that turns out.
That is me feeding fish while we snorkeled (at Snorkeling Adventure--also highly recommended)--one of the buggers bit me. We were all supposed to snorkel in a big group between two guides, but presumably because I was young, blonde, wearing a bikini, and spoke some Spanish, I got to go all over the place with a private guide as two of the guides bickered over who got to show me around. We went three different places and Juan Carlos got to show me around two, my other guide, just one.
That's Juan Carlos, one of my guides. I'm a terrible swimmer normally, but put a pair of flippers on me and I'm a demon in the water. I have really long legs so I really pack some leverage. Being a strong flipper swimmer was key as the currents in some places were too rough for some people. One woman got hung up on some coral because she couldn't swim hard enough. I like to pretend that's why I got a private tour, but I'm pretty sure good flipper skills was not the main factor. ;)
My other private guide never introduced himself, but we did track down this sting ray together, which was the highlight of my snorkeling. All in all it was really fun. I wish there was more snorkeling in Montana, or, you know, any.
So that's my vacation in a nutshell. Sprinkle in some loafing by the pool, a trip on a pirate ship (yeah, kind of a cocktail and show number) which I didn't get any good pictures of, and it was very relaxing.
But now I'm home again home again, jiggity jig, and as always, back to quilting! My dad and I are working on a plan to convert my large, executive style desk that I sew on (it's a $2000 dollar desk, but I got it for $30, it's very hard to part with because it's not only awesome, but such a bargain!) into a sewing table. We're going to add on so that my sewing machine bed will be flush with the top of the desk instead of sitting on top of it. Wish me luck in that little endeavor :)
Happy Quilting!

Machine quilting...

Hello, quilters! I haven't felt like doing a bit of piecing, but I've had quite a hankering to machine quilt. This was quite a conundrum as I mostly have large (queen or bigger) tops done and it's hard to motivate yourself to do that on your home machine when you own an APQS Millenium and George at work. So, I decided that I would finish a quilt I've been working on for my adorable nephew, Max, who will be two in April. His dad is a colonel in the army and gets shipped out in February, so I made him this quilt thinking that the camo and the wildlife (his dad is also an avid hunter) would give him something cuddly to hold when he missed his dad.
I had to put tiger minkee on the back so he could have some sort of "pelt", but also just because minkee is so snuggly. The quilting is fairly, um, shall we say, special? The batting was a bagged batting and it never relaxed properly so there are lumps and humps, but I figure it will get dragged around and loved. At least I hope so.
The other thing I worked on this weekend was a quick bias quilt inspired by something in that book that came out years ago: Quick Quilts with Quick Bias or something. The pattern in the book required tracing and quilt as you go, etc... and I'm just not much of a tracer or a quilt as you go type person, so I improvised. I am almost done quilting it, but my poor little machine really really really really needs a good cleaning and this morning it kachunked enough to say that I could quilt no more until I cleaned the gunk out of its innards. So, once that's done, I can finish quilting this. I think my feathers are coming right along, getting less mutated by the day.
I'll be on a plane on Friday so I probably won't blog, but you never know. My mom's excellent salesmanship won her an all-expense-paid trip to Cancun for two and she's taking me along. Hooray! We get put up in a pretty classy place, so I'm excited for that and some sunshine, Chichen Itza, dolphins and relaxation for five daysi even our food is included so I'll likely be 20lbs heavier when I return. I will have my computer, so hopefully you'll get some ruin pictures, maybe a dolphin if I'm lucky.
Until then, happy quilting!

Preoccupied.

Hello, dear quilters, I apologize that I have nothing to show. Life has not been conducive to quilting lately. My dad is staying with us for the entire month of January, maybe longer, but we end up sitting around shooting the s*%t rather than me getting any quilting done. On top of that, my poor pooch hasn't been doing well since we got back. She's been acting very strange and we found out Tuesday that she's got an ear infection, so we're hoping that's all there is to it, but we're waiting for her medicine to work since they couldn't find anything else wrong. I also finally broke down and bought myself a rowing machine. I rowed in college and really liked it, but since we moved away from North Carolina, I haven't been rowing. Anyway, I finally realized that despite all my good intentions, I just can't seem to get myself outdoors to exercise in the winter. So now I'm finally getting my exercise which means less quilting, but more energy, so that's good. Since last Saturday, I'm up to 36,101 meters or about 23 miles. Woohoo!
And finally, and I'm sure you'll all feel very bad for me about this, my mom won a trip to Cancun through her business and poor me, she asked if I wanted to go. Schucks, Cancun or Montana in January? I think we know the answer to that. So she and I leave next Friday for six days in hopefully sunny, warm, beautiful Cancun, all expenses paid. Woohoo! Anyway, so I've been scrambling around trying to get ready to go. Yes, you can send sympathy cards :)
Hopefully I'll get something fun done this weekend.
Happy quilting!

New block of the month

Hello, quilters, just a quick post today, but I wanted to show the new block of the month we'll be doing this year. It will be $6/month if you finish your previous month's block, and $11 if you don't. We will have two colorways--batiks in the colors below and teal, brown, and cream. It's made by Southwind Designs and she has very good instructions as I've made a number of her table runners and one full sized quilt from her recent book (Peeled Back Patchwork--which I will put online tomorrow as it's apparently not online).
Anyway, the border and setting are part of the deal, so if you're interested, please call and sign up so we now how many patterns to order and what color kit to make for you (406.932.6078)...It starts February 14th and you can come either at 9:00am or noon.
Happy quilting!

Final 2008 Saturday Sampler

Here at LTQ we have a 2nd Saturday Block of the Month. This year we did a true sampler with applique, paper-piecing, and regular piecing. January is the final block (the next year starts in February, for anyone who's interested) and people asked me to come up with a setting pattern. I came up with the one in progress below for a king size, or deep queen, but I also have a downsized version that makes a more regular queen size. I wanted this to have good spaces for me to quilt some more intricate stuff (more practice for me!) and the setting blocks were perfect for that. There's also a nice secondary design. This is the batik one, but we also did one in blues, yellows, and whites (which you can sort of see off to the side).
As you can see, it outgrew out 72" design wall. Finished with borders it will end up being about 115" square. Mmmmm....batiks...
We have our first in store Scrap Therapy class tomorrow and it's bound to be a party with the number I think I have showing up.
It's also dear husband's birthday today, so we're going to celebrate tonight.
Happy quilting!

Green halos...

I'm home in Montana and it's so good to be back where there are discrete towns and mountains. Can't say I'm excited to be back in the unforgiving Big Timber wind (The Wind, as I think of it, as it's vicious enough to deserve proper noun status). All in all though it's great to be home even though we had a very nice trip, minus the first day of travel (our flights home were thankfully and mercifully very uneventful). Our cats have been exceptionally desperate for love, and leftover cereal milk (my cat Medea thinks this is a right, not a privilege).
Upon returning to home sweet home, I got all my blocks finished for the "Not your Grandmother's Log Cabin" that I worked on in New Jersey. I'm really pleased with how it's coming out, though I have yet to do setting blocks and the fantastic pieced border. I'm very glad I noted which piece went where as I was cutting and scheming though, or I would have confused myself. I meant for this to be a pink/orange/coral/yellow quilt, but surprisingly, it somehow ended up with a lot of lime green. Huh. I'll be.
My favorite part is the unexpected dark green halo I ended up with around the center medallion. My assistant is in the forground (I do wish that she could hold an iron in those drooly jowls)...So, I'm very close to being done, but I have bigger fish to fry this week, as our last 2008 (yes, I know it's 2009) Saturday Sampler meets Saturday and I'm trying to get the sampler blocks all put together with a pattern I wrote...or am writing as the case may be :) No one ever accused me of planning ahead.
Happy quilting!