Flowers & Phones

Dispite this being a very dry Spring & Summer, my flowers have continued to blossom. 
I just love shasta dasies.  They are short this year as they usually go up to my kitchen window.

This is one of the three patches I have.

The coneflower is huge!!  I have never seen it this tall, and with so many blooms. 

The iris' and daffodils have finally dried up and are ready for winter.


On my corner of the planet I have very little cell service.  I can text and on occasion take a call.  We have asked why there is not a cell tower nearby and the response we always get is, "You are in a military fly zone."  Really?  Well, I guess we really are!

Six of these helicopters flew over yesterday.  This past month the airspace around my corner of the planet has been busy.  Thank heavens I stll have a land line!

I Did It!!

Earlier this morning I ran, yes ran, my first 5K.  I have done 5K runs before, but have walked for most of them.  This is the first ever running 5K.  I did have to walk up one large & one small hill, but the third one I rocked.  I finished 46th out of 51 runners and 3rd out of 4 in my age group.  OK, I am not a track star, but I accomplished something today I have never done before and I am very proud myself.  Jeff did great too!  He finished 3rd in the 50 - 59 age category.  He rocks!
I decided I deserved 2 stars on my fitness calender for this accomplishment.

They're Back.....More Fun!

Thursday is quilt/sew day at Miss Carol's Quilts.  Everyone from the Saturday class arrived to finish working on their Zipppy Zippy Zig Zag quilt and the fun and laughter continued.  I offer help when needed on Thursday because that is the day I get to do some piecing.  I have several projects I am working on that need to be done in time for the next newsletter. 

Here is one project I was working on yesterday.  It is a Project Linus pattern.  I made it larger and used directional fabric.  It caused me some anguish and in the end I had to make the blocks smaller to get all I needed.  I still like it, but I hope some child will LOVE it.

Here is a block close up.

I still have to  rearrange the blocks so all the huts aren't on one side of the quilt. 


Here are the ladies busy working on trimming their quilts and making the scrappy borders.

Gladys is trimming her quilt, Gina is working on her scrappy border

Momma Barb is still working on piecing the rows together.

She was being careful not to put the wrong zig in a zag spot!

Barb is getting frustrated with her quilt but keeps sewing along.

Barb informed me her quilt will be hanging on the flannel in my studio until August. 

Of course, Gus is always with us.  He loves every person who comes through the door.  He is especially fond of Momma Barb because she kennels him for us when we go on trips.  As you can see he loves being in the air conditioned studio.

When there are more than two people in the studio, he just stays out of the way.  But if there are just two, he will lay beside your foot pedal.  He just has to be close to someone.  He is such a good friend!

Another student, Kay is working on her version of this same quilt. 

Kay used fabric from here stash.  I just love the colors!  I just want to cuddle under this one!  I am so surprised how beautiful your quilts can be by using the fabrics already on hand.

Barb is working on another quilt for her soon to be born granddaughter.

Here are the blocks & colorway.  Yes, she knows one of the pinwheels is spinning the wrong way :)

We had another fun day at the studio.  I can hardly wait until next week!! 

Fun at Miss Carol's

My business is Miss Carol's Quilts.  I have been machine quilting for over 12 years and I have returned to giving classes in the studio.  I became "Miss Carol" a long time ago while chaperoning a school trip with my daughter. My husband is known as "Mr. Jeff."

This past Saturday I held a Zippy Zippy Zig Zag class in the studio. 

I liked this pattern from crazy mom quilts blog, but after I added the three borders, I loved it.

Busy piecers

Gladys from http://www.gladysgab.blogspot.com/

Two of the quilters (The Barb's) wanted their zig zags to be vertical.  This required me to really use my brain.

It wasn't until we took the picture that Barb realized one block was turned the wrong way.  Problem solved!

The other two quilter's (my favorites) followed the pattern which in turns make my job easier.

Isn't it amazing how the same pattern looks so different depending on your choice of fabrics?  I love every combination chosen. 
I had a flannel backed tablecloth for each quilter so they could roll it up as laid out and take it home to finish. 

I love teaching this wonderful group of ladies!!  We have so much fun and laugh a lot!









One Quilt From Last Week

This was the only quilt I remembered to photograph last week.  This quilt is a Grandmother's Flower Garden, all hand pieced.  I think it was made by the grandmother of the client.
My instructions were to square it up and quilt in the design I thought would look best.  When I laid this quilt out, there was one whole sections that didn't have the blocks finished and a lot of the quilt had to be cut off. 
Here is it on the machine.

I quilted it the basic meander pattern using ivory thread.

The fabric in the 5 petal row of this block was some sort of laminate.  Very interesting.

OK, so now what so I do with the large piece I cut off?  I thought if I just sent it back, it would be stored away until the next generation found it and wondered what it was.  I thought of the perfect solution. 

There was leftover backing fabric as well as batting so I made it into a bed/table runner! 

This is my favorite block of the whole quilt.  Priceless!

I'll try to remember to take more photos this week!



Where Shall I Begin?

Oh!  Let's start with pictures of my (Jeff's) garden.  We have been so busy with work schedules that our garden has suffered.  Also we have not had any rain in weeks and quite a few HOT days.  I cannot complain about the weather, I just put my air conditioners in my studio on Friday of this past week.  I just love fresh air blowing through my studio.  I have yet to install them in the house.  Wide open windows for me!

Here is the kale.  Never planted it before, never eaten it before either.  I cut a good amount today and we'll have it for dinner tomorrow.

The broccoli again this year is very leafy.  There are now heads forming among all those leaves.  I should have one or two by the end of the week.

My perennial flower garden is growing nicely.  I forget the name of this plant, but I always enjoy the pink spikes it produces each year. 

It was looking pretty sad today because I had not watered it so I gave it a healthy drink!  I could not believe how the ground around this plant had cracked.  It looked like the desert floor.  We need rain!

This boot belonged to my late Father-in-law, Dave.  

Jeff thought it would be funny to put one of his old socks in the toe which he cut too far down to plant a plant in.  This flower garden is beside my swing and both Dad & I enjoyed sitting on it.  Of course, I would want to s-w-i-n-g and he would want to sway!  Happy Father's Day!  I miss you!

My front flower garden has daffodils, iris', poppies, daylilies and....

coneflowers.  This is one of the first ones to start blooming.  As you can see, it hardly looks like a cone!  this plant is loaded with blooms and I'll post another picture later.

We love flying our American Flag all year long. 

We get hit with a lot of weather and wind, and a flag only lasts about a year. 

Here is our new flag for this year.  We try to put the new one up before Memorial Day! 
The grass looks so green there!  If I took that same picture tomorrow, you would be amazed how brown everything is. 
This is literally my little corner of the world!

My First Star

 I am on a journey to get healthier and more fit.  My wonderful daughter, Amanda, is helping me on this journey.  For the past 6 weeks, I have redefined my eating by doing one small step at a time.  Amazing results.

This next challenge is to get exercise incorporated into my daily routine.  Amanda made me a calendar for the next 7 weeks (at which time she'll be home) increasing the exercise routine a little each week.  Thursday's exercise was to Run/Walk for 30 minutes with my heart rate in my target zone.  Mission accomplished.

I use these nice BIG stars on days I am supposed to exercise and smaller stars on the days I just get out and walk or ride my bike.  I warmed up for 5 minutes, jogged for 13, walked for 7, jogged for 6, walked for 4 and then a 5 minute cool down.  Yay me!  I'm all about the stars!!

Mornings!

Now that Spring has arrived, we (Jeff & I) love to have our meals on the breezeway.  We have 2 wild bird feeders, 2 finch feeders and a bird bath.  We never lack for entertainment.

For the longest time only one gold finch came to the feeder.

I guess it was family bath day.  I hope to capture a picture of one actually splashing around. 

All of this activity is set up around my flower bed.  This Columbine was just loaded with blooms this year!

Mrs. DillyDally, this one's for you!

I love Spring!  I am always amazed how everything comes back to life after the winter months. However, Winter is still my favorite season!