Friday-the best day of the weekend!

Oh, the anticipation of a 3 day weekend and the start of summer!  We started our weekend with another basement project.  Michael installed the 2 mini blinds in the windows!  Our daughter is moving home for 3 weeks and will be in the basement.  The longest part of the installation was shortening the length of the blinds!!!  They are in and look fabulous!

Working Wednesday

Did a bit of sewing on the 2nd camping quilt tonight.

Tuesday again.

Helped Micaela do some moving and spent a little time working on a miniature basket.  Interesting because I don't have a preconcieved notion as to how these will turn out so it is fun to see them develop.  This one is 2 inches across and 1 1/2 inch high so far.  It is made out of hemp and the beads are wooden.

WOW Quilt Quild

I attended a quilt quild meeting tonight as a guest of one of the church quilters.  What a talented group of women!  We had a great speaker, lots of show and tell, some door prizes and plans for the October quilt show.  They meet in Medina once a month.  I will have to ponder if I want to join or not.  Oh, WOW stands for Women of the West (suburbs that is).

No rain today, thank goodness.

Rainy Sunday

We have ended up with 3 inches of rain in 2 days.  Tornado touched down in our town and we had no damage.   Sirens went off twice for us.   Many others were not so lucky.  Finished a quilt top for church and am working on hemming Micaela's skirt.  Did some wash, cut Michaels hair and a bit of cleaning in the laundryroom.

Rainy Saturday

Today Michael was determined to get the 8 fence post dug.  Pouring rain.  He had help to come and use the gas powered mower too.  We ended up getting 1 1/2 inches of rain.  By dinner all were dug and set into the ground.  It was wet and soggy and muddy work.

Hibbing Graduation

Our son Daniel went through graduation from Hibbing Community College yesterday.  Besides the happy event of graduation we did a quick tour of the high school.

Ate at Zimmys (a Bob Dylan hangout),

It was a great day.

Archivers Tuesday

Met my craft group at Archivers today and actually completed 5 pages of my new (huge) project.  This one has been long overdue in getting started and will be a JOY when completed.  Must be kept under wraps for now.  Here is a photo of 2 of my friends at Archivers.  Verna and Roxanne.

Carol and Lois were busy using the die cutters.

This evening I did some more sewing and ironing on the 3" strip quilt.  It is beginning to look like a quilt!

Sewing another kind of strip quilt

Started another church quilt.  I am using 3 inch strips that I have cut and sewed end to end.  Then just sewing them together.  I had this suggestion from a friend and thought I would give it a try.  I think it will be interesting.  Here it is so far and not ironed.

Another busy Sunday.

Most relaxing part of today was church this morning!  Clear, sunny, albeit cool day.  A change from many cloudy, rainy, hail and tornado days.  Micaela was over today and she helped up remove the last 2 sections of the fence that we are working on this spring.  Friday evening we removed 2 sections with Carls help.  Here is a photo of the "no fence" section of the yard (yes that is my recycle yard waste bin- I was too tired to move it!).

Micaela helped me put in this cute bamboo piece of fencing for decoration.

We cut the 3 legs shorter and attached it to 2 steel stakes for added support.

It used to be my old headboard!

I don't think I showed you the wonderful cutting/quilting table that Carl made for me and brought over on Friday evening.  It is amazing!

It is currently in the garage as now I am not sure if it will fit through my backdoor!  That is the only way to get it into the basement where my studio is.  Might have to take the backdoor off its hinges....This will be my cutting table!  Both sides come up and there are 2 leg supports for each!  It is perfect!!!

I sewed together a bunch of 3" strips together tonight.

Quilting Bee

The quilting group at church had our annual spring Quilting Bee.  It is open to anyone that wants to help tie our mission quilts.   We had 6 at our quilting frame working at tying.

We met from 9:00 am until 3:30 today and completed tying 76 quilts.  We had a nice break for lunch which is provided by all of us in the quilting group in addition to having a drawing for door prizes!

The quilts are on display in the sanctuary tomorrow and will be packed up and delivered on Monday.

It was a fun but tiring day!

Spring is here.

Went to the Textile Center with Micaela today.  They had an exhibit entitled Re-Tread Threads.  It was all fiber art from recycled materials.  It was an interesting show.  We browsed the quilts and baskets on display throughout the building and looked at the hand made items in the gift shop.





 The day was so warm.  By evening it got to 84 degrees!  About 7:00 we noticed how dark it was becoming and heard some thunder rumbles.  Looked outside and the tone was a green/yellow.  Turned on the radio and then heard the tornado sirens.  Headed to the basement.  Found that transistor radio and listened.  Ran upstairs when we heard the hail.

A couple of peeks at the clouds...

All is quiet now.  Will have to check out damage to the yard and cars in the morning.

Wew!

Mother's Day

What a wonderful day!  Sunshine to wake up to then Micaela surprises me to join us at church!  Brunch with my Mom and Dad and sister and brother-in-law from Duluth.  Then it started to rain- a beautiful soft rain.  An afternoon call from Daniel. Look at the Scottie dog Micaela made and gave me for Mother's Day. It is perfect with the Mary Engelbreit kitchen theme!

Also GOT THE ZIPPER IN ON THE SKIRT!!!

Not a creative week.

I ended up working 4 days this week so that left a lot less time for being creative.  I think I am in a slump.  That doesn't happen too often for me.  Anyway, today Michael and I started our big May project.  Two winters ago we had straight line winds and it broke all of the fence posts of our 6' privacy fence across the longest part of our backyard.  Our goal in May is to repair/replace  1/2 of it.  Today we started by disassembling 4 sections of the fence.  I should have taken a "before" picture but oh, well.  Here is the "after" photo of the fence that is gone.  It is amazing how much privacy it provides from the neighbors.  You can see the "shed" that our neighbors built last year- it is quite large.  Our shed is behind all of the fence boards standing up leaning against it.  Behind the lavendar fence is an out-of-control vegetable (raspberry) garden with 2 compost bins in it as well as some bricks to reuse and a small tree that I keep pruning back to keep it small.

When we were done for the day Pete joined us on the deck for a little relaxation.

Assembling quilts

Tonight I did some figuring on a couple of the quilt tops that I had put together.  I think that I can get by without seaming the backing.  I didn't realize that these quilts were less than 43 inches wide.  I will have to do better on upcoming sizes.  I have 2 ready to be pinned together: front, back and batting.

Here is a new place for Pete to get comfortable!

The Lane cedar chest!

First Camping of the Year!.

Left after work on Friday and got to Wild River State Park and set up by 8:00.   Then it started to rain.  It rained all night and all Saturday until about 3:00 pm.  Wind came up and it was cold.  Awoke to 33 degrees Sunday morning and on and off sleet.  Stayed snug and warm in the trailer.

A couple of indoor shots.

Took a walk.

A tiny sign of spring.

I finished my "Dream Big" book too.