It happened again!

If you've been following me, you might remember this from last year. We'll we did it again!

Here's some pics of our week in Minnesota and Iowa....

Getting ready to get in the new truck for the trip to take it home. I've never ridden in a semi but I have to imagine the ride in one of those is alot more pleasant than riding in this thing. You feel every bump in the road. We had lots of stops so we could just get out of the truck and walk around. I have been having a sore neck for several weeks but on this trip we hit a bump and my whole head, neck and spine cracked enough to make the neck feel tons better! The Honey kept telling me that if the tank had been full, the ride would not have been so bumpy. Uhhhh....no thank you. I'll ride in a nice, new sewer truck but have no desire to see how one rides when it is full!

On this trip, we headed down south to the Amana Colonies in Iowa. Beautiful scenic area. I am still impressed with Iowa. I love seeing all the cornfields throughout the state. The Amana colonies are comprised of 7 little villages with some quaint old houses and stores. We went to the museum and were quite interested in how the Amanas were able to live communally for over 80 years in the area. The houses didn't have kitchens. You went to a communal kitchen to eat with your family. Women worked in the kitchens, gardens or the kindergarten. Men did the rest of the work. In some houses you lived with 2 or 3 other families. It was fascinating to hear how they lived.


We found one of the old cemeteries. When you died, you were laid in order of your death. You were not buried with your own family.

Have to show this pic. I found it funny that when we stopped to eat in Nebraska that the walls were filled with "bugs" or things crawling on the walls. Just the place you want to eat at...a place that caters to bugs! The waitress thought I liked the decor when she saw me snap a couple of pictures. The other pic showed a cat crawling down the wall to catch a fish! LOL! I love finding quirky things!

Bear Lake Parade of Homes

You will have to click on the picture to see the interesting things we found at this year's Parade of Homes at the lake. Last year's was so good with several extremely expensive and well decorated homes to look at. You never go to these parades with the thought of buying a home but we go to find new or clever ideas to put in our home. It was really helpful to go to these parades when we were building our home to get some great ideas.

This year's parade was disappointing. Most of the homes weren't professionally decorated as they are in years past. I think the builders are hurting but still wanted the show to go on. One home was decorated with the owner's trophy animals. It was a bit strange walking down a staircase with a crocodile staring at you. I didn't like it one bit.

The Honey LOVED the BYU murals at one of the homes. Guess what we are now getting on one of our cabin's walls? We are big fans of BYU football. Doesn't matter if they win or lose, we enjoy the college games. I guess our game room will now be a cougar den. It wasn't quite what I was picturing for the area but if it makes Honey happy....

I did like the colorful tile on the floor in one child's bathroom. It matched the grandchildren's bedroom. So cute and fun to have lots of twin beds all in one room when the whole family comes to the lake!

My favorite house was a craftsman style home. It had lots of crown molding and cabinets all through the house. Loved the bookcases that were lit in the living area.

We had fun being at the lake once again. Hard to believe August is almost done and summer is gone for another year.

 

Little Prince

My finger still hurts from when I sewed it last week. Looking back, I probably should have gotten stitches so the cut would have closed properly and maybe not hurt as long as it has. With it being my index finger, it has been hard to sit at the sewing machine and sew much of anything.

I put this quilt off as long as I could so my finger could heal some more but finally yesterday I knew I really had to get going on it. I am using the same quilter that did Lil' Man's quilt and I need to get this quilt over there so I don't lose my place in line. Red Rooster in Logan does a wonderful job at quilting but they don't schedule you on a calendar. They put your info on a hanger and just hang it up and every day the hanger works its way to the front of the line. I put my hanger on the rack about 5 weeks ago.

So knowing I had my hanger moving forward, I couldn't decide what kind of quilt to make for this lil' guy that is coming into the world around Thanksgiving time. I have been intrigued with the disappearing 9-patch for awhile though so decided this was the time to make one. I don't always like making 9-patches though. Seems like some days all the seams match up and then other days I will have a mess on my hands. Thank goodness working on this quilt went smoothly. I will definitely make one of these again. Maybe a crooked one next time that I saw online.

You don't need to follow a pattern. Just cut your squares to whatever size you want them to be. Start sewing your squares in a row.

Here is one of my finished 9-patches. With this being a baby quilt, it didn't take long to get them all made.

I use this alot while I am sizing my squares. So much easier than trying to clean the mat with your hand.

Now the fun part of cutting the 9-patch into 4ths. Then you rearrange your new blocks however you want.

This is how I put my blocks back together.

For the last several days I have been craving French Onion Soup. I have an abundance of onions in my garden so I pulled several in the a.m., went onto the internet to find a recipe since I have never made this before, and then let it cook all day as I sewed. Oh my!!!! It was perfect and yummy! I'm sure it was better than usual since I was using my own onions in it. I felt like a proud mamma when I took my first taste.

And here is the finished top! Sometimes pieces just go together and boy! was I happy about that! My brain does not like math and I haven't figured out how to use the quilter's calculator yet so I wasn't too sure how to make my border come together correctly. I started at 3 1/2" but then I just felt I needed to change to 3 1/4". Boy! am I glad I listened to that voice in my head. It came out perfect! Yes. I am patting myself on the back. LOL!

Now to get the backing ready and off to the quilters it goes! I can hardly wait to snuggle the Little Prince in it. It is so exciting to have 2 grandbabies coming this year!

Junior Misses Quilt

Our first granddaughter will be here in just a few short weeks! I wasn't going to show this until I had mailed it but I am slow at putting my label on the back. Guess her parents can see it here first. I hope the lil' one will get lots of use out it. It certainly was made with lots of love from gramma. I can hardly wait to meet Junior Miss!

Junior Miss

When I was a teenager, I starred in a play as Rapunzel....

I also played Cinderella in another play....

My daughter-in-law called yesterday and I guess now I am known as Mary Poppins!

A few friends of my dil gave her a baby shower Saturday night. I have been accumulating some outfits for "Junior Miss" and decided that I would mail them to my son so he could take the package over to the hostess' house so dil could open it there. I stuffed (STUFFED) all the outfits into one of those large(ha--large???) priority boxes that have the flat rate and mailed it off. Couldn't use any of the cute wrapping paper I had. I just had to make do with tissue to keep the outfits clean. When dil opened the box, she kept pulling outfit after outfit out of the box. Some of the ladies said it reminded them of Mary Poppins and her magic carpet bag. Funny. Here's the darling clothes I stuffed into that little box....

 

And look at this! Calvin Klein now uses minkee on his baby outfits! It is so soft!

 

Done!

But not without blood and tears.....

I finished my swap blocks and will get them in the mail tomorrow a.m. I was hoping to be finished alot sooner than today but life sometimes gets in the way of quilting. Imagine that. I almost didn't think I would get the blocks done since my finger got in the way of the needle today. Oh my. If you have ever sewn your finger before, you know the throbbing feeling you get after putting on the band-aid. I was just hoping that by putting on 3 band-aids, it would keep the blood from making a white ghost a rust color.

Now to start the next grandbaby's quilt. This time in blue!

 

Tea Cups part 2

I added words so now it is ready for the quilter.