Fall challenge

My local quilt guild sponsered a fall challenge with the background leaf print. It made me think squirrel, so I made a squirrel. It's about 21" X 26".
An update-This quilt was given to my niece, Katrina. I'm glad that it found a good home.

Purple challenge done

I finished this quilt while at a quilt guild retreat this weekend. I named it "A good vintage" & it's 24" X 30" This was made for an online challenge. A color was drawn at random for each person & we were to make a quilt featuring that color. I got purple-my favorite color. I'm especially pleased with the gold rickrack that peeks from the binding. I will probably do that again on another quilt. I enjoyed this so much,that I may decide to do a series of bouquet quilts each a different color-red, orange,white, yellow, blue. Below is a detail, showing the wine glass & the rickrack in the binding.

Some of our furniture is too small

Al says that we need a bigger love seat because he gets a kink in his neck.
This chair, however, is big enough for two with room to spare.

cook top update

Remember my Jenn Air electric cook top that flamed out on me 2.5 weeks ago? Today I got a phone call from Sears. They're going to give me store credit towards the cooktop of my choice for the full amount that I paid for it almost 2 years ago. $649.99. Charlie wants to upgrade anyway & has offered to pay the difference. Sears says that that model was discontinued. (I wonder if it was due to flammability? Yes, I do believe that I'll shop at Sears again.

3 cat night

I was feeling nauseated last night. It didn't help, but I had 3 nurses. They even followed me into the bathroom & Al & Jesus watched while I groaned & Petey rubbed against my legs. Charlie snuck in this morning & took a picture. Clockwise from under my arm-Petey, Jesus & Al.

I want to grow up & be a newspaper photographer like my cousin, Ginger

Only, I'm already grown up & I could never be that good, but I did get a photo in the local newspaper. It's just a small town weekly & I didn't get paid, but I'm still proud of it. I took the picture on Monday.
Headline:
Near Disaster




















Farwell-It appears as though there was a terrible collision. Becky Wall & Charlie Andrews had a mishap when their first load of pumpkins hit a deer. Actually it is an archery target. The wagon spilled it's contents over the yard. Please drive carefully this season. Photo by Becky Wall


This is what it looked like on Tuesday afternoon after we got about an inch of very wet snow. The snow has melted already:

quilts in progress

I'm almost finished my fall challenge quilt for the quilt guild & I'm about 1/2 way through my purple challenge for the fiber pirates, but today, Charlie requested a spider in a web. I don't usually do Halloween decorations, but I thought that a cobweb would be fun & we both needed something to cheer us up after learning that a good friend was killed in an automobile accident over the weekend, so...












Those white things hanging out of his mouth that look like 2 ciggarettes were supposed to be fangs.

A scare in the kitchen

My less than 2 year old Jenn Air electric cooktop blew up tonight. A couple of days ago, I noticed that the light that tells you that a burner is on was lit with both burners & the grill off. I didn't think too much about it. Tonight, the back burner wouldn't get hot, so I turned it off, pulled the burner & plugged it back in. I tried to turn it on again & KERPOW- loud bang & green flames came out around the control knobs!!! Not remembering what to do for an electrical fire (except not water), I blew them out. It was probably just insulation burning. Stinks!!! Of course Charlie accused me of spraying cleaner in the works when I removed the knobs for cleaning. I know better than that! I spray the sponge & squeeze it almost dry. I called Sears. The parts are still under warrantee, but not labor. The first date that I could get for the guy to come out & look at it is 10-21. Tonight we ate oven fried chicken & nuked veggies. Tomorrow, I'll get out the old electric wok, crock pot & electric frying pan...Or maybe we'll just eat subs for a week.

Baggo sCraps

I finished my baggo sCraps challenge tonight. The first picture is the contents of the bag that I received & the second picture is the completed quilt. It measures approximately 21 X 28 "
Now I get to find out who to send it to.

Don't try this at home

Do not dry hot peppers in the microwave. We dry our herbs in the microwave-place on paper towel, zap 2 min, open door for 10 min, stir & repeat. Works great. Today, Charlie decided to dry a plateful of hot peppers that way-he first removed the stem & cut them in half & then started the drying process. The first cycle wasn't too bad-a couple of sneezes & a cough or 2, but the second time through was really rough. We both kept coughing & blowing our noses. My bronchial tubes still hurt. I think that it's back to air drying for the hot peppers. Oh, by the way, if you decide to grind up a batch of hot peppers, it's OK to use the food processor, but cover the whole bowl with a wet towel first. (We learned that one several years ago.)

Beadwork with Ultrasuede

I love working with Ultrasuede. This is the nametag that I wear at my local quilt guild meetings. I appliqued the trees, sewed on the Zuni bear bead & added the brown beads. Then I glued the grey Ultrasuede to a piece of plastic that was about 1/4" smaller than the grey, cut 2 holes in the green for the ends of the pin backing to stick through & glued the green Ultrasuede to the back. The purpose of the glue was only to hold everything in place while I did the backstitch beading with the green beads. When the green beading was done, I trimmed the 2 ultrasuedes to leave a slight border. (Even a Zuni bear has to s**t somewhere.)

son of baggo

One of the things that I've been working on lately, is a challenge from an online fiber art group. We call it the Son of Baggo exchange.
Several of us filled a quart sized bag with an assortment of fabrics & embellishments which we sent to Deidre. She sent one back to each participant. We did not know whose bag we received. We were to make a small quilt using mostly what was in the bag. Here's what I received:













This is the piece that I started first. I got to the tiger striped fabric, got stuck & decided that I didn't like it, so I put it aside & started a second one. As I was working on the second one, I was inspired to frame it in black chintz. & add the eye & feathers. I named it "I tawt I taw a puddy tat".




















This is the second one that I started. I named it "bouquet #3" Both pieces are about 8" X 11" They were really fun to do. I've started on a larger Baggo from another exchange that started with gallon sized bags. It'll probably be about 33" square, but that's all I'm telling for now.

My brother the friend of hummingbirds

I haven't posted in a while, so I'm going to do a couple tonight. My parents & older brother visited for a few days this week.
It is the duty of a younger sister to help her brother to keep a dignified appearance, so... when he said that he wanted to see the hummingbirds at a closer distance, I made him a special crown.
Doesn't he look "special"? Bobby believes that birds are really smart, so he was reading to them.

Charlie & Reba

Kettle Creek music festival last weekend. Here's Charlie with a Reba Mcentire impersonator. He does love those redheads!

The sweatshirt jacket is done!

I like the jacket, but will probably not make another sweatshirt jacket. I think that, for me, a regular pattern works better. I don't like using a knit as a foundation for wovens.

sunset

Sunsets seem more spectacular when observed in an East to West valley.

beeees

I was having so much fun with bee-photography, Charlie decided to try it.

bees & more flowers

One more lily. This one is much later than the others. I've been stalking bees with my camera.

Fishing again

We went fishing yesterday & finally, it was my day at the fishing hole. We've had a few days when Charlie caught most or all of the fish & some days when it was pretty equal. This time I caught them all. I caught 2 small blue gills which we brought home & put in the fountain, 2 large blue gills which we ate for breakfast this morning, & this 2.2 pound Largemouth Bass. Poor Charlie got a few nibbles, but didn't hook anything. Tonight, I stuffed the Bass & baked it.

Orca alert

My sister, Jane, asked me if that was an orange whale in my profile picture. No, that's just Al, the 18 pound diabetic. Here's a picture of Jesus. Yesterday's official Veterinarian office weight was 21 pounds.

More garden stuff

We had enough ripe tomatoes to make our first salsa of the year today-yummmmm!-just hot enough to loosen the sinuses & enough garlic to maybe keep the biting flies away when we go fishing tomorrow. Maybe I'll eat some more for breakfast as a precaution. In 2-3 days, if we have any salsa left, there will probably be enough additional ripe tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce.


More garden pictures. Charlie walking up the front walk. Look at my Portulaca! I'm going to have to cut back the Batchelor Buttons. They're shading my hot peppers.















This poppy picture reminds me of Georgia O'Keefe. It would be fun to do a little quilt from this picture.












This is a picture of our "self-picking" Burpee Delicious tomato plant. The tomatoes are clustered so close together that, as they grow, they are pushing tomatoes off the vine. We've picked a few ripe ones & they're very meaty. I think that I'm going to want to grow them again next year.

Shirley & Ollie's party

Saturday was another party. At Shirley & Ollie's this time. Good food, good company-great time.

The Acey Deucey table was busy. Charlie even persuaded me to play. Thanks for all the quarters, guys.

Butterfly-fritillary

Butterflies are difficult subjects to photograph live, but I got lucky this time. I was able to identify it as a Fritillary, but I'm not sure which one.

Fishing again

We went fishing again today-no trout, but some yellow perch, a couple of sunfish, a sucker & a smallmouth bass. I tried to take a picture of this Pumpkinseed (sunfish), but the camera doesn't capture the iridescent blue. I think that Pumpkinseeds are the most beautiful freshwater fish.

How I spent my birthday

No pictures this time, just a report of my birthday, yesterday. It was my kind of day. In the morning, we went to the reservoir to go fishing. The first spot that we tried only produced 1 little Punkinseed-not even big enough to filet for the kitties. We moved to our other favorite fishing spot & were rewarded with 4 nice rainbow trout & a couple of Fall Fish for the kitties.

For lunch, we went to Deb's Place. She's getting ready to move to a larger restaurant & was looking at restaurant supply catalogs. I looked at a couple of them-WOW they're expensive! I wonder how restaurants up here make any money.

We then went to the cabin, where I spent some time reading & cuddling with Shadow, the cabin kitty. I also found some boxes of cookbooks that I had forgotten were in a storage area. I only brought 1 home because I need an additional bookcase in the kitchen & I haven't been able to find exactly what I want, yet.

Charlie fixed a fantastic dinner for me. He cooked a small leg of lamb with oven roasted carrots, celery, scallions, potato, & red pepper. He served it in the dining room with all the best china, crystal & silver Egervin Bull's Blood wine complimented the meal beautifully. For dessert we had
Edy's double chocolate fat free sugar free ice cream with Gran Marnier splashed over it-mmmmm.

Back & side gardens

Charlie's lope garden. There might be some cukes in there , too, but I don't think they came up. This started out as the remainder of the pile of mushroom soil & topsoil that never made it up the hill to the raised bed. He found a package of cantaloupe seeds in the Walmart parking lot, surrounded the pile of dirt with bricks 7 planted. If all the cantaloupe & tomato flowers make fruit, I;m going to have to open a produce stand.





















This is the side garden with 3 Burpee Delicious tomato plants, 6 Jet Stars,spinach, more hot peppers & assorted flowers.















These are our tomatoes around the patio. They are assorted varieties & don't get sun until about 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning.











Last, but not least, these are the woodshed tomato gardens. I got a bit carried away this year & we have about 40 tomato plants in a dozen or so varieties. Do you think that will be enough for both of us?