Photography Challenge - Q is for.......

Here is this week's alphabet photography challenge - Q is for......  I can't believe this challenge that Benita came up with is almost over - only 9 more weeks left.

Queens

Quacker - this is a little quacker for the bathtub - I get one every year when I buy the Twin Quack package for the Duck Race down the Rogue River that was this past Saturday. This is a benefit for the community - each year they pick 3 charities. There were almost 10,000 ducks bought this year at $10 each.....and once again I won nothing.......

....and here's a giant Quacker, one of many set up around town enticing everyone to buy ducks.

Quail - yeah, it's a fake one, our last property had quails, this one doesn't

Qwerty (thanks to Nadine for this idea)

Quote - friend Kathy G made this for me one year for Christmas - it had cookies too.

Quilt - crazy quilt to be exact. Sam's maternal grandmother, Grandma Wells, made this quilt. It's hand-stitched and made out of old shirts and pants. I display this quilt on a black quilt rack in our entry way - it's very fragile so special care is taken with it. I have another crazy quilt she made but that one was newer brighter colors and stitched using a machine......newer as in probably still well over 60 years old.

Quilt close-up - the quilt is dated with hand embroidery - 1928. Those are Sam's Mom's initials - Daisy. There are initials for 5 others on the quilt - I'm betting Sam doesn't know who they all belong to but I think it's time to figure that out and put a label on the back of the quilt. I think one is his Uncle Leslie and Uncle Ronnie - not sure about the others. Other than Daisy I never met any of her other siblings and Sam's grandparents were long gone before we met.



 

Whoo Hoo

Fire season is officially over at 12:01 tonight.  We had a decent amount of rain this past few days - I predicted the major rain and end to fire season by the end of the month, nice to have it end a bit early. It's been a long fire season this year......not only here but all over the west.  That is all I have to say today..........

It's done...finally....well, close to being done......

I've finally finished piecing the quilt top and backing. I still need to interview long arm quilters in the area to find one to do the actual quilting for me - I know my limits with my machine and patience. I can't believe how much longer it took than I estimated. I was thinking this is an easy design, which it was, and I'd just zip it out like one of Eleanor Burns Quilt in a Day patterns........well, didn't quite happen that way.  Speaking of Eleanor Burns - the next 2 quilts, twin size, will be using one of her patterns.......but those won't get started until sometime this winter......maybe.......it's time to get back to weaving!

Here is the top of the quilt on our bed here - this quilt will be residing at the sea glass inspired beach cottage once finished

A close-up of the top - when I get the quilt back from the long arm quilter I'll have to put a binding on it but that's not a big deal. Depending on the quilter's schedule it could take a while to get the quilting done but since I waited 3 years to piece it, a little longer won't matter.

And here is the backing - I could have used a solid wide fabric for the backing and been done with it but I decided to use the 3 extra blocks I made and to use up all the leftover fabrics from the front. It was all randomly done, each fabric in varied sizes that I had leftover. I am so glad to be finished with this project so I can take down the cutting table I've been working on and actually have more than 2 ft of floor space to walk in the sewing room. I'm pretty tired of dealing with the huge amount of fabric when sewing the front and back together, pretty heavy and unruly to deal with. I was ready to be done with this project a few weeks ago....but I will enjoy sleeping under for years to come......

Photography Challenge - 'P' is for.........

It's that time of the week again for the photography challenge. I have a lot of P's....so forgive me next week when I don't have many Q's.

Shirley's Pincushion on her lace pillow - love all those glass headed pins

Pinecone

Peaches & Plums

Poison Oak - easy to see this time of year when it turns red

Pomegranate Juice - ok what do I do with this bottle of juice now that I bought it???

Sleeping Porcupine

Kathy's Purple Pansy drop spindle at spinning yesterday

Pat's Pocket Wheel with Purple wool batts she's spinning (yes the wool is really purple)

Pumpkin Streusel Cake I brought to spinning yesterday. Here's the link to the recipe

Pet Bailey (yup, he got in the photography challenge again) - we went to  Bandon this past weekend for the
Cranberry Festival. Bailey was waiting for the Parade to start. I've got a number of Parade Pix

Another Pet waiting for the Parade to start

And another Pet waiting for the Parade to start-
 there was a sister to this one but she was off laying several feet away and I could never get a good picture of her.

What's this - a Pet in the Parade!!! (in the passenger seat)

Another Pet in the Parade

And yes, that's another Pet in the Parade (passenger seat)
 this one is a golden and was staring straight at Bailey - they recognize their own

And these Pets in the Parade always fascinate Bailey - he loves the horses

And this Pet Pony in the Parade wanted to visit Bailey (see Bailey's nose in the lower left hand corner of the photo? It's too bad the owner guided this mini back into the center of the street because I think she and Bailey wanted to visit for a while
 

Oh yes, there were tons of floats, bands, school groups, and many more in the parade but pets on parade were the only ones I was interested in.

WIP

In the evenings I'm working on Christmas gifts - can't show them all in case the recipients read my blog.....although very few family members ever look at it. This is as much of a picture that will show here until after the holidays.

It rained hard here yesterday morning - not enough to end fire season but it did bring the fire level down from 'extreme' to 'high'.....any little bit helps. More rain is coming in late Friday and it sounds like we may get rain for several days.....maybe the end of fire season???  I hope so.

Photography challenge pictures to come as soon as I edit them........

Photography Challenge - O is for.......

Here we are again, another week, another letter - this week is 'O'.  Many thanks to Benita for coming up with this challenge.

Orange

Onion - Walla Walla to be exact

Oregano

Orchid - this is the biggest one in my kitchen window and the weight of it toppled it the other day
Need to get a bigger pot, orchid mix and repot it.....it's being held up by a cast iron pot right now.

Oak Tree - this is our only beautiful oak tree, the others are all scrub oaks that are pretty ugly

On/Off

Oregon Islands - this is the sign for them at Coquille Point in Bandon
What, you can't see the islands???  they're right behind the sign - hah! 

Ocean in Bandon, Oregon - and look some Oregon Islands!

Oink

Odin who has cancer but doesn't know it, he's pretty clueless as far as his illness goes........around 2 years ago he had a leg amputated due to the cancer, he's been undergoing chemo off and on since and he's still going strong - "sick, who me???"  I confess - I didn't take this photo, friend and Odin's Mom Patricia took it and sent it to me......Odin had been getting a little fed up with seeing Bailey's photo all the time......look for Odin's brother coming soon............

In other news - the smoke is horrendous today, hanging low at the house. In addition to burn-outs being conducted on the interior of the Big Windy Fire there is a spot fire outside the fire line in a steep canyon - it's being fought with copters and an air tanker. I sure hope they get it under control and we aren't in for round 2 with that fire. The fall rains can't come soon enough.

Hump Day

I hate commercials, I especially hate Geico commercials, but I love this one.....and I think Sam loves it even more than me. We DVR so much we rarely see commercials but now if Sam see this one as he's fast forwarding thru them he stops so we can watch it. Just had to share in case there's anyone out there that hasn't seen it.........and it is hump day.

More handspun.......

The other evening I plied this handspun, got it washed and blocked yesterday. It's from Ashland Bay roving - Merino in the Baltic colorway,....I thought it would look nice as a shawl with jeans.  Small glitch - I only have 801 yards and the shawl I was thinking of knitting takes more than that. I could always spin more after I place my next Ashland Bay order as I'm out of this color right now.......or I could look at other shawl patterns which is probably what I'll do. But first I'm working on some small holiday gifts that I won't be able to show until after the holidays.

 

This is looking out the window behind me as I sit at the computer - what looks like a fog bank is really smoke, it un-nerves me seeing it but I'm assuming the burn-outs on the Big Windy Fire are under control and it's nothing to worry about. I sure will sleep better after the rainy season starts.  Countdown to rain - 20 days........beginning to worry that is wishful thinking......

Spindle Spun Yarn

Boy, I can really tell this spindle spun handspun was spun over a long period of time. Look at the difference I my spinning/plying - yikes. Other than the difference in spinning look at the color - I really should have paid more attention to the color variations in the pin-drafted roving, if I had I would have mixed the colors better. This roving was something I picked up at BelTine Farms booth last year at OFFF, 60% Merino/40% Bamboo. I have 200 yards in the top skein, 92 yards in the bottom skein. Not my best spinning effort but it was portable and worked for a number of demonstrations. Knit up it will look just fine......once I figure out what it will become......it will sit and marinate on the shelf for a bit.

Had a start heart attack this afternoon on my way home from the post office - looking in the direction, but past our house, there are huge plumes of smoke. The heart started beating fast and all I was thinking was "oh no, where is that fire". Thank goodness the forest service put an update on the blog today saying they would be burning out some of the west side of the Big Windy Fire when they can keep it under control and have lots of support remaining on the fire - I'm keeping my fingers crossed that what I saw is under control. The blog did state there would be a lot of smoke. We're back to temps in the upper 90's, possibly reaching 100 and it's windy - perfect fire conditions - yikes.

New Toy

I got a new toy yesterday - a new Bernina Serger that I actually bought a couple weeks ago during a sale but it was out of stock - it came in on Thursday, I picked it up yesterday. Yes, for those of you that have been with me for a while in this blogging world I did buy a new serger 2 1/2 years ago when my inexpensive Brother serger of over 20 years bit the dust. I bought another inexpensive simple Janome to replace it, it works just fine, but doesn't have the features I really wanted - I should have bought the one I really wanted to start with. So I splurged and bought my dream serger........I will be selling the Janome as soon as I get it all together. Jonathan at Top Stitch spent some time with me yesterday learning the basics of my new Bernina - later in October I'm signed up for the all day (free) new serger class at the shop. BTW - if you live in Southern Oregon Jonathan and Karen Hanken at Top Stitch are incredible to deal with, some of the best customer service around......not to mention great machines, patterns and very fun fabric......some fabric jumped in my bag yesterday and came home with me.

Promoting another fiber friend......

Fiber friend, incredible teacher and all around fun person, Janis Thompson, has a new video out on her Building a Spinnable Feast class.  I've taken several classes from Janis and always leave totally inspired and full of new creative ideas after them. I took the predecessor to this class on art yarn, and got a quick demo of building a spinnable feast in it. If you see her name in a class listing for fiber festivals seriously think about signing up for one of her classes.....and if she's not in your area you might want to buy her video. Check out her new blog too. (photo pulled off Janis's blog to get you excited about her video)

Photography Challenge - N is for.........

I struggled a bit with getting my photographs in this week for the photography alphabet challenge but persevered and pulled it off.......

Needlefelting Needles

Needlefelted Owl that lives up on top of one of the wire shelves in the studio

Needlefelted Tea Cozy I made to use with a pottery teapot, the body of the tea cozy was knit from some of my handspun yarn and then felted, then I needlefelted the sheep and flowers on it

Needles......as in knitting needles

Notions.......in a tin that my mother used for years in the kitchen and I saved from the yard sale pile

Nachos.......lunch today to get this pic

Noodles........used in a tuna noodle casserole for dinner.....just to get this pic

Nose.......yeah, Bailey got in on yet another week........

Night time..........goodnight, time to call it a day