Moving On.

I've been gone for a while.  So much has happened over the past months, I'm not sure where to begin!  I have laid a quick summary out for you below.

First, I'm sad to say that we no longer live in New Mexico.  We packed up our little ranch house, livestock, and kiddos and drove halfway across the country to Washington State.  It was a bit of a sudden decision, but here we are.  If you have been following me for a while, you know that all of our family live here in Washington, and it was just time to be closer to them.

My little ones have never seen the ocean, or any kind of large body of water before.  Now that we are in Washington, we thought it necessary.  So, one day we bundled up and took a ferry boat trip to Vashon Island.  It was wet and cold, but absolutely wonderful!

Our heifer we brought along with us from New Mexico, had a little heifer of her own.  She is a couple of hours old in this photo and has already grown so much since then! 

I ran the Seattle Rock and Roll Marathon - photo taken at the start line.

I reopened Fresh Picked Patchwork here in Washington and survived my first craft show!  I will be at the Puyallup Farmers Market this Fall - so if you're from the area stop by!



 

 I will have more on sewing and other matters, but for now thank you.  I appreciate all of you readers and have truly missed this aspect of the sewing community. 

 

Enjoying Some of Summer

Being ranchers, we usually don't go out for late night outings.  So, it was a real treat that we actually went to watch fireworks on July 4th.  It was the first time Logan and Aslyn had ever seen fireworks in person.

We recently took a much needed weekend off. A little trip to Grants, New Mexico where we "camped out" and toured areas of the Land of Enchantment.

Since it was the kiddos first time sleeping in a tent, we decided to go the old KOA route.  I had never stayed in a KOA campground before; growing up camping was hiking back into the woods, and setting up tent. 

 

 

The Natural History Museum to view the "Cowboys Real and Imagined" exhibit, the Mining Museum, Fire and Ice caves, and Sky City were just a few stops we made.

 

Bandera Volcano

 



Ice Cave

Brrr - It's cold down here in the ice cave

 

After a day of hiking volcanoes, we spent part of the evening cooling off in the pool.

 

 

Now to get back to my sewing machine! 

Amish Quilts Exhibit

We set out on one of the first warm Sunday afternoons this year to the International Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe.  They are currently having an exhibit on Amish quilts, titled "Plain Geometry Amish Quilts."

Excerpt: The exhibition explores the aesthetics of Amish quilts by considering what the quilting tradition grew out of and how they changed in a changing world.

A few quilts.

Strip Quilt, Missouri - c. 1945
Fabric: Cotton

 

Ducks in a Pond, Pennsylvania - c. 1925
Fabric: Wool and cotton

 The quilting is just beautiful, all done by hand (of course.)  I haven't yet done too much hand quilting, okay none, but I can just imagine the hours and patience that went into these!

 

 

Another beautiful quilt is this hexagon one.  I've worked a little bit with hexagons, but am itching to try my hands at more! 

 

 

Flower Garden, Ohio - C. 1890
Fabrics: Cotton, wool, and silk

The quilt below is not a back, but the front of the quilt.  A whole piece of cloth, hand quilted to look like log cabins.

 

 

Log Cabin, Pennsylvania - c. 1885
Fabric: wool

It was interesting to see how the styles differed in each Amish community.  There were 35 total quilts exhibited, a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Do you attend many quilting exhibits in your area?    

Not Much Sewing

I haven't done a whole lot of sewing these past weekends, instead we drove up to Taos and hung out. 

 

 

I did make a trip to our local library and ordered a few books from Amazon.  I feel like I am currently in a bit of an inspirational rut (hence, the traveling around New Mexico on the weekends.) 

Perhaps this week will be a bit better.

Saturday Train Ride

On Saturday, we decided to skip our usual trip to Albuquerque to do our errands.  Instead we drove the opposite direction to Santa Fe to hop on the Rail runner - a commuter train. 

We decided to ride it from Santa Fe to Albuquerque.  Since we had time to kill before the train was to leave, we walked around Santa Fe, ate lunch, had hot cocoa.  It was wet and cold, but none of us minded, we were out to just enjoy the day.

The train ride from Santa Fe to Albuquerque was little over a hour.

 

 

We ate dinner in Albuquerque before hopping back on the train to go back to Santa Fe.  My kiddos were pretty tuckered out!

 

 

An excellent Saturday!

Yarn Bombed

Have you ever heard/seen this?  I hadn't until we were at the River of Lights in the Albuquerque Bio Park. 

All the trees, light posts, rocks, etc. in this area were wearing colorful knitted sweaters.  Apparently guerrilla knitting (a.k.a. yarn bombing) is quite a popular form of street art, dating back as early as 2004. 

I was telling my sister about this yesterday, and she said she saw a bus that was yarn bombed.  What have you seen in yarn graffiti?

Photo Friday 2012

 

 

Photo Friday

 

 

 

 

Busy Little Bees

Things have been pretty crazy around here.  School started back up,  Logan is now in Pre-K.  We are just getting used to the school year schedule again.

My little Aslyn turned 2 years old!  Where does the time go?  Since one of Logan's teacher's birthday is the day before Aslyn's, we all took the tram in Albuquerque up to the top of the Sandia Mountains and had dinner.

 

 

Lots and lots of cattle work being done.  Ultra sounding (I am the ultrasound tech), breeding, embryo flush and transferring. 

We spent most of Labor Day weekend working, but managed to get away on Monday.  We drove up to Nambe and played in the water holes.

 

I did manage to squeeze in one little project.  After being asked for a business card and not having any on me, I decided I needed a business card holder.  After searching the web for a few tutorials, I got the general gist of it and put this one together.  This little project is great for those lingering scraps.

Lastly, my iron died on me.  Luckily, I had just finished reading the iron reviews in the debut issue of Generation Q magazine.  An order to Amazon and now I am impatiently waiting for my new iron to arrive.

Hope all has been well with you!