Monday, June 27, 2011

Chenille Blanket

Purchased flannel fabric on return trip from Ogallala in March (2011) with intention of starting a chenille baby blanket for grandson Cooper. As they say "best made plans" ...

But now it's finished and being used!!!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Happy Birthday!

Melissa Ann

On this date, in the early morning hours of our nation's bi-centennial year, our youngest daughter was born. Happy Birthday Melissa ...

Monday, June 20, 2011

Bridges of Madison County

This past week Larry and I made a quick trip to Wisconsin. We were anticipating alot of river water as our route took us over the Platte, Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Fortunately for us water ran high, but not over roadway -- not yet anyway.

Enroute home we decided to stop off at Winterset Iowa -- after years of traveling to visit family in Wisconsin -- it was now time to see the "John Wayne Birthplace" so boldly advertised along I-80.Didn't take the tour, I understand that the family left Winterset when he was 6 months old ...

Of course, being of quilt-mind I did show Larry the home of Fons & Porter. There is a small shop, with catalogue sales and offices for magazine and television program housed on second floor. It was surprising to hear that everything took place within this small area ... Wow huh?
What did catch our eye was all the signage regarding the Clint Eastwood/Myrle Streep movie "Bridges of Madison County". So ... being in "tourist" mode we hit the Chamber of Commerce to get the scoop. Ver-r-r-ry informative -- so glad we took the time. We had lunch at "Northside Cafe" -- which was in the movie. Neither of us has seen the movie ... now we have the incentive to rent or purchase.The Roseman Bridge ... Where Francesca tacked her note to Robert telling him to come for supper "anytime the white moths fly". The bridge sits at a dead-end and on the edge of private property -- how distracting for those homeowners with all the sightseers!

There are only six of the original 14 covered bridges still standing in Madison County. We did not take the time to take the entire bridge tour -- we will make a special destination trip for them at a later time. However, we did take the City Park auto tour (rainy, misty day).The Cutler-Donahoe Bridge was moved into the Winterset city park to protect it from further vandalism in 1970. (It is closed to auto traffic.)

Cool little foot bridge over a dry ravine ...

"Clark Tower" constructed and dedicated to the family that helped found Winterset Iowa.

The City Park auto tour was awesome! I would have taken pictures of the treed-route, but roadway was very narrow, tire rutted, and windy with water standing ... and as "co-pilot" it was my responsiblity to keep a watchful eye!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Father's Day 2011

Daddy


Henry Herbert Sengstake

January 4, 1923 - January 18, 2007

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Looking Good!

After 35 years we've finally got windows in living room that are operational. Original windows had only one on north side that would open and four stationary. Don't know what original owners were thinking when they built it!

It's so exciting to have exterior siding project nearly finished. Perhaps by summers end garage will be rid of cedar siding!

Monday, June 13, 2011

LOQ2 - The Quilt

The quilt project we worked on is entitled "Jewels of the Garden" and is a reproduction of the 1860 quilt in the archives in Winterthur Museum’s collections. Our instructor was Gail Kessler a fabric designer at Andover Fabrics (New York City), she designed the "Dimples" line. Gail also owns and operates a quilt shop in Pennsylvania. She recreated and wrote the instructions for the quilt(as there were none with original). The project is very challenging -- nearly 1,000 hexagons ... you gotta love your rotary cutter and iron for this one!

This is how I lay out the hexagons to form the flower. So far I am enjoying creating these flowers. The end result should be beautiful.

This is the center most portion of the quilt that will measure 48 inches wide,

and this is Gail's finished quilt -- hopefully mine will look very similar.

Fons & Porter provided all of the fabrics and sewing accessories. BabyLock provided the use of the sewing machines -- which were not used -- but new!!! -- and no, we didn't get to keep them. Of course all of the "provided" materials were paid for by the class registrants. Flying out my luggage weighed in at 38 lbs., coming home it was 51 lbs. So that's lots of stuff being "provided"!!!

Ew-w-w-w What Is It?

While in Victoria BC I could not get over the number of Smart cars parked in the downtown area. Will be honest and say I didn't see any on the road, but in fairness there was some type of celebration going on ~ "Victoria Day"? Then I turn the corner and see this. I don't believe it's factory original - duh. What was the owner thinking? They "killed" a classic VW Beetle!

I only post this for my Montana VW family to see. Looks as though the owner was trying to make a camper/moving van/clown car out of it. Or ~~~ maybe they were living out of it ~~~ and the front was equally "disgusting".