Winter Adventures

Let’s pretend that sewing and quilting are adventurous, OK? That’ll keep me honest for using the plural “adventures” in the title instead of the singular “adventure”.  

In my blogpost last Saturday I mentioned that my friend Ruby and I were going over to her sister Cathy’s house to learn to load and operate their new longarm machine, and indeed we did just that. I hope there’s not going to be a quiz, because this pea brain will take more than one session to “learn” how to operate it! But I’m pretty confident about loading it now, and I at least understood what each step we took was doing and how it fit into the whole process (like marking the beginning and ending of each row). The machine had some bothersome quirks, and the woman who was training us said that those little quirks were not acceptable. It turns out that the manufacturer replaced the whole machine this week (well, the whole computer and arm). Aaaanyway, I’m still relying on my own machine for quilting my smaller donation quilts, but I look forward to another longarm training session soon.

The real adventure this week came in the form of a day trip with my friend Ruby up to Crystal Hot Springs in Honeyville, Utah. It’s an hour drive north of us, north of Ogden and Tremonton. The Hot Springs have been there forever. In fact, the information placards said the springs had been used and enjoyed by over 450 generations of Native Americans before the white settlers came along.

According to the following placard, Crystal Hot Springs has the highest mineral concentration of any place on earth.  I hope the information in the sign is readable - if you care to read it. 

Here are some (poor) pictures of some of the pools. It was a cloudy day, but that didn’t dampen our spirits. 

The Springs open right at noon, which was when we got there. The crowds grew as the afternoon developed and it got downright busy once school let out. That’s when we went on our way and had a nice lunch/dinner combo ar a locally renowned restaurant, Maddock’s.

A single visit to the Hot Springs is $18 per person, but you can buy a 10-visit pass (good for 2 years) for $50. Bruce is anxious to try it, so we’ll be buying that pass, you can bet on it!

So that was my non-sewing adventure, and we can turn to my Adventures in Scrap Wrangling next!

For Pink January, I sewed some string blocks (6.5”)

And some crumb blocks (also 6.5”). 

I finished sewing the pink Midnight at the Bubblegum Factory quilt top together. It will get basted and quilted in the coming week - at least, that’s the plan - and I should be able to show it next week. But this week I did finish up another donated quilt top into a quilted and bound little number. 

I used a backing that Jo (Jo’s Country Junction blog) sent me for these community quilts. I’m not crazy about (in fact, I greatly dislike) the light backing with the dark, bright front, but it’s all I had that would work. The binding is the folded-over backing, not a great look in this instance. At least the thread tension was good so that the light bobbin thread and darker front quilting thread played nicely together. 

I’ll be taking this quilt (plus the 13 others I’ve finished since Thanksgiving) to Quilts for Kids this morning.

Back in my post of December 21, I talked about a Halloween quilt I’m going to make this year; sixteen blocks (12” each, finished size) surrounding a haunted house panel. I’ll be doing 2 blocks each month for 8 months, giving me all of September to sew it together and custom quilt it. Here are my first two blocks for January.

I was a little disappointed that the above block didn’t have better contrast between the oranges. But it will remain as is. The following block is actually a lot like the first one, at least with general layout and component sizes. I’ll be using Halloween fabrics in oranges, purples, black and gray - the colors of the panel. I’ve already cut out and kitted up the two blocks for February, so this project is on track! I’ll share more about it as the year progresses. 

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Today, Saturday, Cousin Kim is coming over and Bruce and I will take her to lunch at this cute little cafe and gift shop nearby. Then she’ll be giving us haircuts (she’s a licensed cosmetologist). My hair needs 2-3 inches chopped off to restore its “perkiness”. Kim will be back over on Sunday to sew (Church of Bernina, LOL) with Ruby and me. The adventures never end here at Chez Kizerian.

Oh! My amaryllis finally opened this week! It has FOUR blossoms! 

And you can see the swelling of a bloom-to-be on the adjacent stalk. What a treat!

The Stay at Home Round Robin actually begins on Monday with our first round design/motif assignment. That will give me several days to work on it before next week’s RSC and SAHRR post. 

Have a great week. Linking up to Scrappy Saturday.