Fire Camp at Lake Superior State University!

Jim organized a fire science camp for high school juniors and seniors. The camp ran from Thursday to Sunday and on Sunday they had a firefighter competition and invited the area fire departments to participate. And they sold t-shirts to make some money for scholarships for next year's camp, so more students can afford to come. The cost of the camp was kept low because Jim and the other staff volunteered their time. It was great. :-) The gear was lined up and ready to go,

The fire trucks all nice and neat in a line,

Jim and the teacher's assistants and the campers themselves,

And everyone joined in for a huge group shot. Pickford Fire Dept, Soo Township Fire Dept, Kinross Fire Dept, Bay Mills Fire Dept, Superior Township, Sault Ste Marie Fire Dept,

The games included a bucket brigade,

And they pulled a fire truck,

And in the end, everyone got wet, including Dr. Schaefer.

If anyone would like to buy a tshirt, they are red like the one Jim is wearing. Except yours will be unused, and definately not wet. There is a small emblem on the front that says LSSU Fire Competition 2008, the shirt is $10, I will pay for shipping, and all proceeds go to scholarships for next year's camp. Email me at jandj95@lighthouse.net (Donations for scholarships will also be gladly accepted, contact me for more info.)

Pictures from yesterday at the Quilted Moose

I have a few pictures to share with you from yesterday's finish up day at the Moose. First, Paige brought in her finished Magic Tiles quilt to show me. It is stunning. Chris did the quilting on it:

Paige also had her stack and whack, which had very nice cornerstones that she said she would never do again. :-)

Judy had a couple bags she was finishing up, one was classic Pooh. I love classic Pooh. It's for her new grandbaby when he/she gets here. (Estimated time of arrival was Thursday. Judy said her daughter is definately ready. :-)

Judy was showing Brenda how to do mitered corners, stunning! It looked very fussy but the results were well worth it.

A finish up day at the Moose

Yesterday was a finish up day at the Moose. I didn't finish anything really, but I am getting close. I did take pics but time is short this morning, I will have to post them later. But before I forget, there were two women who stopped in yesterday and we were discussing setting blocks on point and the math involved in figuring out what size to cut your setting triangles. I told them of a website and said I would post the link here. Here you go!
http://quiltville.com/onpointmath.shtml
I am currently working on my SIL's Christmas quilt, and I had to change the pattern a bit. And it involved setting the blocks on point. It is coming out very nicely. Next I have to find out what kind of quilt to make for the next SIL!

Crazy busy!

Work is keeping me crazy busy and Jim is busier than ever also! He is having his summer camp this week, a fire science summer camp for juniors and seniors in high school. I just saw the itinerary, and he's going to sleep well on Sunday when this is all over.
My brother has some roomates, he sent pics:

They are living on top of his air conditioner.
I went to the quilt shop for a bit yesterday evening, and I spied one of Judy's quilts on the frame.

Very nice!!! I didn't stay long because I had to get home and decorate my luminary bags for Relay for Life, one for Jim's Uncle Tom,

One for Jim's grandma, Mimi,

And one for my father.

A Dye Day!!!

Today was THE day. One of my Christmas gifts last year was a set of dyes from knitpicks.com. Today I finally used them. I was shooting for a faded, dusty purple. I missed the mark on that one. And then I just decided to dye more yarn and ended up with some blue. It was fun, I love to dye yarn and I will do more of it. I was shooting for the nearly solid look today. There are still tons of techniques to explore, including hand painting!

This pot belonged to Jim's grandmother, and it is getting put to good use. :-)

This yarn is actually a baby yarn (wool) that was on clearance at the yarn shop. It came in balls, so I wound it into hanks to dye it. There are blue dots in it, but you can't see them now! Here is the purple I ended up with, after using just 1/2 the dye the directions said to. This is potent stuff.

I love the blue, it didn't dye as solid as the purple did, and I think it will look nice knit up into a short sleeve sweater for me. I still get too warm to wear long sleeves here, so both of these yarns will be short sleeved cardigans, and both of the yarns are fingering weight.

And for my co-worker

I bought a kit from a vendor that was set up outside my work place. It's called Amazing Geo Gami. Very cool stuff. I finally sat down tonight and made something, it's a gift for my co-worker who celebrated his 51st birthday today. It's a "Truncated Stellated Octahedron". And it's very cool. :-)

Jean's quilt

Jean is an active member of the quilting community here. She recently turned 50, so we made quilt blocks for a quilt for her. The finished quilt is nothing short of wonderful.

This is on the back, as well as a rose:

Here are close-ups of 2 of the blocks,



And the finished quilt:

A treasure from an attic

Remember the antique quilts I posted about? Well, look what else Marsha found! These are parts to a quilt her great grandmother started, handsewn of course.

They were in a cardboard box that at one time held chocolates, now the box holds this as well:

Marsha did some detective work. On the back of the newspaper clippings were ads for movies. She determined that these pieces are from the 1930's. Very fun to look through. What a treasure.

Tomorrow is quilting at the Moose, we're doing quilted jackets. We will be having tons of fun. And sewing some too!

Finished!!!!

I finished the quilt top for our new bedroom! :-)

The blue is alot "richer" looking than in these pics. I just love it. I had to add a row of blocks to made it wider, and I also made 2 extra blocks for 18" throw pillows. Finished size, 107" by 107". I also have enough material to make matching pillowcases. The olive green color will also be used to cover the top of my hope chest. Now I just have to get the backing material and get the quilt to Chris at the Moose so she can quilt it for me! We've already decided on a blue thread that matches the blue in the quilt, but haven't decided on a design yet.

A busy morning in the neighborhood!

My cats woke me up at 6 or so this morning, so I got up and fed them, and I even got some work done. I was sitting on the couch looking out the bay window this morning, and it was very busy early this morning! I had a robin on the front steps. Chipper (which is what I call all chipmunks) ran across the street. Mama grackel (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Common_Grackle.html) was searching for worms for her baby, who is learning to fly from the nest in the apple tree, which really irritates Gorby, my cat. (Gorby is indoor only, so the birds have nothing to fear. And I think they know this)
The special visitor of the morning was a cute little hummingbird, darting in and out among the apple blossoms.
Yes, it was a busy morning in the neighborhood!

Quilts at work...

A woman I work with brought in 2 quilt tops pieced by her great grandmother today. I took a couple pics with my cell phone...the first one didn't come out so well, but you can still kind of see it.

You can't see it very well, but you get the idea. The fabrics were really neat. The second one is a wedding ring quilt top,

It's really neat. All hand sewn too. Marsha is going to take them to the Moose to have Chris quilt them. A nice way to start my day, admiring quilts someone pieced together ??? years ago!

A post from the past

So I'm a bit late with this one. Jim had his first graduation here, and he wore his purple flame shoes,

Which went wonderfully with his new tie that a student made him. She did a wonderful job!

Not a bad look overall. :-)

Summer is coming slowly here, it's still very cool in the evenings. Which isn't at all bad for sleeping.

Yesterday at the Quilted Moose

What a great day yesterday! I woke up with the sun shining and all my fabric cut for class. The tulips that popped up along the drive are gorgeous.

Judy came to the shop to sew, she finished her quilt she was working on. Very nice:

Paige and I were sewing a quilt called BQ2, and here are Paige's blocks:

And Flip was working on the BQ, a Steeler's quilt. It looked really cool. (For a Steeler's quilt. Remember, I was born in Wisconsin. :-)

Sandy showed us her quilt, it's a BQ2 for her bed. California King size!

I don't have pics of mine yet. I am working on it a bit today. All my blocks are almost done, so soon I will be laying it out so I can sew it all together. I'm off to sew!

Time is flying!!!

I haven't posted in how long??? I couldn't believe that when I looked this morning! I am getting ready for work, having a mug of tea and watching CNN. The price of oil is shocking, I am thankful that we don't have to drive far to get to work. We even have bikes now, so if we choose we can ride to work. It will have to warm up a bit for that though, a couple nights ago our friend golfed here. In the snow. This weekend is supposed to be beautiful. I have quilting on Saturday. And lots of projects to finish up. Chris finished quilting my quilt for our guest room, so that all that is needed is the binding. And I have to dig up the pictures of my grandpa's pond so I can blow them up and frame them, those will hang above the bed.
I leave you with pictures of a quilt I made for Kenny. Kenny was a regular at the library when I worked there in Ohio. He's hysterically funny, and a wonderful person. He loves music, so I made him this quilt. Chris quilted this also, using her musical notes pattern.

Tuesday night at the Quilted Moose

So I showed up last night to the Moose, and discovered that Abby had company as the official Quilted Moose mascot. Meet Spike:

He is so tiny and so cute! And he comes with a sweater.

Abby rules over the cutting mat though,

(I think she was ready to go home at this point. She was closing her eyes a bit, trying to nod off until some annoying person kept putting a camera in her face.)

Spike & Abby did get along,

They were just too cute together. Oh, and there was quilting going on also, Brenda worked on her Hoochie Mama flower blocks.

This is what we were supposed to be working on last Saturday, my camera malfunctioned though and the pictures I took didn't come out.
Today is Wednesday, and soon it will be another glorious weekend. Which means more time for knitting and quilting!