Westward Ho!

We left ABQ and headed west to Arizona. We tossed around ideas about where to go to next. He suggested the Grand Canyon but I had already been to the south rim so I tried to persuade him to go to the north rim later in the trip. He won so we headed to Williams.

As we started crossing from New Mexico into Arizona the landscape started changing. We started seeing mesas...

And buttes....

We found pinion nuts for sale! I had never had them before but had my doubts about freshness.

Another beautiful sunset.

We made it to Williams and spent the night. The last time I went to the Grand Canyon we took the train. It was fun but we opted to drive this time.

While driving through town we spotted this sculpture of an elk family.

We drove north and took the usual touristy photos.

The mules used for the cabyon tours.

We spotted these on the way back and think they are for backup.

This peak is part of the San Francisco mountains in Flagstaff. It was interesting to see the accumulating snow.

We headed towards our next goal after leaving the canyon. More to come!

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Mission Accomplished

I moved to Texas in 1985. I don’t recall which year we started going to the State Fair but it could have been that same year and then every year since except two. Pregnancies and Texas heat don’t mix. We met Tom the horned toad man at the fair.

He is a sculptor that makes pewter horned toad figurines. He has a lot of variety in what he sells. His figurines represent every variety of horned toad and he sells them both in pewter or hand painted. I have bought everyone he has had on offer since I met him.

One year he said come out for a visit, I’ll put you to work in my shop. It is hard to know if these offers are sincere. He repeated that offer again and again. Then my husband fell ill and eventually passed. I continued going to the fair and saw Tom. Ray came into my life and met Tom. Again, Tom made the offer.

Not too long after that we went to see Tom and he had lost a lot of weight. I asked about his health and he assured me he was great. The thought was in my head, we don’t live forever. Ray’s health hasn’t been great and mine is ok but I have my struggles. I told Ray this was the year, we were going!

We went to see Tom and made arrangements to contact him when we were on our way. We did that and set a time. We showed up at his house at the appointed time.

We got a quick tour of the living room and kitchen/dining area. He showed us some of his early work and some of his collection. It was interesting to hear that what really got his clientelle excited was the addition of a baby horned toad next to an adult.

Tom told us he had a sanctuary where he keeps convelescing lizards. He has had injured and starving that he has cared for.

He has two of these structures. Even though the weather had turned cooler one of his lizards was still out and active. My first time for seeing a real live horned toad!!

I was like a kid at Christmas giddy with excitement!

We then moved to Tom’s workshop. He walked us through the entire process explaining each step. He then put Ray to work doing the pouring steps and cleaning the pieces. He offered to let me as well but my balance isn’t the best and I didn’t want a liquid metal accident!

After working in the shop Tom took us to his office and showed us the rest of his collection. The item you see in his hand is a flute made in Mexico or Peru. It’s a hirned toad of course! Just above that is a box of chocolates he had commissioned. They had been handled a lot so we did not get a taste. Darn!

As we left we got on the topic of pinion nuts. Tom has a tree in his front yard. We got the run down on crops and harvesting and eating!

We parted company and left to resupply for our continued travel. I thought the shot below was perfect for Veterans day. You can also see the snow on the mountain.

More to come!

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Albuequerque, NM

Remember those four goals? We are getting closer to the first one!

Saturday we left Tucumcari. It started a joke for the trip. “Look honey, a smoke signal!”

We started heading for ABQ. Ray had lived here and went on and on about the tram. I started googling it to see where we could fit it in. As we got closer we could see the Sandia’s growing on the horizon.

Driving into them was equally awesome. So many textures and colors. I took thousands of pictures. Of course pictures do them no justice!

We got to the hotel and were at the foothills of the mountains. Look at that fall color! That was the view from in front of the hotel.

As we were driving I was posting pictures on facebook and the questions of where we were headed flowed in. A lady that I have known for many years reminded me that she lived there. We made arrangements to meet for breakfast the next day. Another lady I had met earlier this year was away on her anniversary trip and would not be back until after we left. She did fill me in on all her favorite quilt shops. Finally, a man I worked with many years ago, who now lives in Santa Fe, agreed to meet us the next day for lunch.

We spent the rest of the day visiting several quilt shops and picking up row by row license plates. We researched the tram and found out it was closed for maintenance until after we had left.

The next morning I met my online friend for the first time. She brought her boyfriend with her. We talked about kids, quilts, jobs and our men. It was really great to meet them. We asked them about things to do while we were there. We talked about the tram and how to get to the top by car. They gave us directions to the mountain road.

We parted company and headed to a Harley shop they mentioned. It was named Duke City. Of course we had to get a shirt since that is our dogs name.

We found the mountain road but missed the turn so continued on to Madrid. This was the film location for Wild Hogs. Of course we stopped at Maggie’s. It was a restaurant in the film but in real life a souvenir shop.

After souvenir shopping we continued on to Sante Fe via the back roads to meet my work friend. A snow storm was blowing in.

We talked for hours. It was like we had just seen each other the month before. My friend had an appointment to get to so we headed back to ABQ. This time we took the highway because it had started snowing.

You can see the snow accumulating on the mountain.

We made it back before the snow was too heavy. When we got up in the morning I hurried out to see the snow on the mountain.

This is the same view I showed earlier from in front of the hotel. Who stole my mountain?

I was pleased with the many bonuses of meet ups and finding sights to see that we had not planned on.

More to come.

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What I Did for Summer Vacation

Well, it wasn’t summer but it was vacation. I had less than two weeks of vacation left so decided to maximize it by leaving before Veterans Day ( bank holiday) and returning after Thanksgiving. Ten days for the price of eight! This was a driving vacation so we had flexibility. We ended up leaving Friday the 9th as soon as work let out.

We headed for New Mexico first with four goals in mind. We drove through Wichita Falls and on into Amarillo. It was pretty cool to see the fields of wind turbines. I had driven past many tractor trailers pulling the enormous blades and supports for these things but until now had never seen one up and running.

Night fell as we continued our drive. We decided to drive until we were too tired to continue on.

We saw the first beautiful sunset of many to come. I appreciate them all but when you get into wide open spaces they have a different beauty.

After nightfall we began seeing rows and rows of red flashing lights. At first we wondered if we were near an airport, after driving miles and miles we had considered a very coordinated Christmas light display, a country club community. After seeing this for many more miles I consulted my friend Google. I learned that all those windturbines are marked with a red flashing light so that airplanes know they are windturbines. They flash all in synch (mostly) to make them identifiable. When I first saw the lights they were much denser than this picture shows.

We finally stopped in Tucumcari, NM. The only bad thing about night driving is that you miss the changes in the scenery. When we got up in the morning we were greeted by the first of many mountains to come.

More about New Mexico in my next post.

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December OMG

I decided to try.

I have to make 49 blocks for my Double Irish Chain.

Linking up with Elm Street Quilts.

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November OMG

Do you know about setting SMART goals? Specific Manageable Actionable Relevant Time-bound. Well the only thing smart about this goal is that it’s small!

I’m heading out for a two week vacation and won’t be home to achieve anything too involved.

I’ll be quilting this row from a row by row seceral years ago. I didn’t like how my quilt looked so took it all apart after having it together enough to claim my prize. I was thinking about a cross hatch pattern but that is too much for what will be a wall hanging. So simple ditch quilting with poly thread, maybe outline the appliques and a quick machine binding.

Linking up with Elm Street Quilts. Are you playing along?

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Halloween Fabric

I have some (cough) Halloween fabric. My daughter asked me to make her a quilt with some of it so I decided to also cut for the charity quilts I had intended while I was at it.

My daughter selected her favorites. I took that pile to my sit and sew with the intention of cutting it all up. Sandra was there eyeing me with great interest. Halloween fabric is her favorite.

I pulled the fabric off the pile one by one and pressed it. The questions started soon after. “What are you making with all that Halloween fabric?” One of the other ladies blurted out “A quilt!”. A pause and some thinking...”What kind of quilt?” to which was replied “A Halloween quilt!”. We all had a good chuckle over that.

Then the expected question came.
Sandra asked if I could cut her some of that. I told her to tell me what she did not want as there would be fewer of those. We discussed what she needed. Remember this is my hoarder lady. The longer we talked the bigger the cut she wanted. She ultimately said a half yard and I said NO!

When it was time for me to cut she had left. I was trying to decide what to cut for her. She said she wanted to make a dresden. I looked down at the ruler which was 6” wide and decided that was the size.

I proceeded to cut for the rest of the night. There was a 6” cut for Sandra, a 5” cut or two for my daughter’s half hexagon quilt and then I cut most of the rest at 3” for charity Happy Block quilts. I did leave enough to cut one more 5” cut in case I needed more for my daughter’s quilt. I have large yardage which I did not cut up as I will want borders and backings.

Here is the result of 6 hours of work.

I do have at least half of the fabric shown at the beginning left. I was going to work on Halloween fabric until it was all gone. I think I will get tired of it if I do that so I’ll just work with what I have cut and cut as needed to finish tops, borders, bindings and backings.

I wonder how many quilts I have there...

Have you ever made a Halloween quilt?

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Canton Quilt Show

I went to a quilt show in Canton recently. We hit the guild garage sale table, the vendors and the quilts in that order.

The sale table had everything from crafts to books to fabric. Sitting on the floor was a tote full of baggies with fabric in various states. I was standing there with four or five bags and gave myself a good talking to. I already have enough! Why am I doing this to myself. I decided on two bags because I thought one was $3 and the other $2. They were $2 each!

In the first bag was one block and the stripsets to make a Double Irish Chain. There is not enough navy solid to finish what was planned so I’ll have to sacrifice and shop for a match. Darn!

I will cut a little and sew a little to see what I have versus what I need. I’ll probably end up with orphans but that’s ok.

In the other bag were over 30 FQs. Well I didn’t open them but that’s what they seem to be. I have no plan for them but they were so pretty!

I bought a little clover iron for a friend and a large piece of yardage to be used as a backing...someday.

The quilts.

These are both embroidered by the same person. Click on the oic for the info.

This was in the kids entries. Smart lady!

This was my favorite and I voted for it for viewers choice.

That’s all folks! Happy Halloween!

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