Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday...hard to believe the age I am now. I just don't know where all those years went and they went by so quickly. I was talking to my mother who is 89 about that not too long ago and I told her I really don't feel like I am as old as I am. (Will not divulge my age to you all as I don't want you to know how really old and decrepit I am.)

I told her I feel I should be about 15 years younger...that number sounds just about right. She laughed and said that if I think I am having a hard time believing how old I am then try to be the mother of such an "old" daughter. We laughed and then she said she really doesn't feel in her head that she is 89 either but closer to 70-75. Of course she followed that by saying that some days she felt like she was 109 though!

I am having the best birthday ...just doing what I want which is pretty much nothing. This morning I cleaned off some of the audio books that I have listened to from my iPod. Have washed up some fabric and hope to get the Freida Anderson quilt basted to quilt. I love not having anywhere to go today. I purposely scheduled my PT for tomorrow so I wouldn't have to drive to Hastings.

The only thing making my birthday less than perfect is the horrible winds we are having today. The weather guy said they are gusting 35 + miles per hour so it is pretty nasty out. The temperature is up to 91 degrees F now too so it is both hot and windy. Sure a big change from Saturday and Sunday when it was down to low 50s for the high each day.

Guess I will now go do some more of that nothing and enjoy the rest of the day.
(The photo I took this morning with my camera on a tripod - you know it is hard to take a photo of yourself and make yourself look natural and normal. I had so many really bad ones and this one was the best of the lot.)
Lynn

Quilt Guild Quilt Program

The quilt guild I belong meets in the assisted living facility.  The building is new and the room we meet in is very nice.  We are not charged rent and they make the coffee and tea for our meetings as well so we sure can't beat that kind of a deal.

Last Thursday evening was our regularly scheduled meeting and we were asked by the assisted living people if we could do a quilt showing for the residents that afternoon. Of course we said we could do that for them.

I took a few quilts down and several other members brought quilts too. It was a really pleasant afternoon. Members told about their quilts and held them up for the residents to see. We also walked around the room with the quilts so they could get a closer look as well.

We heard lots of compliments after the program so am glad we did it for them. I am sure we will do it again sometime as it really was not much work and you know quilters always like to talk about and show their quilts. A lot of the residents were quilters in their younger years so were very interested in seeing what we make.

Happy Quilting,
Lynn

Chilly Fall Trail Ride

Yesterday was the annual trail ride for the Circle CTN saddle club. We had about 80 horses and riders show up for the ride. It is about a 15 mile ride with a break at noon when the club serves everyone a meal. This is a photo of some of the horses as they leave Oak, Nebraska at the start of the ride.  Most of the ride is through pastures and very little road riding so the scenery is really pretty for the riders.

Everyone was so cold when they arrived for the noon break as the temperature had dropped all morning. It was 61 degrees F. at 7:30 am and 54 degrees F. at noon with a pretty good wind blowing to make it feel even colder. There was also a fine mist falling so everyone was wishing for a hot drink instead of the iced tea and water we had.

John on his horse Jesse at the noon break.  We have the meal in our pasture which is about half way for the ride.

I took this photo looking at the riders getting ready to depart after lunch.  The club sets up panels in groups of three to make triangles for the riders to tie up their horses during the break.

The club used to have the trail ride in July but after so many years of extreme heat they moved it to a weekend in September. The 100 degree days in July were too hard on the horses and the riders. At least when it is cold you can add layers of clothing. I was amazed at how many people that just brought a light jacket...maybe they will remember to bring a couple of sweatshirts next year.  I am just glad I got to come home after everyone finished eating.  We served BBQ brisket on buns, pork and beans, potato salad, brownies and tea/water so it was a really good meal.


(Have a cup of hot tea in my hands too to try to warm up after being outside and getting pretty chilly)

Lynn

Frieda Anderson Project

This week I worked on the class project from the Frieda Anderson workshop I took at the Nebraska State Quilt Convention. The Quilt is called Small Autumn Mums. This really was a fun project as Freida's technique is to fuse all the fabric and most of it is cut free form with the rotary cutter without the aid of a ruler.

It really is hard to just cut Frieda's beautiful hand dyed fabric this way after so many years of cutting with rulers but actually was quite freeing. I tend to be a perfectionist about accuracy and so this was way away from "normal" for me.

The background was fused together first on the large pieces of paper we peeled off the back of our fused fabric. Everything was built up and fused as we went...worked really well.

It is ready to machine quilt now and I am not sure how I want to quilt it or what threads I want to use yet. I did get some fabric yesterday to use for the backing. I didn't have any of Frieda's fabric for backing so this is just a piece of commercially mfg. fabric.

It sure is cold here this morning...when I left the house at 7:30 am it was 61 degrees and now at 11:00 am it is 54.  I guess it is supposed to be colder yet today so must be fall.  Yesterday was beautiful with temps in the mid 80s.

Lynn