Made It To Roswell, New Mexico

After crossing the New Mexico border, late in the day, we drove on to find an RV Park, but we found none.  We eventually stopped in a large wide spot off the side of the highway.  We spent the night there and used the generator a couple of times, to run the heat.  That sounds strange after just having several days of over 100 degrees in Arizona.  It was the high desert and got very chilly at night. Turns out we were 1/4 of a mile from Datil. We drove on through New Mexico, stopping at a historical site and we saw the big radio telescopes that were on railroad tracks.  

Later, in the day, May 17, we made it to Roswell, NM.  We called ahead and made a reservation at an RV Park there.  We spend the rest of the 17th there and all of the 18th.  We went to the city square where I got my photo taken in front of the big mural.  I met a gal named Dawn, who was also traveling, and she makes clothes for people like me!  We had a very engaging conversation about sewing. 

Of course, we visited the Calico Cow quilt shop in downtown Roswell.  They have amazing fabrics of all kinds and some amazing galaxy and space alien fabrics.

I bought some red fabric with white cows on it. It is amazing.  It was cool inside the shop and the people were very friendly.  Then we went to McDonalds and I posed with some space aliens there.

We departed Roswell on May 19 and continued east, where we ended up in Ballinger, TX, to spend the night.  Stayed tuned to find out about our adventures in Ballinger.

Attempting to leave Phoenix and get to New Mexico

C, K, and I traveled a long way just to get out of Phoenix, then into the mountains on a windy road.  We stopped for lunch in the National Forest and stretched our legs.

Then we drove on to Eagar AZ, where they had a quilt shop, but we did not stop.  We gassed up and kept on going until we reached the New Mexico border, where we stopped for a photo opportunity.

Reached Destination after 2732 Miles

Marsha here.  We left Meridian, Idaho, on May 14. Went south via Twin Falls and Ely, Nevada, to get to Phoenix.  Departed Phoenix on Monday, May 16.  We took the highway through the mountains, so we got into New Mexico late in the day.  C, K, and I are traveling by RV across the south to arrive in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida.  We have had some amazing RV park adventures.  We arrived yesterday.  We took a circuitous route around Mobile, Alabama, so we could avoid the traffic and, especially, the tunnel.  Thus, it took us a little longer on our last day of travel.  K texted M that we would meet her at the rest stop just prior to the last Milton exit.  As soon as we got on I-10 it started to pour down rain.  There was lots of traffic, for a Sunday afternoon in The South, and C was white-knuckling it, while concentrating on reaching our destination safely.  Our info indicated Milton was 32 miles away, then we saw a sign that indicate the rest stop was in 26 miles, which was eight miles past where we were counting down to.  So, we had to hang on a little longer before we could get off of I-10.  We finally exited and there was M in her cute little Mazda waiting for us.  C parked the RV and we gave hugs to M and relaxed for about 20 minutes, before having M lead the way to her place in Ft. Walton Beach. We did take amazing photos along the way, but I have to download mine, off of my camera, so that I can post them on the blog.  Maybe I will get that figured out tomorrow.  That is all for now . . . we are preordering our breakfast for Wednesday morning at a gluten-free donut place, that also has breakfast sandwiches and frappes.  I will update you!    

UPDATE:  On my way to gluten-free donuts in Destin, FL.

Arrived at Destination Small Donuts.  So yummy!

Flying Geese Quilt

While we were all doing our nine-patch quilts, Astrid was working diligently on a flying geese quilt.  It is a stunner.  Apparently, both Astrid and Edna are making flying geese quilts.  We will keep you posted on Edna's quilt when we next hear from her.  

Here is Astrid with her amazing flying geese quilt.  It has 60 flying geese in it.  She sewed them in sections of four, then flipped them back and forth to create this pattern.  Her quilting method is stitch-in-the-ditch.  What a great quilt!

Just a note:  Marsha is going on an RVing trip across the country.  She is leaving later this week and won't be back until sometime in June.  She is taking her camera and said she will send us post cards.  Check back in June for some interesting posts from the road trip.

Nine-patch Madness Continues

Jane did get all her blocks sewed together and her quilt quilted. I finished my quilt top and stipple quilted it all over.  Then I hand stitched the binding on the back of the quilt.  Jane and I both finished hand-stitching our bindings on last week. 

Jane added a churn-dash block to the upper center of her quilt, and added some greens, golds, and a different pink to tone down all the gray with pink dots fabrics in her quilt.  It is a real sampler type quilt with five different nine-patch blocks in it:  musket ball, churn-dash, basic, friendship star, and shoo-fly blocks.  She quilted it with stitch-in-the-ditch on the central portion with a rectangular lattice work stitch on the green borders. 

Here I am, posing with my completed nine-patch quilt.  It has musket balls, friendship stars, shoo-fly, and basic nine-patch blocks, and a gray and gold plaid inner border that contains the madness.  I love love the outer border, which is a cream fabric with stripes and pink and yellow flowers.  I really like how the quilts Marsha, Jane, and I made, with some of the same blocks, came out completely different!

Edna's Amazing Liberated Monster Medallion Quilt

Edna sent us a photo of her completed Monster Medallion Quilt.  The center square has monster fabric.  She quilted it on her home sewing machine, with the stitch-in-the-ditch method.  She said she is keeping it displayed on her living room wall.

As someone who likes straight lines, I know it is hard to make liberated blocks on purpose.  Edna said she had one strip she wanted to widen out on one end, but she was thinking in the wrong direction, so instead of widening out, it ended up straight, totally on accident.  She had two rip it out and try the other direction to make it work for her.  I asked Edna what she was planning for her next quilt.  She said it would be something with flying geese, most likely.  That sounds reasonable, since the rest of us are just winging it for now.

Nine-patch Madness

I learned a lot from "Jane's January Tutorial".  When she finished, she decided perhaps her darks could have used more than just that gray with palest pink possible polka dots.  However, we were learning about how to make nine-patch blocks, not about color variations in our quilts.  She made a few more blocks to use with her gray and pink, then she passed her extra gray and pink blocks on to Marsha and I.  Needless-to-say, Marsha jumped right on that train and pushed out an adorable nine-patch quilt in no time.

Here is Marsha and her amazing nine-patch quilt, with the friendship star block right in the middle.  Oh, it matches her skirt!  She added more colors and a small variety of gray fabrics to break up all the gray polka dot blocks. She really contained the madness by using that dark border fabric.  

I still have to put the border on mine, and Jane still has to piece her twelve blocks together.  I am sure we will get these projects done soon.  Jane will want everyone to see her final result.  I am, Kirsten Larsen, signing off.