Sunday, June 27, 2010

vintage rocking chair pin cushions

I know I've posted about my rocking chair pin cushions before, but I recently checked on Ebay and found several going for various prices. And I'd swear that no two are alike! These are the two I already owned, the one from my grandma on the left, and the one I bought a local antique store on the right:

The one on the right got a CQ make-over, which I wrote about for CQ Mag Online.

I went a little crazy and bid on and won these two:

The one on the right has an opening in the back to tuck your small scissors into. Will these two chairs get CQ make-overs too? Only time will tell.....

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Making memories for breast cancer block

For the 3rd year, CQI is asking its members to make and donate a quilt block to be made into a quilt to benefit breast cancer research. Here's my contribution for 2010. The before photo:

And the after photo:

I used one crochet-edged linen doily as an embellishment, cutting it a little off the center line and adding one part to the left and one to the right. The ribbon rose in the upper left is a spider web rose; that's the first time I'd ever done one. I was teaching that technique at a class that night and thought I'd better have one under my belt before then!
I love the meandering gimp trim. This is some that I dyed myself. The dragonfly lace motifs are also hand-dyed. But I really love the fabrics in this block. All the fabrics used are either from donated wedding gowns or from fabric that could be used for wedding gowns.

Wedding on the ranch

On June 6th, we attended the wedding of Paul's cousin's youngest daughter. It was held out in a field on the Potter Ranch, which is between Ridgway and Ouray, Colorado. The bride is Eddie Witherspoon and the groom is Jesse Sanner.

Here comes the bride:

Her father, Ed, gives her his blessings:

Her sisters and niece were her attendants:

Is that a gorgeous backdrop or what? That's Mount Abram with the snow on it.

The book store

Here's part of what has been keeping me away from blogging lately. In March I got a part time job at a locally-owned used book store. On the last day of April, they opened a second store downtown on Main Street, and my work time has been about equally divided between the two. I took my camera to work with me one day recently, and a few days later Michaela and I took a stroll down Main Street pretending to be tourists. We took photos and went into different stores and just window-shopped others.
Here's the book store inside:




And here's the outside, from across the street:

And here are some of the sights on Main Street. We have a lot of sculptures in the Art on the Corner program, some of which are temporary and for sale, and others are permanent: