A Baby and Some Blocks

We had a special visitor (our great-nephew) come over and sit on one of my quilts. He also enjoyed helping us unfold our pile of laundry.



And for the mundane news (at least in comparison with cutie-pie babies), recently I received more red/white blocks - not so mundane after all! I'm getting a respectable pile of blocks and can hardly wait to start playing with them all. Please keep 'em coming! See my post here about my red/white challenge, in case you missed it.

These are what I managed to make while on vacation last week.


These are by Teresa. I love the hands with hearts!


These are by Carol M. More hearts! Clare will be happy.


This is a loner that I made from leftover pieces.


We had supper at Panera and this was the quilty seat I was sitting on. That's my arm and the quilty upholstery at Panera.

A 452-Photos-Vacation

I'm home! We had a wonderful time on our vacation. I took 452 photos!!! I'll be sorting through them for a while. The highlight was the sea-kayaking we did on Lake Superior. That was really fun! We kayaked under a waterfall, and at the end we dipped ourselves into the lake. Luckily we had on wet suits, as the water was about 40 degrees F. Those wet suits are amazing. It was fun swimming in a lake that is known for being too cold to swim in. I didn't take my camera on the kayaking trip for fear I'd drop it in the drink, so I have no photos of the great event.



obviously we didn't starve on this trip


many moods of Lake Superior










I took along my FW but did very little sewing while there. I hope I can catch up to the sewing I had wanted to accomplish while on vacation. I did visit two quilt shops and came home with some nice fabrics for my stash. Now it's back to the real world, and I think I'm ready to tackle real life after getting rejuventated on the North Shore!

Laid Back and Lovin' It!

My family and I are on vacation. It is glorious! We are staying in a log cabin that looks like this. Today we went sea kayaking on Lake Superior! At other times we read, take naps, go for hikes, sit on our deck and enjoy the gorgeous view, and other similarly difficult chores. I even went to a quilt show and bought 3 FQs. I could stay here forever! Too bad the week will soon come to an end. When I'm back home I will share some of my photos from this most wonderful vacation.

Fun Mail Call

Yesterday's mail brought some great goodies! Red and white blocks (for my challenge) from Irene and Kathy, and two beautiful quilts from Joann. The quilts will go with me to Rosebud. The last photo is some more house blocks I made. Feast your eyes upon the beauty:

Night Owl Making Blocks

That's me! Ms Night Owl. I love the quiet that happens late at night and I have the house to myself. I often get inspired to do quilty things at that time. Last night between 12:30 and 2:00 a.m. I made a few more red/white blocks. Here they are!

This is Why

Someone recently asked me why I named this blog Giraffe Dreams. I apologize to whoever asked me. I forgot to answer and have also forgotten who asked me. To see why, read my previous blog entry, here.

Went to a super fun reunion this weekend: students and staff from a Deaf/Hard of Hearing program I used to work in. It was GREAT to see the students after so many years (about 20, more or less). They are all grown up and doing some impressive jobs: teacher, banking inspector, business owner/real estate broker, medical lab "tissue person", store department supervisor, etc. etc. It's so nice to see them now as adults and friends. Hey, want to see a great knitting blog? Check it out... a former student's blog:
www.limedragon.com



I played a little with funky heart blocks for the Red/White challenge. I think I'll go make some more.....

Beautiful Day

I ran several errands on Friday, and it was fun to do so on such a beautiful day. I stopped at a small farmers' market. I loved the flowers, and I thought these onions made a very cool pattern. I bought some strawberries that had just arrived from the farm, picked about an hour before... still warm from the sun and delicious!





The mail brought me the first arrival of my red-white challenge blocks from Tammy S. Aren't they pretty?

Giggling with the Girls

I have a group of five friends. Two of them moved out of state. Finally, all five of us got back together this week (first time in six years we were ALL together)! We had a blast! We always have a lot of great laughs. We ate at the Melting Pot, a Fondue Restaurant. Yummmmmmmmmm does not begin to describe it. The nature of the meal forces you to slow down, take a nice, long time to eat and enjoy conversation.



And the dessert!!! To DIE for! One of us said "I feel like I'm breaking a commandment." Decadent chocolate .. a tiny taste of heaven.



Another thing we did together was traipse around the Mall of America. Look at the quilts I found there!









Eek! A shark is wandering around loose!



Weather lately has been absolutely ideal. One day I took a nap on our deck. There was a slight breeze (= no bugs), enough to cool me off so that a quilt felt perfect. It has been really great walking weather, and being outside for anything you can think of weather. I am having soooo much fun not working this summer! I could really get used to this! (Oops, my part time job starts in ten days.. oh well, believe me, I won't be overworked.)

I'm happy feeling happy!

Red and White

I made my first two official sets of blocks for my Red and White Block Party. (I called it a challenge before, but the word Party sounds more fun.)

In the next week or so I am going to concentrate on Red and White. Red and white are so pretty, eh?? Read about my challenge/aka party here.

Red Shoes

I found these shoes on sale and decided to give them a try. (Besides, I wanted to be like Tracey at QuiltinginCt.) They're sorta clunky looking, but they're cute on other people... and I've been curious. So far so good. I ordered a skirt via mail order, and it came today. It matches my new red shoes -- a happy accident.

My pal is here visiting from Georgia. It's so fun to see her again!!

One-Day Retreat

Yesterday a few members from my guild came to my church to spend the day sewing. We had a good time. They really liked the space. It has great lighting, and it was such a beautiful day. With the windows open we almost felt like we were outside.

We got a lot done, talked a lot, and ate a lot. At the end of the night, as the last two of us were cleaning up, a storm had boiled up and sounded kind of scary outside. Suddenly we lost power, and one of our doors slammed shut. Creepy! It was weird trying to finish cleaning and putting things away in the dark. We made it out alive (haha), and I got home, only a mile away, and found that we still had power at home. Hooray!

Here's what I got done yesterday:

added the borders


added the border


added the border - this is a very old UFO, made from blocks from an exchange in 2000! The middle appliqued block was taught in a class at my guild. Mine is a real mess. I was not a good applique student. I want to use it, however, so I'm keeping it. I plan to add more border(s) because I want this to be a bigger quilt (I'm tall).


added the borders. Do you notice my mistake? This quilt is for my daughter, so I'll let her decide if I should fix the goof or just keep it as is.

p.s. the mistake is in how I did the borders

made these two blocks for the lotto at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/quiltblocklotto/
It was hard to do these without my stash at my fingertips. I probably would have used other colors if I had thought ahead, but these turned out OK, considering my limited options.


bound this quilt - it is made from Lotto blocks I won! It is going to Rosebud in August. (machine quilting by Janet)


bound this quilt. This one is also headed to Rosebud in August. (machine quilting by Janet)

Gwen Marston's Book!

Check this out -- Tonya at Lazy Gal Quilting is working on getting a re-printing of Gwen Marston's book, Liberated Quiltmaking. Go to Tonya's site and tell her if you will promise to buy one! This is a once-only, rare opportunity!

Gwen is Tonya's muse. This book has been out of print for a while... Tonya is going to accomplish a miracle!

Quilts for Rosebud

In August I will be traveling with my church to Rosebud Indian Reservation for a work week. Friends have been giving me quilts to donate when I go. Here's what I have gathered so far. (More are on the way. I'll post them as they arrive.)

made by me, but to be honest, I haven't decided for sure if I want to part with this one... it might go and might not.


made by Sally M.


made by Sally M.


made by Karen R.


made by Karen R. (apologies to Karen for rotten color quality in these pictures. In person Karen's 2 quilts are way nicer than they appear in these pictures.)


made by me


These four are burial blankets made by me. Because infant mortality is pretty high at Rosebud, they periodically need blankets that the parents can wrap their baby in for burial. These can be pretty simple and require no batting, but they do want a star on the front or middle.