A jaunt down south

Hubby and I took a mini trip down south to Cedar City for the Shakespeare Festival. It was nice to get away, even for a few days. We decided to go visit Cedar Breaks National Monument while we were there.  It was beautiful when we got there.

We loved looking at the beautiful rock formations.

We had planned to take a short hike but then the storm clouds started rolling in...

And it started raining and hailing. It was cold up there at nearly 11,000 feet!

An awesome Halloween looking tree.

We gave up our hiking plans and went back down to our cozy B&B.

Iron Gate Inn in Cedar City is one of our favorite places to stay. The owners Susan and CR are so welcoming and helpful.

I wish we had been there a few weeks before to see all the hollyhock in full bloom. It would have been spectacular!

Of course, I managed to get a few hexies done while whiling away the afternoon in our comfy room.

A hobby or an obsession?

I think I walk a very fine line. It's obvious that I've become enamored of collecting 30s prints for my grandmother's garden table runner. The pattern shows 25 flowers and since I didn't want duplicates I naturally had to buy 25 different prints. Naturally. Then I had to buy various yellow prints for the centers. The problem is that every time I walk into a quilt shop I'm drawn by some invisible magnetic force to the 30s reproduction section. There are always a few I need to add to my collection. Just a few. At last count I had 83 different 30s reproduction prints and I'm sure there are more out there calling my name. Hobby or obsession?

I'm afraid to count how many Civil War reproduction pieces I have. I've only been collecting 30s prints for about four months. I've been collecting Civil War prints for three years....

I've found the perfect project to marry my obsession with making hexagons and my fascination with Civil War prints. After I finish the 3000 or so hexagons needed for my 30s grandmother's garden quilts, this is the next hexagon project. It will look stunning in Civil War prints!

I must be mad

Not content to make normal size quilts from normal size pieces of fabric, I've started making mini quilts from itsy bitsy pieces of fabric.

I must be mad.

This is one of 11 leaves needed for the 12" mini quilt. I hope my sanity is intact when the quilt is finished.

Decisions, decisions...

Some people use their time pondering about things that matter while some of us spend an inordinate amount of time stressing over things like the color of pathways for my grandmother's garden quilt.

Do I use the darker, more traditional green or the brighter and funky polka-dot?

I'm wishy, I'm washy, I'm waffling, I'm thinking of yet another rhyme from childhood, i.e. "see-saw Margery Daw..."  It's official, my mom had a rhyme, poem or song for any occasion.

Bottling tomatoes and preserving memories

I've been bottling tomatoes today. One measly little batch and my legs and foot are throbbing. How is it that I used to do my canning for hours on end when I had a growing family?  Today's tomatoes will be headed to Dad's house so he can enjoy them for lunch. As I bottled tomatoes I remembered all those Saturdays from years ago when I would get up and start a batch of bread so that when Dad came home at noon there would be fresh scones for him. Our Saturday lunches were simple back then...a quart of tomatoes, a quart of peaches, and a plate of hot scones.

Bottling tomatoes, salsa, spaghetti sauce, pears, peaches, fruit cocktail, cherries, apricots, grape juice, applesauce, etc was a way of life for me not that many years ago. It helped us through those lean years and it was always a wonderful feeling to see those shelves full of freshly bottled produce. Canning is tiring, but it's a good tired and  I still maintain that one of my favorite sounds is the "ping" when each bottle seals.