Eileen's Striped Table Runner

Thursday night I took a table runner class down at It's Sew Moab. We made this table runner. We had to have a stripped fabric so I chose this lovely red. Figured I could put it out at Christmas and Valentine's Day. I was very pleased how it came out. And I actually finished it in the class.
It really looks nice on our oak table in the dining room.

Can't wait for next month's class. We are going to do paper piecing squares. This will really be a challenge for me. I take this class each month so look for more in the future.

More Pictures of the Fire

I went out about every 10-15 minutes to take more pictures of the fire. I stopped taking them about 5:00pm as supper was ready.


I was lucky on this one to get the plane dropping the fire retardant. There were actually two planes doing this but most of the time you couldn't see them drop as they were behind too much smoke.
Luckily the breeze was blowing the away from us. So we weren't bothered by the smoke.


There is still a lot of smoke out there and it is about 7:45pm. After dark, will see if we can see any more flames and if so, try to get pictures then.

Don't know if they have opened the roads yet. They closed the LaSal Loop Road from Castle Valley to the Sand Flats, in Moab and the Porcupine Rim trail is closed.

There are more pictures on our flickr under Fire in Castle Valley. Be sure to check them out.

Fire in Castle Valley

I took these photos at 2:40 pm today from our front porch. As you can see, there is a fire down the valley.

Last night we had another thunder and lightning show. A lot of sheet lightning but some wonderful jagged streaks. Don't know if this is a result of that or something else. We didn't see any smoke this morning.

If anything develops from this, I'll take some more pictures and post them.

September Button Up Quilt

This past Wed. I took a quilting class for the monthly Button Up Quilt. The day before the class, I picked up the pattern as you needed to make this background quilt first. With the experience I had learned from my great quilting teacher, Annette, I was able to make this background quilt all by myself. They had suggested you make it from dark or black rectangles but I chose to make it from golds as it was going to hang in my sewing room and then each month the quilt you button to it would look like it was in a gold frame. I love how it turned out and so did Crystal (owner of & teacher at the quilt shop). I also centered the two outside buttons in their rectangles rather than put them five inches from the center button. It looks so much better this way.

Here is my finished September Button Up Quilt. I only got as far as the stems put on the night of the class. But Thurs. I went back to the quilt store and finished putting on the sunflowers. I had never done anything like this so wanted the guidance from Crystal. She was delighted to have me for company that day. Told her I will probably have to do this each month depending on how hard the quilts are. I then came home about 3:30 and started quilting the quilt. I had to stitch around every piece of the flowers and then do some more in the big open spaces. I finished quilting it today. I then bound the quilt and put ribbons on the back to hang it up with. I really like how it looks on my background quilt. I can hardly wait for next month's. Crystal was working on the example while I was there yesterday and it is adorable.

Next week I take a table runner class and can hardly wait. I'm really enjoying not only my sewing room but quilting again.

Monitor & Merrimac Night Photos

I went a night run with the Moab Friends for Wheelin' club (which I became a member last night) to the Monitor and Merrimac formations in the Moab area. There was a full moon out. It was a beautiful evening.
The Merrimac was bathed in moonlight. You can also see the Big Dipper to the right of the formation.
The Monitor was backlit by the Moon. As you see I captured it just sneaking around the side of the formation.

Cross Stitch & Quilting

Well, I finished the project I was working on when the lightning took out our phones, Rick's computer and our TV's But all is well again.

I took a binding class last night and got the binding on this Halloween picture and finished the hand sewing this morning. After going into the hardware store this afternoon, I cut the dowel I purchased and sewed a sleeve for it on the back. Then I added the ribbon to hang it with. I really like how it came out.
Thought a close up of the cross stitch was in order. This one only took me about a week to do.
Since I was so pleased with the Halloween picture I took time Sat. to quilt this one. I had done the cross stitch years ago and had just never gotten around to getting it matted and framed. But I really like this much better.

While in town today, I picked up this orange ribbon to hang it with. Again, I sewed a sleeve on the back for the dowel. This keeps the pictures from folding in when hung. Guess I'll have to do some more, this was so fun.

I've signed up for a couple of monthly classes at the quilt store here in Moab. (It's Sew Moab). One is for table runners and the other is monthly quilts that you button to a background. Each month we will do a different one. I also signed up for the "Block of the Month". For $5, I get the first block (the first Sat. in Sept.). Then each month on the first Sat. I take in the completed block and receive the block for that month. It won't cost me any more money IF I have completed the block. There will be 12 blocks in all so I can get all 12 blocks for my $5. I'm really excited about this. Will keep you posted on what I'm doing, but I surely am enjoying that new sewing room in the garage!

The River Turns Red

After the lightning, we drove into Moab so we could use the cell phones. On the way back home, about halfway there, we noticed the color of the Colorado River had changed. It was a very red color. Just like the the dirt here at home. In fact, they stopped us as we turned onto the River Road (Hwy 128) to ask how far we were going. When we told them Castle Valley, they let us through. They told us about milepost 19, the bridge had been flooded with mud and debris. We went ahead and drove out to it, it is just before Onion Creek, and they were still working on clearing it. The higher elevations had really gotten hammered with the rain and had sent a torrent down this gully. It had gone over the side of the bridge and flooded it. Then it had proceeded on to the Colorado River.

Even the next morning the river was still a little red just outside of Moab.

Lightning Strikes!

Thursday we were have thunder & lightning storms pass through the valley. Our power flashed once (did wonders for Rick working on his computer) but we never lost power. HOWEVER, about 2:30 pm apparently lightning hit something really close because it traveled through our phone lines. The DSL/Phone splitter exploded sending pieces flying over the top of Rick's computer. Also, his modem blew apart. Needless to say, we lost phone service. It fried Rick's work computer and the base unit for our home number cordless phones. We also lost our DISH. The phone repair service came out Friday. And he couldn't believe that the only problem really was two jacks went out. All the wiring was fine. Rick's work UPS'd overnight another computer for him so he is back in business. We went to Grand Junction today and bought new cordless phones. (They are currently charging.) We discovered that the third home jack (Rick has one in the retreat for his work number and we have two for our personal number.) The jack in the family room was "toast" but the one in our bedroom continued to work and we had an old fashion, non-electric phone plugged in there.

We called DISH Thursday evening to see about our satellite service. The tv's come on but they say "no signal". We tried various things but nothing worked and they can't get a service tech here until Tues. So no TV! And with the olympics on, we are really upset about that.

Since no TV and Susan and Mike here visiting, we were lucky to have a lightning show last night. We didn't hear a lot of thunder and what we did was really far away. But the lightning really lit up the horizon. We sat out on our porch and really enjoyed the show.

Susan and Mike just stayed overnight but we surely had a great visit with them. They want to come back and stay a few days next time. Rick was only able to take Mike "jeepin" a little bit with the storms brewing.

I was out sewing in my wonderful sewing room and didn't even know anything had happened until Rick came in and showed me the blown up splitter and told me about it. Yes, I was actually working on a project. When it's completed, if it comes out well, I'll post a picture. It is a cross stitch with a quilted frame around it.

We are safe and sound. And even with this little lightning problem, we don't want to live anywhere else.