Around Here

Around here... 

...I had to laugh at the weather forecast published in today's paper, with its terse prediction of "Hot" and  "Not so hot."  Expecially funny when I remember that this time last year we were having our first snow and our first freeze. 

So glad that's not happening this year since we have a good crop of tomatoes and are eagerly watching for our cucumbers to get big enough to pick. 

Around here...

Despite our current high temperatures, autumn is definitely in the air.  One sign is the abundance of ripening fruit on the trees in our neighborhood.  Apples are plentiful and we've already made the first apple crisp of the season from the bountiful tree across the street.  No one has offered me any plums yet, but I see them on my daily walks and would love to try making something from them.  

Around here...

Paul got a commision to paint a door with his signature spray-painted planets, creating a piece of garden art to decorate a friend's fence.  I think it looks pretty cool and may ask him to make one for us.   

Around here...

...I'm excitedly awaiting the delivery of a Bernina Q20 machine which is made just for doing free-motion quilting.  It's a "mid-arm" quilting machine, coming to me without automation and with a table instead of a frame.  Both automation and a frame can be added at some future point if I want them, but for now I didn't want the learning curve it would take to figure out how to work the automated program and to load a quilt on a frame. The mid-arm style allows me to continue moving the quilt under the needle, as I'm used to.  It will just be much easier and faster using this machine and large table than the sewing machine I use for constructing quilt tops.  This table is powered so I can raise it up and stand to quilt if I want to, or use the table as a counter-height surface to work on.   I'm pretty excited and am happy that I realized there was space for a Q20 in our newly decorated basement once we got rid of a couple pieces of superfluous furniture.      

Around here...

I took Turbo to a new place to walk this morning, the Cottonwood Trail,  a flat 2.4 mile out-and-back walk through old farmland on the northern outskirts of the city.  Can you see the mountains in the background of this picture?  Maybe not, as the smoke from various out-of-state fires continues to cause a great deal of haze over the front range.   

Most of the trail was shaded by big cottonwood trees, but at the end there was a large open field full of prairie dogs.  Turbo was extremely interested in them! If you look where Turbo is looking you'll see one of the hundreds that were out there this morning, all energetically chirping out their warnings as Turbo approached.  Of course I wasn't going to let Turbo run after them, but they didn't know that! 

Just in case you don't usually see a prairie dog, here's a close up of one who has popped up out of its burrow.  I find them quite interesting and even cute, but they aren't well regarded in the agricultural areas around here as they make big holes in the ground, perfect for tripping horses, and generally making farming very difficult.  

The prairie dogs weren't the only thing that Turbo noticed on his walk today.  This glove on a fence post was very unusual, so of course he had to growl at it!

And speaking of Turbo, I can't help but include this cute photo of him happily hanging out in the backyard with one of his many balls.  

Around here...

..While waiting for my new machine I've been putzing around the studio cleaning up and finding old uncompleted projects along the way.  One was this small 8x10" layered piece of silver and black fabrics that I had long ago fused together with a soldering iron.  I also used that tool to cut through the layers to reveal the black fabric on the bottom.  I decided it was worth finishing up so I mounted it on some yellow linen/cotton fabric I bought when I was in Ohio, and fused a nice silver binding on the edges.  It was okay, but needed something else.  

 How about making the top right circle silver and making the lines on the right more visible?  Yep, that's better.   

Around here....

....We're back to wearing masks again whenever we're indoors in a public space.  I don't quite get this, since we're at a 4% positivity rate and are 80% vaccinated, and I do find it annoying to be taking a step backwards.  But I'm not arguing; I just do my part so things don't get worse.  Already some of the in-person events (like in-person quilt group meetings) are retreating back to Zoom sessions.  And I see that Maui has again curtailed the capacity numbers for its restaurants and tourist excursions. (We're watching developments in Hawaii as we have a trip to Maui planned for January.)  Hoping for the best!

Well, let's end with a pretty picture!  

Around here....

....I'm enjoying our lovely dahlias which are in the height of their blooming period.  With any luck our first hard frost will hold out for a while so we can fully enjoy their splendor.