A little bit quilts, a little bit not

I did it again-I went a full month without posting. Bad blogger! Where does the time go? 

It is crazy to me to think back almost 12 years ago when I started blogging and realize that I was posting 2 or 3 times a week! How did I do that? 

So here are the two most recent Tiny Club blocks that I taught in my guild this month. And yes, I do enjoy fussy-cutting.

As usual, I made "storyboards" to define the construction process. The designer of these blocks, Lynn Hopkins, used to do that for us when he taught these blocks before he left on a church mission. The circled block below in the right-hand board shows what happens when you reverse the value placement in your flying geese.

                                                

     It takes me a long time to put these boards together.

What does NOT take a long time is the making of the blocks for the Moda Love quilt. 

I did mix up the background fabrics a bit from when I last posted this, and I like it better this way. Then one evening while Chooky and friends were at Scrub Stitchin' (International Version), I got the top half all sewn together.

Had a chance to share my progress with some of the Chookshed Stitchers after they returned from Scrub Stitchin'. 

Some have asked about our current snow conditions. The photo to the right was taken out my kitchen window two weeks ago! Hard to believe we still had that much snow in the middle of April. The baby lambs couldn't even go frisk in the pasture because it was still covered in snow.

But this was the view of the mountains yesterday, on the dirt road where I take many of my walks. I stopped here as I was driving home from town and took this shot. The snow on the valley floor is gone, but the mountains are still covered.

Just last Sunday there were two events in the heavens I wanted to share. First up, in the afternoon we had a display of a sun halo. There was no sundog this time, which is apparently caused by the orientation of the ice crystals. Who knew? 

Then later that night, about 10 p.m., we had an even rarer event--the Northern Lights were barely visible. You can see one shot in my new header. They didn't actually appear that bright, but the real time photo hardly showed them at all. So the photo below was taken with my iPhone on a 3 second exposure. The green and purple is brighter in the photos, but it gives you a better idea of what we saw than the quick "shutter click".

This is the third time I've seen the Northern Lights, and each time was here in this valley--and this is probably the second best view I've had. My dream is to see them from Iceland, or Norway, or some other such northern point someday. On our Alaskan cruise last September we missed a wonderful display of them in Juneau by 1 week. :(

Yesterday I sent off my doll quilt for the Humble Quilts Doll Quilt Swap. I'm excited to see if the recipient likes it, and to find out what comes my way.

Maybe next time I will have a little more quilty content. We'll see. Until then, be creative and be kind.

Janet O.