Geocaching Fun

So, have you heard of Geocaching? I haven't felt like sewing so I have been out trying to get a little exercise by chasing down hidden geocaches. Briefly, geocaching is a sport developed by techies as a way of using their handheld GPS units for something other than a paperweight. All over the world (literally) there are caches hidden and then recorded at www.geocaching.com. A cache can be very small and only have room for a small pencil and a rolled up piece of paper for a log to ammo cans. I've even heard of some in 5 gallon buckets. All caches have a log book for the finder to sign and larger ones have little trinkets for cachers to exchange with. The general rule of thumb is if you take something, replace it with something. To add to the fun there are traveling items like Travel Bugs or GeoCoins. They have tracking numbers on them and after they are logged in the owner gets a message about where the Trackable is now. I have one Travel Bug in Australia (She's traveled 20,000 miles since 2002) and another in California (She's traveled 5,000 miles since 2006).

Yesterday we traveled to Chelan to eat lunch with my nephew and ex-sis-in-law. He recently turned 21 and this was a great chance to get to see him. It didn't take me long to narrow down some caches in the Chelan area and so after lunch we went to find a few of them. The ones in town weren't difficult and didn't show any great sites, but then we took the "scenic" route out of town to search for two more. I've never driven down the old dirt road that leads along the Chelan Gorge and it was a real treat. It had it all, impressive scenery, cleverly hidden caches, and beautiful sunshine. My grandson, who was along for the ride, made out since in both of these caches were matchbook cars as trading items. Nothing says COOL to a 2 year old better than Grandma handing over new cars to him. :)

We made one last stop for a micro cache along the way and there we got skunked. My husband even got into the act of looking for it and he couldn't find it. We both have different hunting skills. I tend to look at the big picture and hope something jumps out at me before painstakingly narrowing things down, while Hubby is great at focusing on small things and picking them out. He is always picking faces of people we know out of crowds in the most unexpected places. He's not an official geocacher (no handle or username), but occasionally helps me out when I drag him along.

Anyway, I found five out of six we attempted for the day, so that was good. Today I have a few more to go out and find. and it looks like a good day for it. Who knows, maybe the new cache I placed earlier in the weekend and that was just published early this morning will be plundered by someone else who is out looking for a little bit of exercise on a sunny Sunday morning. It's supposed to be rainy and cool during the work week so maybe I'll do some machine quilting then.

Have a wonderful day.

SB#3

Baby Chicks

My poor son is under the impression that because he raises acres and acres of beautiful fruit, he also know how to raise animals...in this case chickens. He told me earlier this spring (and I use that word loosely) that he's going to raise 80 baby chicks and plans to sell the eggs at his fruitstand.

That sounds like a good idea, right? Well...it is much harder to raise baby chicks than he imagined. We've had such a cold spring that the heat lamps over the brooding boxes of chicks have gotten a real workout. One morning when he checked on the chicks he found that half of the chicks were dead. Somehow the heat lamp had overheated the box the chicks were in and it was smouldering, effectively killing the chicks by smoke inhalation. A few days later the other heat lamp's bulb exploded killing more of the chicks.

Now let me insert here that I have successfully raised broods of baby chicks, but I give all the credit to my Dad for making sure I was doing it right. My husband knows about these things too, but my Dad was always my go-to guy for advice about anything to do with any aspect of farming. Before he passed away Dad taught my son everything he knew about raising fruit, but I don't think he touched on the animal husbandry skills that my son seems so lacking in.

Hopefully he won't decide to raise lambs, pigs, or calves anytime soon. I think he's probably better off concentrating on what he knows...raising incredible fruit!

SB#3

Finally Spring!

Spring has been slow in arriving this year. I know, I know, I added a picture three weeks ago of my crocus in bloom welcoming spring, but there was a bump in the road on the way to warmer days. We've had snow, hail, and lots of gray days the past few weeks...but today and tomorrow hold the promise of actually being spring-like! Hurray!

So while the coldness persisted I did manage to get some extra quilting done. I now have two quilts sandwiched and ready to go. With warm weather though, it might be awhile before I get back to them.

I've also had the chance to visit some quilt shops around the state as part of my boycott of our local shop...The Quilting Bee in Spokane is always fun to visit and they have a nice selection of fabric. Unfortunately, their prices are the highest I've ever seen, with most fabrics running $10-$11 a yard. I picked out a few half yard pieces and snuck out of there for less than $40. I also visited The Buggy Barn. They have a strong following of quilters who favor the primitive/country style of quilting. It's not really my style, so I managed to get out of there with only a yard of a good background fabric. My final stop was a nice shop over in Seattle, specifically in the Ballard area of the city. It's called the Quilt Loft and I was pretty impressed...even more so when I discovered that the owner is only 30 years old. It was obvious this store is owned by a young woman since the fabrics were bright, cheerful, and full of the more modern prints that hark back to the 70's styles. There were great samples of not only quilts, but also bags and clothing. They carry quite a bit of the Amy Butler line. I spoke with the owner asking if she was getting young people into the shop to learn how to sew and she said it was growing all the time. That's great news...getting new blood into the hobby will only help it grow for all of us. This final stop on my quilt shop browsing snagged me a few yards of some beautiful fabrics as well as restocking my need for some Steam A Seam 2. I sure hope she does well since this shop is close my son's house I'll be a frequent visitor on my trips over the mountains. My next shop visit will be in Ephrata...we have a wedding to attend down there in May and I've informed my husband we'll be going early so I can stop by this shop. I've heard great things about the selection and the prices.

Have a great spring everyone!

SB#3

Completed blue convergence quilt

Here's my completed convergence quilt that I pieced a few weeks ago. I appliqued circles randomly on the quilt, machine quilted wavy lines diagonally, and then handquilted around the individual circles to make them "pop" a bit more. I really like how it turned out!

Here's a few closeups of the quilt. Size-wise, it could either be a wall hanging or a nice lap sized quilt. Dang...I wish the quilting lines showed up. They really add great visual interest.

Onward and upward. I have a baby quilt to machine quilt next.

SB#3

Spring is here!

These little beauties are just too cute for words.They are just on schedule too -- tomorrow is the first full day of spring.

This poor flower bed is so heavily shaded that nothing really grows in it during the summer months. That makes the crocuses even more special.

Happy first day of Spring! -- SB#3

Convergence Quilt

Have you tried Ricky Tims’s convergence quilts yet? If you haven’t, give it a try. They are fun to make and really don’t take all that much time. Here’s the first one I made.

The black and white fabrics, combined with the two grays are striking. I ended up making two in this fabric and giving one to my eldest son’s girlfriend.

Here’s what I worked on this weekend.

I wanted to make this one bigger than the black/white convergence so instead of using fat quarters, I used a much wider strip of fabric. To be honest, the top was narrower than I wanted, so I added 3” solid strips of fabric at the top and the bottom before adding the final border. I actually like the way it sets off the convergence design.

This week I want to do some appliqué…something I normally avoid. I think circles of many different sizes will really set it off…almost like bubbles rising. I think I’ll use the blue border fabric and see how it goes.

BTW, did any of you see Ricky Tims on CBS Sunday Morning today? He sure doesn’t look like the stereotypical quilter, male or female. He looks more like the cowboys or orchardists I see around town!

Have a good week everyone!

SB#3

WTF is up with this?

Our little community is way out in the boonies. Our fabric shopping choices are limited to the evil Arkansas giant superstore and our local quilt shop (LQS). As a result, many people use the internet to fill in the gaps. What has always scared me is that the local shop might go away if it is not supported, so I have made it a point to be a loyal customer. I buy 95% of my quilting fabric there, my thread, my batting, and many patterns and books. If I do buy fabric online or out of town, I make a point of purchasing my backing and other supplies at the LQS. I also sucked M and D into quilting and they now shop regularly at our LQS. This is not the only way I have supported this shop…when people ask me about learning to quilt, I always refer them to the LQS pointing out that they have a great beginning quilting class.

Here’s what pisses me off…the LQS has a punch card system of rewarding regular customers. Once you have purchased 50 yards of fabric at regular price, you have earned a free 5 yards of fabric. Nice eh? With fabric at $8.50 to $10 a yard it is a nice bonus for being a loyal customer. Well, it used to be. A few “bad” quilters used to save up their punch cards and then come in and redeem four or five at once. For a small shop, that really hits hard. So the owner decided to put a 30 day limit on using up your punch card. I don’t know about you, but I hate to be put into the position to “hurry” and pick out my fabric when I don’t have a specific project in mind. My stash has plenty of fabric that sits there unused because it was purchased without a plan for it. Both SB#1 and I have lost our five free yards because we were in the shop 4 and 5 days after our 30 day limit. We’ve also heard the same story from more than a few other quilters.

When this happened to me this week, I spoke with the owner. I suggested that customers only be allowed to redeem one punch card every 30 days to avoid the issue she’d had with the “bad” quilters. I pointed out that we want her business to stay open, but that the 30 day limit for the five free yards was limiting and unfair to loyal customers. I pointed out that SB#1 had recently purchased an expensive sewing machine from her (if that’s not loyal, I don’t know what is), and her five yards weren’t redeemed since she was 4 days late. Her excuse is that her prices are going up every week (yes – fuel costs are making life difficult for all of us) and if she lets us go past 30 days she’s losing money. What? How much money is she going to lose when frustrated customers start shopping online? I know on the few occasions that I’ve purchased fabric online, I have been very pleased and found it to be easy, quick, and in some cases, less expensive than my LQS. Again though, I do most of my shopping locally to ensure the LQS stays open.

Let’s be honest, our LQS owner is not known for being warm and fuzzy. I don’t let that put me off, but SB#1 and SB#2 were honestly scared off by her stern personality and wouldn’t shop there at first without me to accompany them. My boss showed us a video this year called “Give Them the Pickle!” It comes from the old Farrell Ice Cream Parlors. For years they gave customers free pickles, but then decided to start charging for them. One customer wrote the owner complaining and wondering where the customer service had gone. The owner realized that in order to keep the customer happy, he needed to go the extra mile and his mantra became “Give them the pickle!” It went back to the old idea in customer service that the customer was always right. Do any of you remember those days? It’s something that has disappeared in the American business community and it seems a shame that small local businesses seem to have forgotten the only way they can keep the customer from going to the big box stores is by offering exemplary customer service.

Unfortunately, this incident has left a very sour taste in my mouth. I have been attending monthly quilting marathons at the LQS, buying loads of fabric for the projects and always spending more money that night when I’m at the shop. We have one tonight and I committed to it last month so I feel like I have to go. I think it will be my last and I expect that I will be spending more of my quilting budget online and at other shops that are within a two hour drive rather than with my crabby LQS owner.

What do you think? Am I just living up my nickname of being a Stitchin’ Bitch?

SB#3