Faith, Folklore, and Friends

 It was a cold, cold night, but we all came ready to sew some blocks!  It is such a pleasant sound to me, four sewing machines humming at the same time. The quilt above was made using 9 1/2 inch blocks, shown below.  One day last winter, I retreated to my sewing cave and made 84 of these blocks.  I used 42 of them in the quilt above. Has anyone noticed how much chicken fabric is in my blocks? I paired 24 of the remaining blocks with this blue and red fabric and made windmill blocks.  When you look at the quilt top, which windmill do you see first?  Is it the blue/red fabric, or the pieced block? It really doesn't matter, because both are pretty.  The blue/red windmills sorta jump out at me. We have completed three weeks and have lots of blocks made, but it seems to me this scrap pile hasn't changed any.  Actually, it seems a little bigger but we know that can't be possible.  Ah, so many potential quilts just layin...

When we travel west from Alabama, the first big change I notice is the wind.  Across the plains and prairies, there is a constant breeze. There are weeks here when there is not enough wind to tinkle my wind chimes. I've always loved the old windmills, and wish we had enough wind to make one profitable here. We had not driven out west since 2005, when we drove all the way to Disney in Southern California with our son's family.  Then, we were amazed at the new wind turbines in Southern California.  Now, they seem to stretch all the way across Oklahoma and Texas. There are hundreds of them on ridges that stretch for miles and miles. I'm told the wind turbines produce clean and renewable energy, although they are expensive to install. An example of the old and new existing together.  Beautiful!

If you take Interstate 25 North out of Albuquerque, then exit onto Highway 550 West, eventually you will come to this sign. Turn south on CR 7900 for 5 miles (paved), then right on CR 7950 (unpaved, ungraded, ungraveled). It can be a real adventure. This is part of the Colorado Plateau, arid high desert, and it is beautiful. The brochures describes the road as unpaved and rough. We saw sporadic windmills, all with a water tank for the cattle. No electric wires on this landscape. It takes more than a rough road to scare us away, although I worried that my teeth might fall out and I was a long way from Dr. John.  I couldn't have called him anyway; no cell towers around here. We were averaging ten miles an hour, so the livestock had nothing to fear from us. The livestock looked sleek and healthy, which surprised us because there were no green pastures.  I guess what they have is nutritious. They got bored with us rather quickly. I've ...