Friday Feet 12-02-16

Looking back a few years 11-30-16

I did a road trip to Montana in 2012 driving through a lot of open country (Big Sky Country, you know), but I also saw a few old towns.  Butte, Montana, was a surprise, the oldest part of town rI took these pictures was almost deserted, but an attempt to show some history has been made.

 

Who knew sheep shearers have a union?  There were lots of sheep in fields around.

 

 Many mine headers with signs giving their active dates.

 

This chain link fence adorned with coffee mugs was a mystery.  They are firmly attached with the plastic, no-slip, ties used to bundle bunches of wires.   Reminds me of the bridge of keys in France.

 

An old building with vacant lots on all sides, spruced up and tidy with a large lilac tree.

I admit to thievery - made the car smell lovely.

 

 Way up on the top of the hill were these two restored houses probably built in the early 1900s.  Out of the older area are lots of suburbs of more recent vintage - it is just a regular town, after all.

 

KoKo and Friends 11-29-16

KoKo doesn't ignore his friends, he just prefers Froggie.  He tore an ear off of donkey today, so I will being surgery again.

 

 

I'm beginning to think I will have bronchitis for the rest of my life.  Still four days to go on the medications and who knows on the inhalation therapy.  I have tried not talking today, if someone calls I just say "I can't talk, you do the talking."  Works okay so far.

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Rerun of quilt in TCQC 11-27-16

I thought I could photograph a few quilts today, but we had sprinkles off and on, so I gave up on that idea.  Here is a quilt originally posted on 04-12-09.

"Electric Chard"  Ruth B. McDowell  2006  32"L x 40"W

Machine pieced and Machine quilted. Cotton fabric and thread.

 

Ruth talks about this quilt in her book "Ruth B. McDowell's Design Workshop" Published by C&T in 2007. She had purchased a bunch of rainbow Swiss chard and admired its variety of colors. She started her fabric choices with the bright colors for the strong vertical stems and greens with patterns that reminded her of the leaf texture. To balance them she used a large-scale pattern with checkerboard elements as an integrated border on the top and bottom. The background is entirely cut from a Michael James stripe that looked good with the fabrics she had already chosen. Usually Ruth uses a great variety of different fabrics for the background, but the departure seemed to work in this quilt.

Ruth finds design ideas for her quilts in the most amazing places. I love the crisp contrasts in this piece. The dark greens stand out from the pale background with its varied pastel stripes. Ruth has used eight leaves, but turned one upside down so that it appears there are an uneven number. It seems brighter in reality than in any of the pictures - it is a cheerful quilt.