Scrappy Mountain Majesties Finish

Last year fellow quilting buddy Marei asked if I wanted to make a Bonnie Hunter quilt along with her.  I was totally on board with the idea, and we picked out one of Bonnie's free patterns that neither one of us had made before.  The Scrappy Mountain Majesties quilt was the agreed on choice.

Our flimsies were finished about a year ago (you can see Marei's HERE).  Then mine went off to the local long arm quilter for a few months' vacation.  It came back a few weeks ago and I finished the binding on it.

My trusty assistant and retired husband has a new, legitimate gig as official "Quilt Holder-Upper."  The pay sucks, but there's a decent benefit package.  He seems like a natural.

Sandy did a nice all over, swirly floral quilting motif.

A glimpse of the backing and dotty binding.

In other happenings, we spent a pleasant afternoon at the Museum of Wisconsin Art again recently.  

(Jim Liedtke: A Well-Ordered Society: The Super Rich, The Seemingly Devout, The Rest of Us Poor Day Laborers)

 I'm often drawn to the pieces with a sense of humor.

("Maybe we ain't got culture, but we're eatin' regular"~Carl Sandburg, 1914)

Later that night, unfortunately, I became violently ill and "did an Elvis."  Meaning I executed the King's second most famous move and passed out on the john.  Ba-dum-bum!  

(Love the quote on this one too.)

I can't be sure, but I suspect it was food poisoning.  Which is too bad, because the grilled chicken salad with tequila-lime dressing was one of my favorites at the place where we had lunch.  Not anymore, though.  Not ever again.

(Pat Kroth: Gypsy Rhythm - closeup)

Norm woke to a crashing thud (me too—nothing like coming back to consciousness with the sound of your own fall echoing in your ears).  His first thought was that we were having a home invasion.  As he made his way down the dark hallway to see what was happening, I eeked, "I'm so sick," and he found me lying there on the bathroom floor. 

(Aaron Bohrod: The Shadow)

Long story short, I felt like death for the next 24 hours, and to top it off, I had a contusion above my left eye and stiff neck.  Thankfully, I recovered in a day or two and am very grateful for that. 

(Andrew Acker: Crow Dreaming of Becoming a Man: Will I Still Fly?)

What wakes me up most days lately is a pair of crows, plus a few of their friends, that have taken up residence in our yard.  They often meet for a confab in the big river birch outside my bedroom window.  Starting at daybreak, with the sun barely over the horizon:  "Caw-caw-caw-caw-caw!" and various iterations thereof.  And so on, and so on, and so on.

I first thought they were nesting in the pines far back in the yard, but the other day I hung sheets out on the line for the first time this spring and watched a crow with a beak full of sticks fly into the ash tree right off the deck.  Yep, there it was, the crow's nest, about 40 feet off the ground.

Last spring it was mallards, this year it's crows.  It's going to be an interesting summer!