Celebrations.....

Here at our house we tend to get as much mileage out of birthdays as possible.  My birthday is in August, so we got off to a great start over the weekend.  Bruce and I went out to the Rio Grande, a marvelous Mexican restaurant in the old train station, on Friday evening.  Then on Saturday evening our good friends and neighbors treated us to the Old Spaghetti Factory.  Sunday evening we celebrated with friends to a fabulous restaurant up near the state capital called Em's.  What a grand time we had, and we've just started!!!  However, I have friends from California coming here on the week end, and we will be heading to Kansas City Mo. to the retreat called Primitives of the Midwest at Quilter's Station.

This is one of many items on my design wall......there are several things I am working on, and I'm excited about all of them.  This table runner is from the same table runner below called Follow the Sun.  I wanted to refresh myself to the pattern before teaching it.  As you can see, this one will have a winter theme.

This is the center design for a new quilt of the smallish nature.  I need to look at it for a while and decide what should come next.....it's been fun so far.

This is the runner I was referring to, and needed to refresh myself on.

On our way home from our recent trip, we stopped to visit a friend in Casper, Wyoming.  She not only is a special friend, but she is very crafty and clever.  I snapped a few photos from around her home.  She has collected Coco Cola memorabilia over the years.

I love the old pump, we had a similar one on the farm when I was a child.

Susan is a perfectly lovely hand quilter, and loves doing so.  Here she has a 1 inch grid she is stitching on, preparing a quilt for Autumn.

She has converted some beautiful old furniture pieces into cabinets for her bathrooms.

Old suitcases for a prop.

This is an old Yo-Yo quilt that has been in her family for years.

Another converted bathroom cabinet.

Another family quilt with autographs.

Susan has created stitcheries to represent all of the places she has lived.

She has created this memory wall as a tribute to her husband who has died.  These are his musical instruments.

Another quilt which Susan has made and hand quilted.

Her beautiful red cabinets and her tin collection displayed.

A patriotic table topper for her table.

And, did I mention her collecting Coca Cola stuff!!!

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." - Plato