Life seems to be going at breakneck speed and the days fly by with so much to do.

Since my last post there have been two International Quilt Markets. I traveled to one of them and made new patterns and quilts for both.

My son got married to a beautiful girl.

A new grand baby is on the way. I had no involvement with that one

I took my horse Boaz to a three day horse clinic and learned so much about horsemanship.

Traveled to Oregon to teach during the Sister’s Show.

Went on a women’s pack trip into the Bob. (Bob Marshal Wilderness) Came off Dillon and hurt my bumm.

On Labor Day, my horse Boaz died. I grieved terribly. He was that once in a lifetime horse that I bonded with. He would see me and come running across the field as if to say; where are we going? Lets go!

Eventually found a new horse, Tobiah is his name, which means the Lord is good.

He is a good boy but not my Boaz. Maybe with time.

I try to ride Dillon and the new guy when I can but we have had rain, rain and more rain. Some snow and ice and mud. When it isn’t muddy it is raining again.

I’m working on getting my new patterns written and printed and online.

This is Adalynn’s Garden quilt pattern introduced at Spring Quilt Market. It is named after my 2 year old granddaughter.

The fabric is from Robert Kaufman and is a mixture of floral prints and batiks. A beautiful combination.

Another colorway

Enjoy! You can find the patterns here. You will also see a third color way in this design on the pattern’s page. Let me know what you think.

Elisa

This is my original Moon in the Window quilt pattern using Kona Bay Cottons. Yummy!

This is a new version using Kaufman’s Asian Batik fabrics.

A different look but very cool.

This is another one. My Many Paths pattern. The original version.

This is one of my favorite color choices using Hoffman California batiks. It was made a couple of years ago and these exact fabrics are no longer available.

This is an updated version using Kaufman’s Northwoods II Batiks. (This fabric will be available soon!)

Do you like it? I sure do.

But then I did another version…

I think it is one of my favorites. I love the blue and white look. Eww yea!

Elisa

This photo was sent to me by Carrie D’Andrea. She used the 7″ Crazy Curves template.

Here is a photo of the quilt I made for the American Association of University Women, Minneapolis Branch, for their fund raiser and auction two weeks ago. I received a lot of compliments from our members and also from the people who attended the benefit. The quilt sold in the silent auction to a wonderful woman who was so excited to get it and can’t decided just where to hang it or to use it on a bed or sofa. It gave me great pleasure to contribute in this way and I thank you again for permission to use the pattern….

Sincerely,

Carrie D’Andrea

How cool is that? Thanks for sharing Carrie. I love it! Thanks for donating your time to make the quilt.

Elisa

I have to tell you that while I was growing up, my brother and I absolutely hated sweet potatoes. We would run in horror at the mere mention of the word. I must confess that it was the way they were prepared (sorry mom). I prefer them to be prepared without so much stuff on them. Years later, I had a freshly baked sweet potato, which is really a yam and learned that it wasn’t so bad. My brother came to visit one time and I tried to convince him to try it. He had that disgusted look on his face at the mere thought of putting them into his mouth. I finally convinced him to try and he timidly took a bite. Then another. Not so bad. Now he is also a sweet potato convert.

I think there are those who like to do up their sweet potatoes with the sugar and marshmallows and those who like them roasted or baked. I am the latter. I also don’t care for marshmallows that that could be part of the problem.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about all of the ways to eat sweet potatoes. I never knew it would be such an interesting topic. I am reading through all of the comments again and again and I am getting hungry. I have a list of them to try; the roasted sweet potato salad. Oh my, please send me the recipe for that one.
The sweet potato souffle and the oil and balsamic vinegar, and roasted with beets and other vegetables. Yum.
I usually eat mine baked with some olive oil and cinnamon or sliced or as baked fries. I use a mandolin slicer to make the chips. Be VERY careful if you get one of those. I sliced my hand once with it. Ouch! But it does make thin, even slices.

And now to the winners.
Elizabeth Engman is the first winner.
Gwen Windham is the 2nd winner
MarciaW is the third winner.

Congratulations to all. Please email me your mailing address.

Thanksgiving is coming up. We are planning our menu and getting excited for family to arrive. Thanksgiving is a great holiday it involves food – a good thing, and being thankful – a great thing.

Don’t worry, this guys is a pet and has survived many Thanksgivings

I am curios about what you will be eating. Our meal will be gluten free and mostly dairy free. Some of the kids can’t have nuts. It is a challenge but worth it. There are so many great substitutions like hemp milk, which I love or coconut milk and grape-seed oil for butter.

Let me know.

Elisa

This was Dillon after we arrived at the vet. He was given a shot and was very sleepy.

He has some pieces of flesh cut off (gross) and then his foot was wrapped and wrapped and wrapped again with different types of bandages.

And then they made a shoe out of duct tape and put that over the bandages. And then another tape at the top to keep the duct tape boot on.

And while he was there we checked his teeth and gave him a teeth floating. I am not sure why they call it “floating”. It is kind of like a sander that they use to smooth the rough edges of his teeth so that they don’t hurt his tongue and cheeks as he chews. He had quite a few sharp points in there.

Then he got a tetanus shot. He was a good patient and didn’t really seem to mind much. Of course he was a bit sleepy.

Then I called another friend and we trailered Dillon to her house. She has a stable in her barn that I will need to keep him in. He has to keep his foot dry for two weeks. Yea right. We have a foot of snow.

So it was time to go home and I called my husband with dire warnings about the road and to not drive up it without chains. He gets to our road and drove up it with no problems, scratching his head, wondering what the big problem was. When I came home later I saw that the road had been plowed again and sand dumped on it. No more treacherous road.

The other funny thing was that there was almost NO snow in town. We were trying to explain why we had so much trouble getting into the vet and they didn’t understand because all of the roads were dry. We had our own little snow cloud west of town that dumped its load on us.

More on quilting stuff later…

Elisa