Pillows done!

Wow I am so excited, the pillows turned out better than I had hoped, I cannot wait to see the reaction of our grandchildren when we get home.  They are always appreciative of anything we bring home for them but I believe these pillows made just for them will be a hit!  We also have some jewellery for all our granddaughters and daughters, we like to bring back items made in AZ and find jewellery is one item we can find made in AZ as well the gems are mined in AZ so it is exceptional.  

Above is a pillow I made for our friend Cheri here in AZ.  Left are Lindsey and Caitlin's pillows.  Not sure why I didn't get a pic of Brooklyn's pillow.  I sure hope they like them!

Scenes from Hwy 82 travelling west

Went to Tombstone and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at Longhorns with  friends from the park this morning.  We took the camera so we could capture the views of the park sitting in the desert looking west towards the Whetstone and Huachuca Mountains as well as the Cotton Wood trees along the San Pedro River.  Usually we are returning to the park in the afternoon and the sun is in the wrong position for picture taking. It is a very warm day today, 78F\25.5C on our drive home at 9:45 AM. 

Looking north, Whetstone, AZ in front of Whetstone Mountains

Our winter home,  Tombstone Territories RV Park across the river valley

Dropping down into the San Pedro River Valley, the Cotton Wood trees are so green against the desert landscape

Looking south as we head west on Hwy 82 the Huachuca Mountains in the background

Pillow tops

As I mentioned in the April 2nd post I was excited to try out the new sew on transfers.  Well I certainly had some challenges creating the pillow tops.  I had grand ideas but they did always work and I am still learning what I can do with the pictures once I get them printed and ready to sew on the project.  I choose the pictures then sized them to what I thought would be good sizes for each project, not giving too much thought to the pattern I wanted to use, I then designed the pillow top around the picture.  I had fabric that I wanted to use but designing the pattern is always a challenge for me, again I ask for help from Woody, a second opinion always helps and besides he has a good ideas when it comes to design. 
Anyway here are the first three I made.  The tops are not finished, I need to buy the pillow forms before I add a border so I can size the border to fit the pillow forms

This is my first attempt.

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Second attempt, the picture is not square and I am still debating about redoing.

Number 3, getting a little better.

 I had fun creating these and one day I will get the pillow inserts and finish them! I choose the pictures for their action and look of pure pure fun!

Make up my mind eh!

My goal today was to finish my current sewing project so I could start on some items I want to create for my grandchildren or at least 3 of them for now.  I found these cool sew on transfers, they are cloth with a paper backing and made to use in an ink jet printers.  I can choose pictures then print them out on the transfer sheets and sewn to anything I want.  I am going create cushion tops with the picture being the focal point of the cushion.  Well that was my goal, I did not finish my current project, I really was not sure I liked the material that I had chosen for the sashing, I waited until Woody got home so I could have a second opinion, he agreed with me that the colour was not really complimentary to the pillow top I had created.  In the meantime I started the new project, I cannot wait to see how this picture printing on fabric turns out.  I will post some pics when I complete a pillow top.

This and that

Well almost a week has passed since my last post, not doing too well at keeping our blog.  I find it difficult to stop a project whether it is working on a DVD slide show or creating a sewing project or knitting.  I usually knit in the evening while watching TV but sewing is a daytime event and when I get started I find it very hard to stop.  I promise myself I will spend at least an hour on my blog daily  then during the day I think, I will just finish “this” (this being housework or other chores) and then I will sew for an hour or so,  then sit down and write some notes for our blog.  I somehow get sewing and if Woody is gone I do not quit until he returns which is usually late afternoon.  Watching the birds is also a fun pastime, we have many different species of birds that frequent our site and they are such fun to watch, chasing each other and now they are starting the mating rituals, I saw a pair of Pyrrhuloxia the other day the male feeds the females as part of their ritual, it looked like they were kissing!  The male below is a pretty bird; the female lacks the red colouring.

Friday I took the dogs to their grooming appointment in Sierra Vista while Woody drove Cheri to her Doctor's appointment, we met back at Cheri's in Whetstone visited for awhile then Woody and I drove back to Sierra Vista, went out for lunch and did some shopping, we bought some needed items as well as a new keyboard for me.  My old keyboard was on it's last legs, many keys had the letters worn off and some keys were not working well.  I really do love my new keyboard, now that I have taken some time to use it, it has many new features that I appreciate, example a button on the keyboard has a music sign on it, push the button and my library of music pops up, and other cool things like that! Oh yes,  the keyboard and mouse use 1 USB port so now I have all my extra devices plugged in, no more unplugging and plugging in my extra DVD/CD player. We also bought new hinges for our bathroom door, Woody had purchased a new door knob (which was threatening to lock up and not unlock) and some new hinges (the hinges were worn out due to us hanging to many jackets on the hooks on the door) but he decided we needed heavier hinges, so now we have 4 heavy duty hinges on the door.  It is a good thing he is a good handyman, it seems there is always something needing looking after.

Yesterday my dear husband bought another telephoto lens for his camera, with the new lens he can zoom in further than before, it really is cool to be able to zoom in and capture photos like below.

 

This guy looks like he is directing traffic!

We have many of these little finches.