Hi there. I am off to Colorado to visit our daughter and son-in-law for a few days. I love Colorado all year, but especially in the fall.
I found a new blog to follow. At thequiltshow.com they are playing several free shows. The one I watched yesterday was from Cindy Needham. She takes old linens and makes whole cloth quilts. I LOVE it as I have several old linens and 50's tablecloths that are stuck away in a drawer. Now I know how to use them so they can be seen. AND now I can collect more of them!! FUN FUN FUN.
   I have started a new program called Take Shape For Life. It is fantastic and I feel healthier now than I have for many years. It involves the 5 in 1 plan where you have 5 Medifast meal and 1 Lean and Green meal a day.
So far I have lost 8.5 pounds in 10 days and lots of inches. I never feel hungry as I eat ever 2-3 hours. The food tastes really good, so easy to do. I will keep you posted on my progress. If you want to know more email me at donnasartquilts@msn.com.
   Have a fun weekend!!!

This is one of the best sayings I have seen:
         " I've learned so much from my mistakes that I'm thinking of making more"
         Too many time adults do not allow themselves to  make mistakes, especially quilters. We need to make mistakes, that is how we learn.

  Well, I know I haven't posted for a while, sorry. I have been working on a baby quilt with my husband's cousin's daughter. She is six and wanted to make her soon-to -be-born sister a quilt. She picked out 20 fabrics and put them in the order she wanted for the 4 square by 5 square quilt. I had to cut  each square 9 1/2 inches each so that all the motifs she wanted in the fabric fitted into each square. Sewing the blocks together was fun as I had help from her and her 4 year old sister. Then I finished putting the blocks together and quilted it. The baby's room is decorated with owls and I happened to find owl fabric which I used for the back. Some of the fabrics were polka dotted and others had cute bugs, butterflies, etc. on them. I quilted some book titles onto a few of the dotted fabrics; such as"Goodnight Moon"( where I, also, quilted crescent moons) and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"( where I quilted caterpillars). There is no photo to post now as the 6 year old was VERY eager to give it to her mom. Each of the two girls decorated fabric with fabric markers and I cut them into cupcake shapes which I fused to the back of the quilt. There is also a cupcake for the new baby which both girls decorated. I added the date so this would also be a memory quilt. Only one thing was wrong, I put the wrong month in the date!!!!!!!!!!! Oh well, I just told the mom she would always remember the date as one month sooner.


 Here are a few photos that may become art quilts.

This is a petunia that was growing in a large planter on a city street corner. Since they had just watered the planter, I was able to capture the water droplets.

This plant is Lady's Mantle. The history of this plant suggests that is was named for the Virgin Mary's mantle (her cape). My favorite feature is the way it catches the dew drops and rain drops. It has just rained a little that morning. I have this planted by a window so I can look at it each morning. I, also, like how the new leaves unfold like a fan. You can see the segments on this leaf.

This is a photo of the inside of a cantaloupe that we grew in our garden. I had never stopped to look at the design of the seeds and how they are divided into 6 segments. I used a photo program and enhanced the seeds a little.

This is a Anemone Robustissima from my garden. There are two reasons that this is one of my favorite plants. First it blooms in the fall when most of the flowers are done blooming for the year, and second the light pink color.  The bee gathering nectar was a bonus. You can see the bulging pollen sacs in his legs.

As I looked out my window, I saw this view and had to take a picture. I like the way the silhouettes of the trees partially encompass the moon and I like  the clouds in the sky. There is a tinge of orange on the horizon.

I took this photo of a cluster of acorns on our young oak tree. I like the contrast of the rough acorns and the smooth shiny oak leaves










   

July

Sorry I have not posted for a while. The quote for the day is from C.S. Lewis, " You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body."
Here are some photos for your enjoyment. This is a cluster of daylily blooms from my garden. I was playing with my camera to do different exposures.

 This is the normal exposure.

This is the same group of blooms in black and white.

This is done in sepia.

This is green.

This is blue.












 This is red.













 This is my favorite--the negative exposure. I really like how the colors come out so differently with the negative. That was a surprise to me. Since then I have done several photos in the negative. I especially like clouds.




















                                                                    

Quote of the Day

I decided that I would share with you  a quote that I find inspirational each time I post on my blog . So here is the quote of the day, July 7, 2011.
"For every minute you are angry you lose 60 seconds of happiness"
     Ralph Waldo Emerson

I thought I would share something that makes me happy every time I look at it: this daylily is named 'Strawberry Candy'

Vacation

I just got back from a  vacation in Estes Park, Colorado for a week with my husband and grown children with spouses. We all had a great time and enjoyed each others company all week. We had rented a house so were glad to have a full kitchen, dishwasher and washer and dryer in the house. The view from the second story deck was fabulous. It overlooked the Big Thompson River. To wake up each morning looking down (and hearing) the river through pine trees was unbelievable.

We drove on Trail Ridge Road. It is the highest paved road in the U.S. The views are breathtaking.. Here are some photos of our trip.
Above is the first sight we saw close to the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. It is a herd of elk. The elk come down from the high country
in the Fall  and spend the winter in Estes Park. Due to the late and heavy snow this year, this heard had not moved to the high country as yet. If you look closely you can see one or two baby elk that still have their spots.
This is the view as you start driving up Trail Ridge Road. At the top is the Alpine Visitor Center with an altitude of 12,000 feet ( I think).


This is the view on the way up from the entrance to the park.The ribbon you see is the road going up the mountain.


The mountains had lots of snow this year. The last storm was the end of May. While Trail Ridge Road usually opens on Memorial Day,it did not open this year until the middle of June. Here is part of a snow drift that was plowed to make access for the road. The people in front give a perspective as to how deep the snow was this year.  There still is a lot of snow to melt and the rivers are already full and moving fast.

This is the view as we rounded one of the curves on the road.

Close to the top of the mountain is the tundra.  This shows the thickness of the tundra which took hundreds is not thousands of years to form. The bottom picture is one of the types of wild flowers on the tundra. There is a path to walk up the mountain and look at the views and the wild flowers. Needless to say it is forbidden to walk on the tundra.

This is one of the views on the way down. Now you know where 'Purple mountains majesty' comes from in" America the Beautiful".







This is one of the mountain meadows. If you looked closely you can see a herd of elk. In all the years I have gone to Estes Park, I have never seen a heard of elk in the mountains.

Here is the view on the way down from the Alpine Center at the top of Trail Ridge Road. Breathtaking.




Here are some of the Lodge-pole Pines that the settlers used to make their homes. These pines grow tall and very straight, hence the reason they were used for walls of houses.

On the Move

   My husband's 101 year old Grandfather passed away last week, so we are on the move. The funeral was in Great Bend, Kansas where we were greeted by 104 degree temps and 50 mile an hour winds. That is a typical summer day in Great Bend.  From there we headed out for our vacation, so no posts for a while.
  Happy Summer

More Spring Flowers

Above is one of my last iris. I especially like the ruffles and the colors.  Above and on the right is a bud  the climbing rose Dawn. Due to the deer eating it these past years is has taken a while to get it to grow enough to cover one side of our arbor in the back. It now covers one side while the rose on the left covers the other.

The next few photos are of my rose on our trellis that  is over the gate that goes into our back yard. I am not sure of the name of this rose but it could be William Baffin??

 Here is a view of our pond. All the arching leaves in front are daylilies which will bloom in June. To the left are some of my Siberian Iris. The part of the pond that is behind the daylilies is covered with water lily pads and flowers.

 Above is my last peony of the year.

On the left is a close up of some of my Ostrich ferns that are planted by our back fence. This one escaped to the other side of the fence. I like how the sun is hitting the fern.

This is some more of my Ostrich ferns that escaped under the fence.

I like the color combination of the purple smoke bush and the yellow yarrow. The yarrow color is brighter than what the photo shows.

This is some of my hardy geraniums that are on the side of my front sidewalk. There are some on the other side of the walk. These used to be called sanguinum, but the name has changed. If I cut them off after blooming they will bloom again.