Marilyn's Southwestern Quilt

This is the fifth one of these southwestern quilts that I have done. I like to make each one unique. Marilyn is an expert piecer so this one was fun to play with. Marilyn wanted Kokopellis, suns and geckos. I tried to talk her into bears, steer heads and buffalos but she was not having any of it. Teehee. So I put a few Saguaro cactus in there, some lightning bolts and of course, Circle Lord spirals.

She loved it. Woohoo.

The L.A. Law Quilt

I got an email a few weeks ago from a lady who belonged to a quilt group at a Los Angeles law firm, thus the moniker LA Law quilt. Their law firm is having a holiday event and they plan to raffle the quilt. LA is about 90 miles from Ramona. The groups' normal quilter had a machine problem and could not finish the quilt in time for their deadline.

The group had visited San Diego's Rosie's Calico Cupboard (20,000 bolts) fabric shop and heard that Rosie has a list of longarmers who have quilted charity quilts for her quilt project that gives quilts to the American Cancer Society's Camp Reach for the Sky which is a camp for kids ages 4 -18 with cancer. That's how they found me. I am one of Rosie's longarm volunteers. We emailed back and forth a few times and finally settled on a design, thread and pricing. I promised that I could turn the quilt around in 2 weeks. The quilt is a BQ (Big Quilt) done in beige, gold and burgundy. The back was a wide back in a deep burgundy. They wanted a leaf wreath in the big blocks, stipple in the background and leaf vines in the sashing; Warm & Natural batting. I used Old Gold PermaCore thread top and bobbin.
















I was in the middle of quilting it when we had a family emergency and I had to leave town. When I got back to the quilt a few days later, it was quilting up fine. That was Sunday, October 21st, the day that the Witch Creek fire hit our town. I could see the smoke about 1:30 but I had to finish the quilt. I was sure they were going to evacuate us again. Four years ago, we couldn't come home for 2 and half days. So I kept quilting. The first reverse 911 call about voluntary evacuations came at 2:30. I took a break to pack a few clothes and my customer quilts in the car.

And I kept quilting. I finished the quilt at 4:15, pulled it off the machine, grabbed the dog and was driving down the street by 4:30. The mandatory evacuation came 25 minutes later. I like to get photos of my quilts so I laid the LA Law quilt on the bed at the hotel and got some photos of the quilt. The post offices were closed due to the fires. I found an UPS store that was opened and sent the quilt. It was one day late but they forgave me. They were very happy with their quilt.

October 2007 Had It's Ups and Downs

Autumn is my favorite season. The weather cools, the leaves change colors and the promise of holidays fill the air. Sadly, we learned that Terry's mother was diagnosed with an agressive for of lung cancer, she was 76. She was so afraid of the chemo, I think that she just didn't want to face it. 22 days from diagnosis to death. She will be missed.

Ramona had its annual Back Country Quilt show. See the page later in this blog.


Ramona and many areas of San Diego county were hit by 8 wildfires. The Witch Creek fire started about 8 miles from our house. We were evacuated for 5 days. The fire burned thousands of acres, over 1800 houses and people lost their lives. Exactly 4 years ago, the Cedar fire devastated San Diego county. The smoke and ash lingered for weeks. We are in that stage now after the Witch fire.




Ramona is a small friendly town. We pulled together after the last fire so we knew what to do after this one. As you can tell by the signs, we hold firefighters in high regard. I don't know why they do their job but I am so glad they do. Ramona has a lot of old Scrub Oak trees. Many of them burned up. There is one burned out old tree from the Cedar fire. It smoldered for days after the fire. It looks like a dog with pointed ears. The town calls it the Cedar Fire dog. Kids use the fire dog like a bulletin board hanging messages on it such as Happy Birthday or Welcome Home to a military member.

October closed with Halloween. My grandchildren always have fun during this holiday. They get to meet family and friends and walk around in cool costumes and night and get candy. What could be better that that for a kid?








Hunter, the redhead is going to be 5 next month. He is a Star Wars fan and dressed as a Jedi knight. Gavin, a 2-yr old the jumping bean, dressed as a policeman. He should have gone as a lightning detector. Bad case of bed-head. Madison, 8 months old, skipped the costume and just went along for the ride.