Mystery Weekend in Big Bear, Calif.

This will be about Big Bear, but first you get kitten photos. She's almost 6 weeks old and she and Little Bit [youngest chihuahua] have developed a "tag" type game they play [until he scares her and she runs under my feet or the furniture].








Here is our room [Sandy and I bunked together]. Very spacious [although the refrigerator door didn't close] and clean. The T.V. worked well, also. We stayed at Northwoods Resort and Convention Center in Big Bear.






And here's the photo of my first block. So far there are 12 different food/bug fabrics plus the green "sashing" around the 4 center blocks. All the fabrics are supposed to be different, although not all of mine worked out that way.


And, of course, there's chocolate to get us through the hours of cutting, matching, sewing, and ironing. The main room was upstairs [2nd floor] at the convention center of the hotel, and the ironing room was a bedroom on the first floor of the "rooms" of the hotel. Quite a hike at 10 p.m. [although it did get the blood circulating].







And here's my quilt with the first border on it [not in the pattern, but needed]. I did get the top larger border on, but it didn't show here.




I finished the borders at "Sit & Sew" on Tuesday night at A Quilter's Dream, where we are not holding our quilting classes.



And here is the group that stayed late enough Sunday morning to get a group photo. We had show and tell and saw everything from quilt tops with all borders on to just a few blocks placed strategically on the chest.


There was way to much food [breakfast, lunch and dinner on Saturday and breakfast on Sunday were part of the package], but lots of fun. I did discover that Starbucks has a Double Chocolate Chip Frappucino [sp?] that should NOT be taken at 10 p.m. It was tough getting to sleep that night even though my body said "enough!'.

NEW WATER HEATER

Here is a brand new water heater [what fun!]. It's been leaking for several days, but I thought it was the washing machine and turned off the water to the machine for a couple days to check. Water kept building up on the floor [sigh] so finally called a company that came out within an hour to do the work.

The wooden floor is a piece of plywood that the workers put down because the folks who put down the floor didn't bother to put Pergo UNDER the water heater, and the new one had to go back about 2 feet so it could be strapped to the wall.


Here is all the new piping that they installed because the old piping wouldn't allow the water heater to stand against the wall.

They did a great job - but it must have been gold plated somewhere for the price I was charged. I will say the guys that did the job were top notch, very professional, and very polite and neat.

I really hoped I could move in July without spending more money on the house.

My new home!

I went for a visit to Westminster Gardens today, Wednesday, and got to see the new unit still under construction.

Maple cabinets in the kitchen!!!!! Stove, refrigerator, sink, and washer/dryer still to be installed [along with the floor in the entire unit].

This photo is the bedroom [mint green walls that don't really show up in the photo].

I can hardly wait to move in. There are no folks out working on their cars with music blasting, and no fireworks going off in the grounds.

It looks like move-in date will be July 17th [at least that's the plan at this time].

And I tried to take a better photo of my rescue kitten [but no luck]. She's still thriving and driving the dogs nuts. She's going to a babysitter this weekend while I go to Mystery Quilt Weekend up in Big Bear Lake. I am, though, going to have to find a home for her before I move.

And here's why it's called dogs and QUILTS

I made this quilt for Laura Catherine [my youngest granddaughter]. She wanted PINK with no other colors. She hasn't seen it yet, and I hope to get it quilted and to her before anyone in the family sees the blog.

Sunday Evening

Sunday evening and I managed to get one of my shelf units in my garage broken down and carted to the storage unit [photos coming]. I still have another unit to move [along with the fabric and quilts on it] and will try to do that on Wednesday.

Above is a sample of the tubs we packed up from the cleaning done before the first blog took place. I'm on the left and my friend Sandy is on the right. There were a whole group of ladies there, but no one wanted to be photographed [end of the day, and everyone was looking like they had worked in the garden all day.].

Tuesday I'm taking the kitten to the vet for worming ["she" is starting to look a lot like a "he", but I'll have the vet verify that]. I think she's going to a farm to be a "barn cat" - along with Angel, my elderly cat that also needs a home.

I've been trying to get her [I've named her Blackie] to start eating out of a dish. She's going to a babysitter this weekend since I'm going up to Big Bear Lake for a mystery quilt weekend and I can't take her with me.

Tuesday I'm also going to see if I can get to Westminster Gardens to check on the progress of my unit and try to set up a "move in" date. Frightening how everything is moving along at breakneck speed.

Today you get to see why the blog is called dogs and quilts.



Here is Little Bit [above] - an almost 3 year old chihuahua. I found him at my local vet's. He was just a few weeks old and looked like a hairless rat. The vet was taking care of him for the local shelter [his sister died, but lilbit lives with me]. His best trick is rolling over to get his tummy rubbed and peeing [sigh]. He may be civilized some day, but I doubt it.

And here is Chico. He's between 8 and 9 years old and I found him at the Petsmart animal weekend. He has to be the most mellow chihuahua I've ever seen. Fireworks do bother him, but people don't seem to very much. He comes out to check the visitors, and then goes back to bed.

I'll post quilt photos later.

Today [Thursday] was quilting day at the Senior Center. I took in patterns for the director to look at to possibly post for our new series of classes - one is a string pieced table runner, another table runner is one of the Quilt in a Day books, and a friend also gave me a string pieced tree skirt [yes, Christmas is coming] pattern that I showed my single student [we're trying to get a few more so the class isn't cancelled].

If you're in Irwindale, CA on Thursday afternoons, please come to the center between 1 and 3 pm for some gab and quilting. It's not quite a stitch and bitch, but some days are merrier than others.

First post

I'm in the midst of moving from my home of 24 years to a retirement community in Duarte, Calif. They have beautiful grounds and I will actually have almost as much room in my space [living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and small hall] that I have in my house.





You can see and read about the community at http://www.westgardens.org/





Just no garage to store stuff in [that's all going to 2 storage units at America Stores in between my house and Westminster Gardens].





I picked up a kitten that one of the neighbors accused another neighbors cat of producing [except that cat is a male]. I'm looking for a home for her at this point since I can't take her with me when I move sometime in July.

She is about 3 weeks old at this point and I am bottle feeding her and keeping her in a giant carrying cage. My oldest chihuahua has tried twice to kill her and I don't want that to happen.


I've been trying to get a lot of stuff labeled and packed for storage so that I can go to the units and find a specific thing. So far it's worked!

My house is selling to an agent who is going to take it "as is" and fix it up and resell. For me, that is the best possible thing that could have happened. I don't know if I trust any contractors to come in to do the work.