Dyed Fabric

I was finally able to download the photo of the hand dyed yellow/purple run. Technical difficulties between the camera and the computer. I used DT Orchid and DT bright yellow. Always interesting to see what happens between direct complements.

Everything technical seems to be running on the fritz these days. One day I had no internet, no phone, therefore no fax machine and my cell phone was going in and out of service. Talk about feeling shut off from the world!!!

End of July

Hard to believe that July is coming to an end tomorrow. It has been eventful to say the least. Yesterday we had a 5 minute warning of a possible tornado headed our way. NOAA radio and the tv came on at the same time with a warning. The sirens blew in town, so apparently a funnel was spotted. All we saw was a very low cloud and then lots of rain in a short period of time. After the storm had passed, we went to check on several fields for hail and saw a couple of storm spotters.

Everything is still lush and green, that hasn't been hailed. Even those fields are doing their best to look respectable due to all the rain. The moisture profiles are better than they have ever been in the cornfields. Probably ought to frame one of those crop reports as it might be the only time we will ever see an 80-80-80 profile at the end of July in our life time.

I dyed fabric yesterday. I dyed a 7 step run for a direct complement swap for Dyehards. The next one will be a rainbow wheel. Will do that one in Aug. as I have no idea what colors I want to use. I re-organized the dyes today and ordered a few from Dharma. I would like to work more with a wheel I dyed a couple of years ago now!!!

I have finished the structured fabric class, not the piece however. I did remove the yarn and I am going to put some pink fabric over the yellow to tone it down.

I also concluded the journal class with Sharon Boggen on Joggles. It was a great class! I need to go back and do some more of the exercises she gave us during the class. Very helpful.

This is one of the journal pages. It is of the hailed corn. Thought if might provide some interesting subject matter sometime for a small journal quilt.

So August will start, class reunion coming up in a week. The 40th!! Hardly seems possible that 40 years have gone by since I graduated from high school. I have noticed that I am looking older, so maybe it is possible.

Weather!!

This is the result of some very high winds we experienced yesterday evening. It was a beautiful crab apple tree. Not sure what is going to happen to it now as over half of the tree is on the ground. At least we didn't get any hail or rain.

The aftermath

Well our luck ran out today where the hail was concerned. This is a cabbage from our garden. It looks pretty good compared to some of our corn and wheat. It has about 5 dings from hail stones. The hail stones were anywhere from a half dollar to small marbles, with wind. Glad none came through our windows.

There was a 1 1/2 mile stretch on I-70 that was pounded during the storm. Vehicles going west had the back windows completely broken out and vehicles traveling east had windshields shattered.

We hope no one was seriously injured. Our concern was for families with little kids sitting in the back seats or in car seats. The wind was suppose to be around 60 mph at the time, so after the window was broken, I would imagine those in the vehicles had the baseball size hail to contend with coming into their vehicles.

More Structured Fabric

This is what the piece of structured fabric looks like now. I have one more set of strips to add and it will be completed then I will make something from it.

I took the "Darned Quilt" class from Dena on Quilt University last year and I think I like that technique a little better. As of now, I plan on using what I learned in that class when making the next piece from the structured fabric.

I still have some of the original check fabric I made in the beginning. Stay tuned.

More Rain!!

Yes, more rain. Any of those who have been following the drought we have gone through out here are probably in shock as all I have done for more years than I care to remember, complained about little or no rain or snow.

BUT I am NOT complaining. Living through the hell of the drought is far more stressful and debilitating on one's mind, body and spirit than dealing with too much rain during wheat harvest.

The flowers are really liking the rain we had last fall. I think that is why they are bigger than they have ever been. This photo is of one of my favorite day lilies, Gentle Shepard.

The next one is of some peach Asiatic lilies, no idea of the name. I need to stake them as they are not standing too well.

All of the flowers fared well last night considering we must have had some formidable winds before the storm. There is eveidence of this in the corn fields, greensnap. Some worse than others. A field of my nephew's, which is a beautiful, tall field of corn, took a very hard hit.

A photo of the radar map, as it looked this morning right at 12:00 a.m. That big hunk of red, south of the I-70 logo is just about ready to come over the area where we live and farm. It was a little frightening to watch it. I was thinking the same thing as my nephew, who was home watching it on his computer---we are going to get wiped out!! Well, we didn't get wiped out as there was no hail, but the wind didn't do us any favors. We received anywhere from 90/1ooths of rain to 50/100ths of rain, so we are out of the wheat fields again today. Everyone is getting nervous as the crop is wonderful and we can't cut it.

As stated earlier, I am not complaining about the rain. Although my stomach is not doing so well, especially watching that storm last night. Just wish it could hold off for about 2 weeks until everyone gets their wheat harvested.

The storms are building in the west as I write this, so we have to hang on for another onslought. We did survive our second flash flood warning of the season though. Didn't see any evidence of that anywhere this morning as the Smoky isn't running nor Sand Creek so we haven't had one yet.

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RAIN!!!

We went to Jennifer & Chad's to watch the fireworks last night. Actually we crashed their BBQ. It was pouring when we arrived.

Apparently we brought the rain back with us as we had a 20% chance of rain here today. Sort of like the 20% chance the other night when we were hailed. We were more than a little concerned when the cell, coming down from Yuma county came closer and closer and it was still red on radar. The NOAA weather
alert never went off, but then who knows about that sometimes.
We did have light rain, then a strong blast of wind and then it rained!!! We received 1.10" in about half an hour. Our ditch is partially full of water and it has been some time since that occurred. It has been a long time since we have had any rain in the month of July.

This photo is looking west of our driveway toward Burlington, which we would normally have a good view of town from here. We couldn't see more than 3/4 to 1 mile. It was a nice rain as it came straight down. Hopefully the dry land corn will grow some brace roots now.

This little shower took care of running around with the combine
tomorrow trying to find some wheat that might be dry. By the
time it dries out so that the combines can go in the field, it will
be ready yo cut.

I threw the photo of the rudibeckias in, as they are one of my favorite flowers.

Another class

I am currently taking Dena Crain's "Structured Fabrics" class on Quilt University. I am a big fan of online classes!!! I have learned a number of things taking these classes over the years. I personally think it is much better than attending a conference or one day class that is rushed, haul loads of stuff there one NEVER uses or the instructor doesn't even know what is on the supply list. I like 5 day classes, at least the two I have taken.

Anyway, this is the first installment of this class. Should get the next set of instructions tomorrow evening. So if interested, stay tuned and see what happens next. I just started a bead class on Joggles, so will post more on that later.

Wheat Harvest!!

It is time to cut wheat!! Well, maybe only for a day. We have one field that tried to burn up before the rains came this spring. Good spots, ho hum spots and down right terrible spots.

We took a sample over to the Kanorado Co-op this evening as the elevators in Burlington were closed. No one is cutting because the vast majority of the wheat is not ready. BUT there are storms predicted for this weekend and the storm clouds are in the west this evening.

The picture to the right shows how much dust and chaff are reflected in the flash. I thought I had something on the lens of the camera, but it was just dust. I guess I should have figured that out since I have a headache.