Van Briggle Pottery, Colorado Springs

I am spending a few days with Ted at the Broadmoor, our annual "Broadmoor Weekend!"  Ted attends the conference of the ACP.  Sometimes the girls come with us, but last year they didn't.  So this year, Ted and I came down on Thursday and they are coming up this morning.  They should be here in about an hour!  It's crazy, but as much as I like the alone time, I am always glad to be with them again.

Yesterday I mostly stayed around here, but I did take a little drive, mostly to get out so they could clean the room :)  I love that part!!!!!

I visited two quilt shops.  I know I am not exactly a quilt shop expert/reviewer, but here is my take on the two places anyway.  There is really no comparison.  One of them has about ten thumbs up, and the other one just thumbs down.

First I went to Ladybug Hill Quilts.  http://www.ladybughillquilts.com

I have been here before, and really was unimpressed, but thought I would give it another try.  This shop is extremely underwhelming.  I don't really know what their "thing" is.  I don't remember any of the fabrics they have.  They seem to have a lot of patterns.  BUT it is very dark.  In the middle and back of the shop, I couldn't even hardly see the fabrics.  They are not displayed very creatively nor do they show off whatever collections they might have had.  AND  it was dead quiet.  No music, no talking, nothing.  It was like a library.  There were a few people there, but not one word.  I was afraid to make a sound.  I could hardly wait to leave.  It was not relaxing at all.  Very sterile.  Not tempting at all to buy anything.

OK, now for my favorite!!  High Country Quilts...  http://www.hcquilts.com/

I LOVE everything about this shop.  It is BRIGHT and big.  And they always have great music playing.  Sort of oldies/jazzy music.  They have a lot of things I LOVE.
*Kids fabrics/panels/books, minky, patterns.  They have lots of vintagey kids prints.  I love all their children's selection.
*Jelly rolls, charm packs, these little 2" squares, all sorts of pre-cut packages.  I really like using them because you get so many different fabrics, without buying tons of yardage.
*Even though I don't really do embroidery, I love looking at all their embroidery patterns.  Mostly the company that is something like cinderberry or something like that, really cute.

Everyone is super friendly and there is always sort of a buzz going on.  They have a big classroom, too, and it makes you sort of want to hang out here all day.

Then I took a little drive around the downtown area, and around Colorado College.  I wanted to see the original VanBriggle Pottery Factory.  I remember going here with Eric once when he was about 12, on a field trip looking at architecture.  It is now a Facility Department building for Colorado College.  But there is a public area with an information sign and so I just parked in the employees' parking and walked around and took some pictures.

Pikes Peak in the background.

This sundial was exactly correct!
I was there at 10:45.

South-facing wall.  The sky was gorgeous!!

This very handsome rooster is right above the sundial.

Public park area outside of the factory.  The two alcove areas on the sides are shown below , one for  Artus VanBriggle, and the other shows his wife, Anne.  The mosaics in the center are beautiful, colorful pictures of art deco styled motifs of pottery and native americans.

Art Deco cat gargoyle on the top of one of the chimneys.

I have several pieces of VanBriggle pottery.  I have loved it since I was a little girl.  My grandmother and mom had these pieces, I am sure it was more that it was from Colorado Springs.  I don't think they were especially "collectors."  They used to have a shop and factory over on Cimmaron and 21st Ave, near Manitou.  We would go there and watch the people making and hand painting the pottery.  But now they are in a much smaller place downtown.  We went there a few years ago with Eric and Paula.  It was not as interesting.  I guess I need to go there again.

Here is a peak at our room at the Broadmoor:

The sitting area in the living room.  On that little table
is my lunch.  It is the yogurt I brought from home (read:cheap)
and I put it in one of the wine glasses in the
bar-room and it made me feel quite luxurious :)

Our desk with the Tower of Treats.

The sitting area in the main room, with our balcony.  That is the
main entrance of the hotel out that window.

The living room, from the other
direction.  This is
where I did some sewing,
watched Downton Abbey
on my computer and snacked!!

The girls are here now, we are going exploring!!!

Enjoy your weekend,
Karen

New Books, Quilt Plans

I was putting some books away today, and some of them were new books I had just picked up at Goodwill.  I got a set of 12, a series entitled My Book House.  I have seen sets of them for quite a bit, and I got them for $12 for the set!!  Because they were all just $1 because they were hard back children's books!!

They are really lovely books, and I had wanted them to use for artwork, so we are probably going to be cutting them up.  It is pretty hard to do that, but that's the plan.... They are all new, some are still in plastic wrap.  Which reminded me of my elementary school days!  I went to Cory Elementary School in Denver.  We had a librarian named Mrs. Zumwinkle.  Most of our teachers had very interesting names (Mrs. Friend, Mrs. Quail...)  Anyway, I remember when they would get new books in, we would come in to help "break them in."  We would hold the books up on the table and open them up with all the pages in the middle and then fold back sections gently on each side, so they would not break the binding.  I have no idea if that is/was necessary, but I remember thinking it was pretty cool, and I was an important helper to the library!!  

I have decided to make a small table runner quilt to practice my hand stitching before I tackle the big project!!  I made some hexies last year when we went to the Broadmoor.  I also during that time watched all of season 1 of Downton Abbey, and the first couple of episodes of Season 2 so that I could get caught up on this new show everyone was talking about!  I have a whole pile of hexies that I haven't done any more with, so today I arranged them in a sort of flower/abstract pattern, and I am going to connect them and quilt them onto a small runner.  That's the plan, anyway.  I should be able to get a good start on them tomorrow during the Super Bowl.  

Here are some inspiring pictures:

1. Hexies!, 2. Hexies Laid Out, 3. Just finished this one on my trip away. My new favourite., 4. Hexagon Quilt WIP, 5. Sew Sew Modern... it goes on... :), 6. Hexies at play {WIP Wednesday), 7. #kindle #cover #hexagons #paper-pieced #handmade, 8. Hexie Mug Rug..., 9. pochette chevrons, 10. Hexy MF wip, 11. Grandmothers Flower Garden Quilt, 12. Grandmothers Flower Garden Quilt, 13. aunt grace windmills! 

Have a great Sunday, enjoy worshipping with your church family, and rest and be refreshed! We are Blessed!!

Karen

Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt

I have this great quilt top.  It is super old.  It is bright and cheery.  It makes me smile.  However, it needs to be finished!!  And because it is all lovingly hand pieced, it seems to be crying out to be hand quilted..

I love the movement in this picture.  It was such a pretty sunny day, however a bit windy.  I love it against the white aspen and blue sky.

So here's the story:  My grandmother (FarMor) had Alzheimer's disease and we cleaned out her house after she moved to a nursing home.  This would have been about 1990 or so.  She passed away in October, 1992.   When we went through her things, this quilt top was in the bottom of a trash bag up in her attic.  It was almost thrown out.  Anyway, since I am the family seamstress, I became the new owner.

The mystery:  My grandmother never really sewed.  She was a knitter. A knitter extraordinaire.  In fact, she taught lots of people how to knit.  Back in the day, May D&F was a marvelous department store, with their main store downtown on 16th Street.  It had this really cool part of the building that was designed by IM Pei, and it was this modernistic parabola shaped building.  Also, there was a skating rink there, sort of like the Rockefeller Center in NYC.  Sorry for the rabbit trail.  May D&F  had a yarn department (hard to believe) and she was their knitting expert.  She sat there knitting, and people would bring in projects for her to help with and also give classes and lessons.  She was the May D&F knitting guru.  Sometimes she finished things for people.  You know, they would knit the front, back and sleeves of a sweater and then not have a clue what to do with them, and she would finish it for them.  She got paid in some interesting ways, for instance a cake, some pickles and jams, etc.

It is our best guess that someone gave her this quilt top in payment for some work she did.  She never told any of us, and I have no idea how she thought it would get finished or what she would do with it.

Second part of this story is that in 1995, at my 20th high school reunion, I met a former classmate who was doing quilting.  She had been a peds nurse for Kaiser, and so she had actually worked at some point in after hours care with Ted.  But she had been diagnosed with MS and was working much less, and doing quilting in her days off.  So, I gave her the quilt and she was going to finish it.  But I never heard from her again.  Every few years I would try to find her, send a letter to the last address I had, etc.

Then I started doing some quilting, and really getting more interested in quilts.  A year ago I began in earnest to find her.  Then one day I got a call from her, answering my last letter.  It was pretty sad, her husband had just died of alcoholism, her mom was starting to fail, and her MS was pretty severe.  Needless to say, she hadn't worked on the quilt.  She wasn't sure where it was, somewhere in her mom's attic.  But after a year of each of us trying to get our schedules to meet up, I went to her house this week and picked up the quilt.

PHEWWWW....  Long story but I am really excited now to have it.

The reason that in this last picture the quilt isn't blowing all around like crazy is that I was standing behind it, holding it down.  Annika took the pictures with her new digital SLR that we gave her for Christmas.

So, now I need to pick out a fabric for the back... I think I will do a pieced back, maybe 3 blocks of solid with pieced rows in between or something like that.  I will never be able to match the fabrics, so I need to just blend/contrast sort of.  And I guess I need some sort of frame or something.  There are these square ones I have read about, Q-snap frames, and they are square and laptops.  The old fashioned laptops :)

I am going to make a small table runner and hand quilt it for practice.  Hopefully I will have it ready to take with me next week to the Broadmoor so I can do some handwork there.

Here are a couple of pictures Annika took on the trip she took with Ted and the Ptarmigans earlier this month.  I think she is doing a great job with her camera.  She has a very creative eye!!!

Sleep well,

Karen

Kingdom Footprints

Here is an amazingly simple look at what it means to be a change agent in this kingdom of God.  Remember, a kingdom is like the place under the dome where God is the King!!

Leaving Kingdom Footprints....

What is a Trader?

Top 5 moments of my adventure to Minnesota

Here are the top 5 moments of my trip to see Avery.  I seem to do better with lists than with prose!

1.  Avery.  Ok, so not really a moment, but since the top 25,000 moments were all Avery, I thought I would just compact them into one neat tidy #1.

Avery is amazing, he is so darling, and has such a super personality!  And he loves me, which is a real plus.  Imagine if I went there and he ignored me!!  But we had so much fun.  Sitting, playing, watching him try to crawl, and mostly watching him kick. Kick in mid-air, kick in the bathtub, kick while he is being changed, kick on his stomach to help propel him forward, kick on his back, well you get it.  He is so charming, and absolutely stole my heart.

It was his 6 month birthday while I was there.  They are taking a picture of him on this quilt every month.  His shirt says "locally grown." Paula and I ate Caramel Butter Bars to celebrate his birthday :)

Yeah, it was cold.

Oh man, I miss this little face.

2.  Playing Timeline and Quirkle with Paula and Eric.  We had fun just kicking back and playing games.  Timeline is really fun.  

3.  Going to church with them.  I really love their church.  The music and teaching, and I love how they do communion, it is just up front and you come up anytime you want to.  Reminds me of Santa Barbara Community Church, where Reed Jolley is pastor, and Ted and I visited there in 90.  It was the first time I had seen communion and I like the idea that there aren't "special men" who have to serve, which is how I was raised!  Most of all, though, I love the people at their church.  Amazing young people.

4.  Going to the Mall of America.  It was so cold out (have I mentioned that yet?) but it was fun to walk around with Avery and eat dinner at Bubba Gump.  Favorite moment at the mall?   Getting in a good walk!

5.  Buffalo car wash.  Yup, I had my car licked by buffaloes.  I was driving through a very deserted Black Hills, and was in Custer State Park and came through a valley, and there were lots of buffs.  I stopped to wait for them to decide to cross the road, and they came jogging over to the mobile salt lick. It was crazy.  I was there for quite awhile until they moved out of the road and I continued on.  I loved being that close to them, I wasn't threatened, mostly it was crazy silly!

Honorable Mention:  Driving all alone for 4 days.  Seriously, if you know me, you know I LOVE to drive.  It was relaxing, regenerating, and I loved listening to Spanish, RadioLab, and Stuff  you Missed in History Class, all by myself.  Well, I actually could have cut a couple hours off of each day, and I was very glad to get back to my "other" family :)

But I would go again next week...

Sunday

Taking a day off of the travelogue...

Today we went to church, and sometimes I feel so alone while in the midst of so many people.  Some of the same people as always just say, "Hi Karen, how are you?"  And one person in particular said that today, and I almost just laughed, thinking, "If you only knew."  Do they know that some days I can hardly make it through the day, and all of the things our family is going through right now?  But do they really know?  I doubt it.

But today was the potluck that I initiated for our Foundations class.  And it was great!  Everyone liked it.  It went very smoothly and there was tons of fabulous food!!  So glad I listened to God instead of wallowing in self-pity that I didn't go to a small church where they still had potlucks :)  haha...  what a concept.

I made those amazing Salted Carmel Butter Bars, that Paula made last week.  Also, barbecued meatballs, a salad and a yummy cheesy cauliflower casserole.  

Also, during the service we sang a song that really resonated with me this morning, given my feeling like no one really was listening to how I am, or cared.  Here are the words:

He Knows My Name - Tommy Walker

I have a Maker

He formed my heart

Before even time began

My life was in his hands

I have a Father

He calls me His own

He'll never leave me

No matter where I go

He knows my name

He knows my every thought

He sees each tear that falls

And He hears me when I call

Now, I am going to try to post a mosaic I made on flickr today.  Really this is just an experiment.  One of my favorite bloggers does this a lot, and it is so fun to look at what she finds, so here is my attempt.

1. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yummy_mummyscakes/5661743038/">cream and pale pink gerbera quilted wedding cake</a>, 2. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/24241129@N05/5988068678/">Pink Roses and Eyelet Lace Vintage Feedsack</a>, 3. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/24241129@N05/5571870249/in/set-72157604375388092/">Vintage Kitchen Print Fabric - Pink Aqua</a>, 4. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/18889340@N00/5617469031/in/pool-1079927@N25/">Pink Roses in Vintage Vase</a>, 5. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephanies_cottage/3394454946/">shabby cottage chic,pink aqua victorian couple 1</a>, 6. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/giginbigred/5196093763/">campy cupcakes mixed media acrylic watercolor on wood</a>, 7. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/budthecat/35614686/">pink car</a>, 8. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/leesiebella/526970062/">Pink and Aqua Pillowcase Tote</a>, 9. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/leesiebella/570552731/">Jenny's Collage Sneak Peek Number 4</a>, 10. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/illusiveswan/3729998666/">Mermaid Cottage & Bay Breeze Gazebo</a>, 11. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29828567@N04/3006165033/">Sweet Ones~Collage Tag</a>, 12. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29828567@N04/6157228824/">Craft Studio Space-New Farmhouse Table workspace</a>, 13. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29828567@N04/6156687187/in/photostream/">Harvest Moon calling card invite</a>14. Not available15. Not available16. Not available

Well I think I did something wrong there!!  Oh well, it's late now, I will figure it out later.  

Sleep well!!

Church, Potluck and Talent Show

We got up leisurely on Sunday, since their church starts at 11:30!!  Eric and Paula are part of the congregation at Third Way in St. Paul.

http://www.thirdwaychurch.org/

They meet in the library at Hamline Methodist Church.  They had been hosting a conference for the weekend, with about 20 or so people from other intentional communities around the country.  So their meeting was a bit more crowded than normal.  This was my third time to visit.  It is a super friendly and comfortable congregation.  Very young, and urban/hipster.  I don't know if that is how they would describe themselves, but I mean in it the very most complimentary way!!

After the service, there was a potluck....Yay!!!!  There was really good food.  I particularly loved a salad that had feta cheese crumbles and poppy seed dressing and lots of other yummy stuff.  After we ate, they had prepared a "talent" show.  Pretty funny.  For instance, one couple --the wife is the daughter of Greg Boyd :) -- did a handstand contest.  One of the younger girls, Zola, who is in 6th grade and a big fan of 1D, was joined by 2 other 20-something girls, and they lip-synced and danced to HoeDown ThrowDown.  It was really cute.

During this whole time, incidentally, Avery was WIDE awake, and very happy and friendly.  However, a nap would have probably been a good thing.  So then we went home, about 3pm, and even then Avery didn't sleep.  We played some more Timeline, and Avery finally fell asleep right about when we were about to go back to church.  Eric and Paula's small group were in charge of fixing the dinner for the participants of the conference.  So Eric and I went to help Karna (Anna Pitrone's cousin, crazy, huh?).

We ate with them, and it was very enjoyable.  Very interesting people.  There was a man there who really reminded all of us of my dad.  He told a story about growing green beans and reminded Eric of picking beans in Grandpa's garden :)  He wrote a book:

The Intentional Christian Community Handbook: For Idealists, Hypocrites, and Wannabe Disciples of Jesus 

David Janzen graduated from Bethel College and studied at Harvard Divinity School. In 1971, he and his wife helped found New Creation Fellowship, a Christian intentional community in Newton KS. In 1984, they moved to Reba Place Fellowship in Evanston IL, where David now runs an affordable housing ministry.

Cleaned up, went home, played more games, went to bed.