Grandview Invitational

We wandered over to Ocala, the horse capital of the world, to attend the Grand View Invitational draft horse show. Teams of horses came from as far away as Prince George, British Columbia. We had a good time, first wandering around the barns and then heading into the arena to watch the various classes. 

This is a Clydesdale from Grandview Clydesdales. We met him when we went on the Christmas tour of the farm. He is the largest Clydesdale at their farm and is only five years old. 

There was only one Clydesdale farm at the show. The show is run by this farm at the Florida Horse Park.

Later in the month they will have another show called, "Grandview Nights".

Although this was a driving show, one farm demonstrated Percherons under saddle, both Western and English. They also wowed the crowd with a Roman riding demonstration.

I loved this stables' colors, especially on the black horses. 

All of the horses' manes are braided and have 7 'flights', 

colorful decorations that stand up above the mane.

This is how they make the hooves so shiny! 

The shoes are larger than the hooves, and the hoof flares out to the sides of the shoe.

This is done to spread the weight of the horse over a greater area. 

Only the Percherons and Belgians have their hooves 'dressed'. 

The hooves of the Clydesdales are covered in long hair called 'feathers'. 

There were three different teams of Belgians. 

The first class was Percheron Ladies Cart.

There were two heats of three carts in each heat. 

Then came the Clydesdale Team class. The horse closest to us is the one pictured earlier.

The 'Unicorn' hitch is special. Evidently the third horse adds some speed and agility, 

but it is harder to handle a single horse out front. 

Here is one of the 6-horse teams.

Twenty-four hooves from high-stepping horses creates quite the 

cacophony of sound when the teams trot by.

There were three heats of 3 teams each to give the horses more room in the arena. 

At the end of all of the heats, all of the teams line up in the arena. 

54 horses

9 carts

all lined up for the presentation of awards.

 

Snowflakes

My cold weather 'barn quilt' is on display. 

The wind blew it down a few days ago.

I wonder....if I replace it with my 'spring' barn quilt, 

will the weather turn warm?

We did see some Robins passing through. 

They certainly didn't get a good weather predication for traveling! 

After the barn quilt blew down, I brought it into the house.

Our irrigation system had run, 

and got it wet.

I think the system was trying to improve on my work.

Do you see it?

Here's a close up:

The minerals in the water left tiny white spots on the blue background,

making it look like it's a snowy night.

I think it is vastly improved!

Speaking of snowflakes....we have heard a few rumblings 

that we may get some flurries over the weekend. Oh, my! 

In a Bind

I finished quilting this project around Thanksgiving. Actually, I finished telling the computer on the long arm machine how and where I wanted it quilted!  I am beginning to feel a bit more proficient in communicating my desires to the machine. 

Next step...binding. 

For the uninitiated, when you quilt the project by sewing a backing, batting (some folks call it 'wadding') and the quilted top (some folks call in a 'flimsy') together, the edges need be trimmed and bound together. 

My quilt is draped around 'Shirley', my roll of batting. It needs to be trimmed before I can bind it. 

The next step is to cut strips of fabric, often 2 1/2" in width and sew them together. To eliminate bulk the strips are sewn together at a 45 degree angle. 

When binding a quilt I press the long strip in half, sew the raw edges of the binding along the raw edges of the quilt, and then bring the folded edge up and over the quilt edge and secure it, by hand or machine.

My binding for this quilt was about 200" in length. I have adopted this technique to make that process of ironing it a bit faster. I use my silicone iron mat as a work surface. You might notice that Vickie decided to reshape the silicone mat! It still works for my purpose. (you can also use your ironing surface without a mat - but it might get scorched)

I fold a bit of the strip in half, and using a long pin I make channel slightly larger than the folded strip for to guide the strip across the ironing surface. I do this on each side of the mat. 

The hot iron is placed on the pad, covering the folded strip and I simply pull the strip from one side to the other, feeding the fabric into the pin channel on the right and pulling it out on the left. 

The result: A nicely folded and pressed strip of fabric that can then be used to bind the quilt. 

I can't take any credit for this nifty and quick way of pressing fabric strips. I saw it on the Internet  a few different times. Someone was ingenious! 

 

Raking Leaves

Raking leaves, and discovering a lawn obscured underneath is always satisfying.  One can see the results of their labor because of the dramatic change. But I also remember the aching muscles....and the blisters. They are definitely not fun. 

We live on a sandy ridge just east of the gulf coast in central Florida. We fell in love with this piece of property partly because of the nice mix of pasture/grass land and trees. 

Most of our trees are Sand Live Oak and Turkey Oak, Slash Pine and Sand Pine. The pines are evergreen. The live oaks keep their leaves all year and in the spring drop most of their small, hard leaves as new leaves emerge. The Turkey Oaks drop their leaves in the fall, after a less than glorious display of color. These leaves are the large, lobed leaves one thinks of when you think "oak". We have oak leaf puddles under each of the trees.  The leaves really need to be removed so that whatever skimpy grass we have there has a wee chance of surviving! 

A few days ago I thought that I should rake them up. But no, I'm not going to blister my hands raking the darn things! I turned to a bit more modern technology....based on old standbys! 

Do you remember these? My parents might have had one....in the 60's. I vaguely remember my mom pushing one around our yard. 

But, the Mister found one to pull behind a riding mower. 

So, off I went trying to drive the zero-turn radius lawn mower, pulling the leaf rake....it wasn't pretty! I rarely use the mower as the Mister delights in cutting the grass and pastures. I sometimes find it difficult to negotiate turns, and find my self wildly swinging left-right-left for a bit before I get straightened out and proceeding smoothly in a straight line. Were there any police in our yard I would certainly be pulled over for drunk driving! A few shrubs have fallen victim to my poor driving skills!

However, I do have a buddy who likes to go with me and keep watch. When the mower starts, 

Kaitlyn trots up and asks to hop up on the deck of the mower. If I do have a wobble, she turns and gives me a dirty look! 

We had a low spot in the pasture where I dumped the leaves.

Miss Kaitlyn had to hop off to check the area out! 

At some point in time, these leaves will provide a smidgen of organic matter to our sandy soil as they break down - assuming they don't blow away in the interim!

Keeping it Green

The Mister hates seeing some of our plants turn black and die when we have cold weather. He decided that we needed a greenhouse. Cobbling together a frame of scrap wood and covering it with plastic was not what he had in mind! After looking around online he found a kit that was on sale, and could be shipped directly to his Home Depot. (He visits often enough that my friend has suggested he simply take a job there!)

 

The Mister began putting the pieces together in the skeleton of what will be his workshop. 

The greenhouse can sit on blocks on the ground, 

or a frame can be made and a floor put in. 

You can see what his choice was!

The planks he used were some of the ones purchased to reinforce the fences....

Yay! I don't have to paint them! 

The Mister figured out that by placing the boards diagonally he would 

have less wastage and could use fewer boards.

At this point I was called in as a reinforcement. 

We carried the finished sides and ends out from the workshop,

and connected them, per the instructions.

Plastic panels slid into grooves in the wood...most of the time!

Some of the grooves needed a little redesign by way of a sharp tool.

It is almost finished. The Mister attached the vent panel.

Ta da!

It has a door that opens and closes.

The strangest thing??? Whenever I go near the greenhouse all I can think of is hamsters!

The frame is made of cedar, with a strong scent of cedar shavings. 

All I can think of is hamster cages we had in the past!

And yes! I am basically proficient using most of the Mister's tools. 

I had a very handy mom, who made certain we all knew which end of a hammer to use! 

She and my dad built their home when I was in utero! 

Maybe that's where my skills came from! 

Grab Bag

Who doesn't love a grab bag? 

As a young kid I recall a toy store that we frequented that had brown paper bags for a small amount, maybe $.25,  that had some untold treasure in them. I loved having my mom buy me one, but also recall being somewhen disenchanted in whatever I received. 

I tend not to buy grab bags now, nor do I usually participate in 'stuff the bag' buying opportunities. 

But, one of my favorite purchases at Marketplace was this bag of scraps.

The store owner told me that I could take anything that fit in the bag for $10

And she told me all I needed was to have one end of the pieces in the bag, as long as the bag "held" it all. 

So, I stuffed the 6" X 9" bag. 

I normally don't buy scraps. I have enough of my own.

But, I was drawn by her ribbons. I have used ribbons in card making in the past. 

Occasionally I think of adding them to some sort of artsy quilt project.

I plan to make more purses and bags, and ribbons might be 

perfect embellishments.

So....

I took the ribbons,

some wide strips of fabric,

a few larger chunks of fabric

and two $5 seam rippers! (A quilter can never have too many seam rippers!)

The actual haul:

2 - 1 yard cuts of fabric

1 - 1/3 yard cut of fabric

1 - 1/4 yard cut of fabric

10 - strips of fabric from 3 - 10" in width

at least 20 yards of ribbon

and

2 seam rippers

Not a bad haul with quilting fabric closing in on $15 - $16 a yard and up! 

 

Quilter's Marketplace

Marketplace was fun, and something I will definitely do again. It was like a good-sized quilt show but without the quilts on display being part of a competition The vendors had plenty of quilts on display to sell kits or inspire folks to buy fabrics to make them. 

I went with a woman who is new to the sewing group I belong to. It was so much more fun going with someone. We had lots of time to chat and get to know each other. We had a few laughs and oohed and aahed over different things we discovered.

I tend to get overwhelmed when I go into this sort of situation, where there are multiple vendors selling all kinds of beautiful fabric. My brain freezes. I can never think of what I need, or of a pattern I'd like to try. Next time I need to make a list. But, that didn't stop me from buy some things: 

• If I have microwaveable batting, it has disappeared among my other - so I picked up this small pack. Most quilt batting has a synthetic scrim to help keep it together. If you put that in the microwave the scrim will melt and your piece will be lumpy and stiff. Therefore, if your intended use is to heat something in your quilted item, you need a 100% cotton batting.

• One booth had some nice quality nylon strapping that I’ll use for bag handles on tote bags.

• I fell in love with the folk art designs of the fabric at one booth and had to get something as they were so unique. This particular design reminded me of Swedish motifs, and since my mom was a Swede, I knew that I needed this! The fabric designer was manning the booth and was delightful to talk to. It's interesting to meet someone who is designing and producing her own fabric, instead of working through one of the large fabric companies.

• I have never made rope bowls. A guild where I used to live had classes in making fabric-wrapped rope bowls - it looked like fun. But that year I only had my Singer Featherweight with me and those machines do not have a  zig-zag stitch, which is required to attach the ropes together. I saw the book at one booth and another attendee told me that the supplies were available at another location….so I picked up the rope as well. I found out the shop, near Jacksonville, will give you free tutoring if you stop in - but, the book looks like it has great beginner tips. 

I bought a bowl when we were in Nova Scotia several years ago. It is made from ropes that were used by the lobstermen. The lobstermen have to replace the lines when they get lightly worn, and a few enterprising sewists  are crafting and selling bowls! 

• This is a panel created by the owner of Bold Notion Quilting, a long arm shop with a great selection of threads, wide back fabrics for quilts, and notions. Lauren, the owner, is the most amazing quilter. I can stare at the work she has done for hours...and that work has taken her many hours! She created this panel for custom quilting practice. Later this year she plans to run a workshop with ideas for quilting this.

• I picked up a T shirt. I sew with a group of women who call themselves Piecemakers. I had to have this shirt to wear when I sew with them! 

I picked up one other thing....and I'll share that in another post as it needs a lot of explanation! 

Judging by the fact that I could not find a parking place at the venue, and left for another errand and came back, I'd say that Marketplace was a success!