More good stuff

Detail of quilting

Back of quilt 2

Quilt top

Baker mine geode

Duane's latest effort

Well, here we are once again showing off. First pix are of my second creation made for our puzzle loving son. It is a replica of an actual English garden maze, to size: 1 inch = 1 foot. The light green is fabric printed to look like long grass, the dark hedge lines are leafy foliage. The outer edge is printed to look like a stone pathway or the top of a stone wall. The very outer borders are supposed to look like dense forest foliage. The back is made up of scraps of green. The whole thing is quilted in a jigsaw puzzle pattern.

Duane's latest creation is made up of a piece of natural turquoise which he purchased as a rectangular piece. He spent a couple of hours to shape and polish the stone, and another couple of hours to silversmith the ring and mount. Not bad for an amateur, huh?

The middle pic is of a geode we found on our foray to the Baker mine. To find the mine, you get directions from the owner when you ask permission. It takes about an hour to reach it. Then you get your shovel or pick and start digging in the tailings. This is a mining term for trash pile. The tailings are constantly picked over, but with a little persistence, there are still treasures to be found. When you say geode, most people think of the ones that have a hollow center with crystals. In fact, geodes contain any number of minerals in any number of combinations, including mud which has turned to rock. As rockhounds we look for the ones that are not hollow, like the one above. In these, we can cut out the centers to make into jewelry settings.

Enough bragging for now,

Louise and Duane