It wouldn’t be Iowa if it didn’t include visits (and photos) of tractors…….and a few other things, like the cool old truck and gas pump in this yard.

We stumbled into the museum in Charles City, home of Oliver tractors.

How lucky!?!

They do have kind of cool front ends.

I don’t know about the red rimmed tires, though.

Or, I guess you could have a yellow Oliver.

Here’s our new friend Leo (and Bob), showing us some of his John Deere collection.

This is a cool old Farmall.

Another Farmall, outside a restaurant called The Iowa Machine Shed.

Now you’re talking Bob’s language again–John Deere.  Think of the hay rides we could give if we had that trailer!

This old fire truck reminds me of my earlier life.

More green and yellow.  Do you know there are even paint colors called “John Deere Green” and “John Deere Yellow?”

Lucky for me, one of the temporary exhibits at the Vesterheim Museum in Decorah was on area quilts.

The squares on this quilt are simple, but the embroidery was beautiful.

At the top it says, “My Uncles, Aunts and Cousins/Made By Lena Wernson/Quandahl, Iowa.”

I wonder if she made all the blocks.  The writing on them differs, so she may have asked her relatives to each embroider a block.

Of she may have had them write on a block and she did the embroidery.

I guess we’ll never know for sure.

At least she signed and dated it!

There were lots of antique shops in Iowa.

Besides the vintage quilts, I’m always drawn to the kitchen ware.

Every time I turned a corner I was ready to re-do my kitchen in a new color!

Oh, the possibilities…..

Even some nice orange accents.

I couldn’t believe the number of pitchers and glass sets.

They were everywhere.

There’s one fewer in Iowa now.  The dots just had to come home with me!

Dang, I should have bought the Art Deco one, too.

I try not to look at quilts on Ebay.  Really, I try not to!

But sometimes, they pop up on my screen anyway.

And sometimes there’s orange in them.  And nasturtiums (along with California poppies) are my favorite flowers.

What’s a girl to do but look.

It was sooooo beautiful.

I didn’t intend to buy it, but I did send the photos to my friends and family.

They encouraged me to “go for it!”  So I did!  The quilting on it is amazing.

And it looks great on my Aunt Gloria’s old bed.

And in case you wonder if I’ve always liked orange, this is the dress Melissa wore when she was flower girl in my wedding in 1974!  The bridesmaids wore the same.  Yep, I’ve always loved orange–and nasturtiums and California poppies!

For about 12 years now, I’ve been part of a Redwork group.  From time to time, we branch out from Redwork to other needlework styles.  Recently, we decided to start having themes for out meetings.  A recent theme was Tea Linens.  Everyone brought a pretty tea cup, Linda made scones and I made tea sandwiches. 

Show and tell is always the best part.  Here’s a vintage card table cloth that I picked up years ago for just a few dollars. 

And, of course, when you’re being served tea in bed on a tray, you must have a proper tray cover! Notice the little pocket for your napkin.

This is a pretty design with an interesting stitched edge.

Here’s a closer view.

Ethel made this pillow as a store sample for Anna Lena’s a few years back.  It’s a pattern from Darlene Zimmerman.

One of the ladies brought these pretty dishtowels.

And look at this pretty quilt.  I think Loretta made it. 

I love the delicate rose on the corner of this tea tablecloth.

These stitched tea towels are oldies but goodies.  Don’t you love how the thread color matches the bands on the towels?

The bias tape scalloped border on this cloth is really interesting.

The bias tape is checked!  How cool is that?

A few years back, our project was these blocks from Crabapple Hill Designs.  These are Eleanor’s–still waiting to be put together.

She’s a Red Rose tea drinker, so personalized her tea bag.  How clever!

Monica designed this setting for her blocks.  It is so very sweet–just like she is!

This is so pretty, but I can’t remember whose this is.  Oh, me bad!  Somebody, help!

Ethel made a tablecloth with her designs.

And I did a crazy quilt with my blocks.

I didn’t mean to buy another quilt.  Really, I didn’t.  But it was only $45.00, and it was so sad–but beautiful at the same time.

It was really in bad shape, with lots of spots, fading and disintegrating fabric.

This quilt was such a study in contrasts.  The Sue’s were all appliqued on flour sacks.

But the stitching was amazing.

And there was an incredible variety of stitches around the girls….

…and on their hats.

And did you notice that each sleeve has a little white cuff?

As you can see, I took the quilt apart.  It was tied, and the edge of the top was folded to the back and zigzag stitched.  The filling was a worn out old blanket.  Boy, did I make a mess!  And, of course, as I worked, I made up a story about the origins of this quilt.  Here it is:

Tillie, the maker of the quilt, was born in the late 1800′s.  She had four brothers.  Tillie was the youngest.  By the time her four brothers were married, her parents were in failing health, so Tillie remained at home to care for them.  By the time they passed, Tillie was past marrying age.  She had no marketable skills and no resources.  It fell to her brothers to look after her.  Tillie would spend a month with each brother.  Of course, this didn’t thrill their wives, but Tillie tried to make herself useful.  The one skill she possessed was sewing, so she passed the time at each house sewing clothes for members of the family with whom she was residing.  Her sisters-in-law would purchase fabric before Tillie arrived and have a list of things for her to make.  Tillie enjoyed this and felt that she was contributing to the household.  One brother had a little girl, Matilda, that was Tillie’s favorite.  Tillie asked Matilda’s mother for fabric to make a special quilt for Matilda, but her mother said that would be a frivolous thing and wouldn’t buy the fabric.  So, Tillie saved scraps from her other sewing, and at each household where she stayed, she gathered discarded flour sacks.  In her spare moments, she would make another Sunbonnet Sue block until she had 36 beautiful blocks.  She had even saved enough flour sacks to piece a backing.  Back at Matilda’s parents house, she was ready to baste the quilt together when she fell ill.  She soon realized that she wouldn’t be able to finish Matilda’s quilt.  On her deathbed, she pleaded with her sister-in-law to finish the quilt.  Her sister-in-law begrudgingly promised that she would.  After Tillie’s death, her sister-in-law found an old blanket, laid it between the quilt top and backing, turned the edges of the quilt top to the back, not caring that she caught some of the pretty applique in the seams, and zigzag stitched around it.  Matilda loved her quilt and the memories of her Aunt Tillie.  She enjoyed looking at the pretty fabrics and beautiful stitching and slept with the quilt every night for years and years, eventually passing it down to her daughter.  Of course the ungrateful wretch thought it was just an old rag, sold it at a garage sale, where an antique dealer bought it, put it in her booth at the antique mall and it found its way to me!

And I love these blocks.  They’re really inspiration to me.  Thank you, Tillie.

We spent a fun weekend at The Great Wolf Lodge with Bob’s boys and their families.  Do you know about these places?  It’s a chain, but there’s only one here in the west–and it’s about 20 minutes south of Olympia.

They certainly have the “wolf” and “lodge” theme figured out.

But the big draw is the indoor water park.

There are lots of areas, including a great toddler pool.

And a wave pool.

Several tube rides you could shoot out of!  I discovered I can still scream really loud–especially when your tube is doing a vertical drop!

This was the view of the tube rides from our room.  Great fun during the day, but nobody told me it would be pitch black in the Howlin’ Tornado after dark!

It was several stories high inside, and there was a HUGE bucket that would fill with water….

…and once it was full, it would tip……

….and splash everything in the middle of the room!

The kids had so much fun.  McKenna was big enough and brave enough to go on all the rides.

Justin loved the slides and jet skis.

Carson and Jason had lots of fun in the toddler pool.

Carson nearly drowned me when I tried to take his picture!

Peyton got some Grandma time.

And some time in the pool, too!

It was great fun, and I highly recommend it!

I need a tripod!

Every year, Bob puts up lights on the pump house at our farm.  He does a beautiful job, and even made the star himself.

Our bog sits on busy Highway 101, so lots of cars go past.

And there’s nothing else around except forest, so there is no light competing with the display.

About dusk this evening, I went out to take some pictures of it, but my camera took a long time for the shutter to close, so they’re all blurry.  Maybe you can come see it in person.

A few days ago I was having lunch at the Port of Ilwaco.

As I drove away, I saw some local crabbers getting the pots ready for the upcoming Dungeness crab season.

I wonder if these guys would be good quilters?

As I pulled over to take some pictures, I heard, “Hello, Karen.”  It was Ed–a guy I grew up with and went all through school with.

This is what they’re hoping to catch.  Dungeness crab.  In my book, there’s none better.

Every fisherman has his own color buoy.

The season starts near the end of the month, and right now the crab pots are stacked up everywhere.

If I were a crabber, I’d want buoys this color!

Crab is a traditional Christmas treat in our family.  I can’t wait!

Out by my Swedish Cabin is a house for the trolls.  I put this house there so the trolls would have a place to live and wouldn’t be tempted to move into the cabin and cause mischief.  This has actually worked quite well.  As you can see, the Troll House even has a tall, pointy roof because, as everyone knows, trolls do not have any manners whatsoever and don’t remove their hats when they go indoors.  This photo was taken when we first put the Troll House in the woods.  We had cut down a dead tree and put the Troll House on the stump.

Now, I don’t really think of trolls as being farmers, but I do think our trolls are cultivating mushrooms.  Is there a season for mushrooms?  Perhaps here in the damp coastal climate of the northwest, mushroom season is all year long.  These two photos were taken by my friend Sarah on the path to the cabin when she was here in June.

In August, when McKenna and Justin were here visiting, I discovered these mushrooms growing on the trolls’ log!

And this week, a whole section of the path was sprouting with these!  I thought they were two different kinds of mushrooms (see the dark ones at the top and left of the photo), but they’re all the same variety (whatever it may be), they’re just in different stages of maturity.

As they grow older, they open up and flatten out.  How cool is that!

I left my camera on a log while I ran in the house for something.  When I came back, it was in a different place.  I thought my mind was playing tricks on me!  When I uploaded the photos, this one was on there!  I think one of the trolls took it!  The cabin from a troll’s perspective!

But as far as the troll/mushroom connection–today was the clincher.  I was out near the cabin, and what did my eyes behold?  The stump under the Troll House has sprouted scores of mushrooms!

I may have to sleep in the cabin tonight to see if I can catch a glimpse of the trolls harvesting by the moonlight!