Everything's a Game

John and I are back from the AQS show in Nashville. It is a long drive, believe me. We were being very brave but we were only about 160 miles from home when the road construction on the two lane highway started. Pilot cars, water trucks and the whole deal and in at least six spots. We are home safe now, however and back to work. It is a little sad to know we won't be vending at the Opryland facility for the next few years. It is such a beautiful facility - really it's just a great big carefully tended greenhouse.

Kate and her friend Jaqi had fun packing batik strings in our new Chinese take out boxes this morning. They also packed boxes with strings of reproduction fabric. Very pretty - the batik take out boxes are in the web catalog already. Delicious!

John is getting ready to "tape" an episode for "The Quilt Show" with Alex Anderson and Ricky Timms. He leaves for La Veta early next week. His class will be Pickle Dish and variations - I am not sure when it will be available on the internet but we will let you know when know more.

We missed the hot weather in Tennessee and the hot weather in Montana - lucky us!

Brooke

Tiny Storm at Sea

Each year, the International Quilt Association, the organization that sponsors the judged quilt show at International Quilt Festival, has a miniature quilt auction as a fundraiser. Last year, Brooke, John and Kate each made a little quilt for the auction. Brooke's quilt raised about $60, John's over $200 and Kate's close to $300. So there is a little competition going on here, because we are all going to donate quilts again. Kate's is already done, except the binding. John is busy piecing his. Brooke's pieces are all cut out - so she is far behind.

Here is a picture of John's little quilt in progress.

More news, the fire at Red Lodge is mostly OUT, 85% contained. The smoke is out of the air, hooray! Brooke and John leave tomorrow to vend at the AQS Quilt Show in Nashville, Tennessee. (The van is getting new brakes right now) We haven't been out vending for a while so it will be good to see our friends and meet new folks. Come by if you have time!

Brooke

More Boots

Great Uncle John's cowboy boots were a lot of fun and a big crowd pleaser this weekend. These cute, smart girls are our grand nieces who visited for lunch on Sunday, in spite of the smoke.

We also had a Trivial Pursuit contest; mixed results. I am pretty sure we won the last game, there was some confusion. There were also too many sports questions; I can usually figure out a good percentage of the questions but not in sports, please.

Good news about the Cascade fire; they have it 44% contained which is a big improvement over the first part of last week. Lots of heliocopters and slurry bombers working over the ridge from us; one million thanks to these firefighters and to all firefighters.

Brooke

Weekends are Great

We are just leaving for Red Lodge for a weekend of barbecue and Trivial Pursuit. Even though it is still smoky from the "Cascade" fire, we are upwind enough that I think it will be fine. I attended theTown Meeting about the fire last night and, even though the fire is up to 10,000 acres now, things went better yesterday and there are now fire lines in place. So can't worry too much about that, the experts are doing their very best.

Here is Kate's latest pre-cut kit called "Kite Eating Fence". She is having too much fun; this is in the web catalog and is just right for a quick summer project - only $30! Our website http:/www.flynnquilt.com

Wish us luck in the Trivial Pursuit contest; we are a little rusty!

Brooke

Fire

Some of you have heard about the wildland fire, Cascade, that started Saturday in the Beartooth Mountains west and south of Red Lodge. Thanks you for your concern, so far things are okay.

Right now, the fire is "zero" contained, it is such a steep area. It is an Incident One fire now, which means that the crack firefighting teams, slurry bombers etc are working on it. About 200 families have been evacuated. Our home is about 5 miles from the fire, mostly to the east and we haven't been evacuated at this time.

We are hoping for cool weather and no wind. Here are a couple of websites, if you are interested. http://www.billingsgazette.com It is a front page story today. Also, you can go to our website http://www.flynnquilt.com to the Links button and at the very bottom is a link to Red Lodge, Montana. There is a web cam for Red Lodge Mountain Ski resort there and you will see that they have their snow making machines spraying water all over the slopes to slow the fire down if it gets closer.

We are keeping our ears open to see if we need to gather things (quilts and pictures) up and head out.

Brooke

Made for Walkin'

How many quilters sit at their Singer 1591 sewing machine and polish their cowboy boots?

John leaves tomorrow to teach in Nebraska. Then he is home until we head for Nashville in late August.

A new quilt is hanging on the wall, an eight pointed star - it will show up here and in the pre-cut kit section of the catalog in the next couple of days. It's handsome!

Stay cool

Brooke

Maggie Agrees to an Experiment

Okay, here is the story. Maggie lives with Kate and Kevin. She is a miniature Australian Shepard and is a very good dog. She loves the sprinklers and chasing the sprinkler as it turns is her very favorite. If she is inside, she still tries to lick the sprinkler through glass door. Go, Maggie, go.

The experiment, of course, is to see if I can really put a video on the blog. If it works, we'll do some videos of quilt related stuff.

Let's go run through the sprinkler!

Brooke