Friday, August 15, 2014

My Trip into The Attic

I have heard (horror) stories about the quilt historian's basement and attic for YEARS. Much stored there, not visited for years, memories, (shudder) WORK clearing it ...

Well, the quilt historian is moving. Actually, she already moved - next door to me! Yes, they are our new neighbors and we are enjoying their fine company.

A moving sale is in the works at her old place at 500 Louisiana. I was invited to see the attic and basement and jumped at the chance. The basement is already cleared so it looks nothing like I imagined. It is actually a pretty decent space (now that it is cleared and swept out).

The attic is entered through a drop staircase in the kitchen of the house. It was just as I had imagined, a bit of a time capsule, full of fascinating things covered with dust and cobwebs.


Because it's a 1885 Victorian cottage, there are cute windows on three sides:


Standing up straight is only possible occasionally. We decided to remove all the salvageable fabric stored there. Our method: boxes dropped into the room below. Voila!


We sorted fabric into the responsible piles: some to discard, some for the garage sale, a bit to keep ... I got vintage scraps. BB recalled that she used to find them neatly wrapped up at garage sales.


There will be a sale Sept. 5-6, here's the flyer:


It will be truly exciting! Be there or be square, there really is a tremendous amount of wonderful stuff for any quilter or collector. Here is something else we found in the attic:


p.s. the HOUSE is for sale too, I have a flyer about it if you know anyone who is interested.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

More Wild Kansas Weather

We go to Colorado each summer, to relax and escape the heat. It is a long drive but the weather was so exciting as we returned Saturday that we hardly noticed it ... it was a stormy day.

We got ahead of a storm as we left Denver, but encountered this wierd sky as we crossed into Kansas. It looked like someone painted half of it with gray paint:


A guy at the rest area snorted, "That's hail!" and sure enough, it started hailing. Luckily, we pulled into an underpass and escaped damage.

We kept the radio on and learned that there was a dangerous storm ahead, so we stopped for dinner in Colby. As we proceeded east at sunset, the sky changed to this:


We didn't know what it was! Turns out this is a phenomenon called

Anticrepuscular rays.


That faded and turned to this!


A full double rainbow, here's the other half:


PS: I took all these photos from the passenger seat as my husband drove. We drove through that rainbow into a rainstorm, but got through it and ahead of it and made it home safely. 

And some people think it is boring driving through Kansas. Show them this!