Back from the wilderness!

Mr. Ricochet and I honeymooned in Yellowstone National Park.  10 years and 2 kids later, we returned.  It was a whirlwind trip packed with tons of fun and bursting with excitement.  

The kidlets were such awesome traveling companions.  Their boundless energy was put to good use climbing mountains and walking nature trails.

Yellowstone is beyond bazaar.  With all the geo-thermal activity shaping and coloring the landscape, many places feel like alien planets.

Mr. Ricochet and I don't think we'll wait another 10 years to return.

I'm working on the voting page for the 2-in-1 Challenge today.  Stay tuned!

Happy hiking and enjoy your local wilderness,

Mullet Mats: my 2-in-1 Challenge entry

Believe it or not, mullets were really cool.  Seriously.  All the popular boys had mullets.  All of my favorite celebrities had mullets.  If there was boy I had a crush on during my teen years, I can guarantee you he had a mullet.  Only we didn't call them mullets back then.  It was just cool hair.  Look how sexy these guys were:

Later, when the world decided mullets were no longer cool, we began to poke fun at the ol' 'do:

What I love best about the mullet is what it stood for:  

Business up front and party in the back!!!!!

Who couldn't embrace that philosophy?  

For July's sewing challenge I asked the participants to sew something that had multiple looks or purposes.

I called it the 2-in-1 Challenge, and you can check out our homepage here:

My goal was to create reversible place mats.  One side would be pretty and on display most of the time.  The other side would be plainer and stain-resistant and used during meal times.  That is  kind of like business up front and party in the back, right?  Turns out that in the midst of my place mat making venture, we had some family (Mr. Ricochet's cousin and her husband) from out of state come visit us.  They live full time in a RV, touring the US.  We had a blast visiting and touring around town with them.  I decided to make 2 extra place mats as a parting gift.  

1. I started with some printed duck canvas...
2. ...which I cut into squares..
3. ...and trimmed in another print.  Then I framed it in cream and cut off the corners.
4. I finished the corners with some scraps of the duck canvas and added 4 right triangles to each of the sides.  The result:  a cock-eyed window pane set in a square.
5. I decided to use denim for the backing.  I traced Montana onto some freezer paper and ironed it onto the denim.  
6. I stitched a tight, wide zig-zag over the tracing.  The paper just tore away when I was done.
7. I added a little silver heart-shaped stud to mark where we live in Montana. I used a very thin batting and quilted through the mat.  I trimmed it up and finished the edges with bias tape.  Here's a look at the finished back.
8. Here's the finished front.

For full time RV-ers like our cousins, space is at a premium in their little house on wheels.   The place mats won't take up a lot of space and can also be used as hot pads or for packing fragile items while traveling.  They'd work good inserted between a tush and a cold, concrete picnic bench  common to roadside rest stops.  They'd be pretty under a lamp or a plant as well.

So you can see my Mullet Mats have more than one look AND multiple purposes as well.  What do you think?  Ever have a crush on a Mullet Man?  Ever watch Joe Dirt?  Ever sew a place mat?

Thanks for taking the time to peruse my little blog.  Double thanks to all my new follows.  You rock!

Happy crafting and big hugs from Montana,

Photos from the road. . .

We drove to Texas over the holidays and I held the camera on my lap during much of the drive.  Here are some of the pics I took from the passenger seat:

On our way back home, we came across a fantastic sunset:

On the last leg of our journey home we ran into some icy roads.  These photos are from Wyoming:

Hope you enjoyed seeing some things from my perspective!

Please check out our January sewing challenge, The Naughty Notion Challenge.

Happy crafting and big hugs from Montana,