I got a new machine last weekend!!  It's a Baby Lock Allegro, which has 12 inches of throat room - the space between the needle and the back of the machine.  My Bernina 430 (that I love!!!) only has about 5 inches of throat room, so this expands the area I can quilt before I have to move the quilt on the frame.  I've barely had a chance to use it yet though...I loaded up my Barn Star quilt on the frame, so am ready to start quilting....as soon as I have time.

Here's the machine set up in the frame.

The Barn Star quilt is getting loaded on the frame - this is a huge quilt!!!

And then the quilt all nicely loaded, ready to quilt!

I found out something else I didn't know - where the covers for the septic tank were....I had to have the tank pumped, but first, I had to have someone come in and find and dig out the covers for me. Now that I know where they are, I'm going to have risers put on them so they aren't buried quite as deep.  It wasn't a big deal to dig them out when our ground was saturated and soft, but it's a whole different thing to dig them out in August, when our ground is rock hard....

 

And the quilt is all put together!

And I had help getting it sandwiched together..... 

Someone seems to have made themselves very comfy.....

 

More spring flowers!

 

I was vacuuming the sewing room and piled up the dog beds by the door out of my way (why do I have 4 dog beds in the sewing room??  I only have three dogs???)  Luna decided that she was a princess now...

 

And the first Quilt Club for  2023 is done!  I think I’ll add a border to it to make it just a bit larger. This year‘s quilt club choice was to make several smaller projects instead of one huge quilt.

 

And one more quilt top done - ready to be quilted!  This one is huge - king size - so will be a challenge to quilt.  It already has a home once I get it done. 

 

I made pasts last week for the first time, and it came out pretty good!  Pat gifted me with her pasta rolling machine.  She hadn't used it since "the kids" were at home.  One of those "kids" is older than I am.....It's fun to make, and nice to continue using the family recipes.

 

I have flowers in my yard!  I also have weeds, lots and lots of weeds - a couple of days of sunshine mixed with massive amounts of rain...

 

I got Koo a new bed for the office - I think she likes it!!

 

Some more brave flowers before the storm(s)

 

And the storm is coming in - captured behind the tree budding in the field.  The storm is here now, pretty much in full force - rain and wind....I know I'll miss this when it's 110 degrees this summer, but I'm ready for Spring!!!

 

Prior to the storm(s) coming in, I got a couple of pictures of the trees in full bloom.

 

We had another round of snow this week - it started snowing around noon, and stuck around the rest of the day.  The next morning, it had, of course, turned to ice.  I almost fell getting out of the car at Alli's daycare.  But by the afternoon, it was in the mid-50's.  Shasta County weather at it's finest!

 

I had a lap-full of kittens the other day - very hard to work this way.....

 

Today is the first day as Umpqua Bank!  It’s been a long time coming…. The merger was announced in October, 2021, and expected to close in January, 2022.   And here we are….and today is my 27th work anniversary!!!!