Hills and More Hills

One of my friends who has a fat bike just finished Gravel Worlds, a 150 mile bike race and had a great time.  I was really envious that she could do 150 miles so easily..if you call winds of 30mph and 100 degree heat easy.  I've always struggled with cycling speed and distance.  Some of it is I can't/don't get out as often as I should and my back always gives out about 2 hours in.  I love riding, but maybe I'm just not cut out for miles and hours in the saddle.  Add in asthma/breathing issues, my anxiety of being left stranded out in the middle of nowhere and it gets hard.

Another guy had a blog post about his 150 trip.  Sounds like he had a great time as well.  Even he has me wondering if I should try for next year.  Even if I don't make it the 150 miles, at least I tried.

Strava had a challenge of finding new areas of exploring while riding last month or the month before and then an elevation challenge.  I've been taking more of the back areas of the gravel rural roads and am finding the views spectacular and the hills more challenging but but totally worth it once you get to the top.   I know this part of Nebraska is truly beautiful and exploring has been far more fun than just simply riding and the elevation challenge has helped get up the hills.  

I finally made it up a hill thinking I was going to die and looked around.  It was a nice surprise to see horses grazing in the field and spent a couple of minutes resting before heading home.

I've also been taking out my Ridley on the back roads.  LOVE my Ridley cross bike and even hit 30 mph going down a hill while sliding through the gravel.  Talk about a total adrenaline rush; however getting back up that same hill had me exhausted.

Blogger is throwing fits about posting any pictures, so I'm done with this post.  


 

     

Paper Instead of Fabric

It's been a while.  Just been doing other stuff with my Cameo.  I'm not done quilting, I just have been feeling "off" with it.

Here's the "Maple Manor" from SVGcuts that I made with my cameo and digital paper.  Absolutely adore the skull paper that I purchased.  Digital paper is great because you can just print it out and then the machine cuts around it.  No waste of paper and you can find what you want, not what the paper manufacturers think you want.  I used white ink to go around the edges to make it look spookier.  Love this file and it was easy to make.  All those shutters were a pain to glue down though.  Totally worth the hard work!

SVGcuts also had a shoe contest and gave us a free download to make a high heeled shoe.  There's something sexy about red heels and have always wanted a pair.  High heels and I don't work well so having one of my own in paper is good enough.  This was a PITA to put together especially the heel part.  I made it work though and it come out really nice.

Last project was working the sketch portion of the Designer Edition Software for the Cameo.  This is a cool feature where you can draw out stuff with their pens if they happen to work that day.  I'm saving up for a pen holder that uses different pens.  This was done with the silver pen doing cross hatches through out the design.  Way cool.

I went to JoAnn's last night and picked up a rotary blade that makes curves for a quilting kit so I haven't given up on quilting.  Good thing it was 40% off because 15 dollars for one stupid blade is stupid ridiculous.


Still cycling but nothing fancy to talk about.

YES! 20 Miles in 1.5 Hours!!

I did it!  20 miles in 1.5 hours!  YES!  I've been poking along for a couple of years dragging around at 10-12 mph.

After going on a my first group "no drop casual ride" on Monday that turned out to be roadies w/5000 dollar bikes and going 17-20 mph and having to turn back after a few miles, I was so disappointed I headed back to the car going top speed.  When I checked my Strava results I'd been going pretty fast and wondered if I could do it again.

Yesterday I was determined to to it again and wasn't stopping for anything.  I told myself I wasn't doing anything less than 12mph and no more than 15mph and came out with this:  





Screw roadies..LOL.  My bike is a cross bike and I have no desire to look anorexic and live off of supplements to race.  Don't get me wrong.  After Monday's ride and seeing what these guys can do, I'm impressed.  There is an art form to watching 15 guys gracefully go down the road at high speed.  I just can't live that way.  Give me my Muk and my cross bike, some open roads or a mountain bike trail and I'm good to go.

If you want to ride a bike, go ride one.  You don't have to be a professional or even race if don't want too.  Find some local trails, get a bike and ride.

"Cabin Paws" Pattern by MH Designs

I fell in love with paper piecing pattern a few years ago but never got around to doing it.  The one thing I hate about this pattern after I opened it is that she has you cut different fabric widths but doesn't tell you which width goes with what block pieces.  Ughh.  I'm really sick of badly written directions on patterns as this the 3rd purchased pattern in a row I've had to deal with this problem.

Anyway, here's the first block done out of the four.  It measures under 6 inches and I need 4 of them plus the half square pieced border.  I hope I have enough fabric for this as I'll never find it again.

Daughter's Minecraft Pillow

As I was perusing through quilterblogs.com, I came across a Minecraft Creeper pillow that someone had made for her son.  My daughter who LOVES Minecraft, happened to see it and wanted one as well.  I can't find the lady's post, but I can't claim credit for the pattern since I copied hers from the picture she had.

My daughter made this all by herself.  She cut and pieced the block and I may have a quilter in the family.  She loved using the sewing machine and towards the end was confidently sewing a 1/4 inch seam.  I started out by using a hera marker and ruler to make a guide for the needle to follow.  

She still needs to stuff it and my understanding is that Creepers make some "Ssssss" noise before they get you so the label on the back will have that.  I'm really proud of her and hope she loves the pillow once it's done.

Quarter Century Bike Ride

Did my first sponsored bike ride on Saturday.  We all got tags for our bikes and headed out for the 25 mile ride.   Truthfully the ride pretty much killed me emotionally and physically.  I thought I'd have a great time and I was so exhausted and frustrated afterwards it hurt.  It was 90 degrees with head winds up to 30mph and I was nearly dead when we reached the halfway point.  I almost wanted to dump my bike in the back of the truck, start crying, and have them drag me back to the starting point in shame.

My friend convinced me to head back as now we'd have a tailwind but by mile 15 my left arm was killing me and had to keep stopping to rest.  Everyone was passing us and even though it wasn't a race, I just felt like a failure.  My mountain bike shorts were digging into my waist around mile 17 adding to the discomfort as well.  We finally made it back to the beginning and headed into the bar for the food being provided.

For making it 25 miles we all got our t-shirts that I can proudly say I earned and I love it:

Will I do a ride like this again?  I don't know.  But, if you have a chance to do a ride, do it.  I don't regret it and I learned a lot about myself.  

Treasures and Pen Sketches

I'm still alive.  I finally said "screw it" to my mini album and put everything up.  I feel so much better.  I'll send it out to my mom next Wednesday.

I want to thank Judy from "Knit Quilt SpinWeave" for sending me a gorgeous woven bookmark that she made.  It's beautifully done and I'll treasure it forever.  I'm sorry it's taken me so long to put up a post about it.  There are so many talented women/men out in blogland and I love seeing what others do.

I pulled out my Cameo and figured I'd try something new instead of fighting a mini album.  I've always wanted to try the "Sketch" feature on Designer Studio and found a great tutorial on tricking Studio into doing small crosshatching.  I traced in the design, did the cross hatching and had the Cameo draw it out with their pen so the design looked filled in.  I killed the pen's ink supply with this design.  I need to find a pen holder from someone that uses regular pens.  I know Amy Chomas does so I may order one from her.  I still can't believe how intricate the design came out.  I love it!  If you don't look close enough you won't notice where pen decided not to work.