Scenic Sunday

Some photos I took of the beautiful Fall foliage that I wanted to remember: 

The colors were the inspiration for this crocheted afghan I am working on:

And speaking of Fall, I saw a saying on a T-Shirt recently that I thought was a clever wordplay:

Be like Humpty Dumpty and Have a Great Fall! 

Fall colors

Just a few pics of some of the glorious Fall colors we had before the rains came.

I finished knitting all the strips for my afghan, and am almost done putting it together.  More about that tomorrow in a post that can only be titled
"The Good, The Bad and The Snuggly".

Quilty weekend

It was a busy weekend for quilting in my neck of the woods. 
There were 3 quilt shows, including my guild's show, and also a seminar on quilts and textiles of the 1930's that I was fortunate enough to attend.

I don't have photographs from any of it to share, so I thought I'd share this little black cat quilt. 

I did not make it, but I've had this little quilt for years now.  I think I won it as a door prize at my guild.  My favorite thing about it is that the cat's neckerchief is a 3 dimensional prairie point.

Autumn Twister

We're just on the eve of foliage season around my area. It put me in the mood to play with my orange and gold fabrics.

I chose a pattern called "Primitive Pinwheels".

It came with a small tool/ruler called the "L'il Twister".

To start, you sew squares of fabric together into a simple quilt top.  Then you align the crosshair markings on the ruler with the seams on your quilt top and re-cut to make pinwheels.  

I wish I had stopped to take pictures of my progress along the way, but I was too anxious to keep going and see what my finished quilt was going to look like.  If you want to see how it is done, here  is just one of many tutorials you can find on the web which show you more detail.

Here is the quilt top I ended up with:

The finished size of the little pinwheel blocks is one and three quarter inches. (They don't call it "l'il" for nothing! ) The resulting quilt  measures about 19" x 15".

Here is a detail shot:

And here it is quilted, and just in need of the binding to be sewn down:

 I thought that I had enough contrast just by using lights and darks, but I think that if I made another Lil Twister quilt, I would include a little more contrast in the colors as well.

Can't wait to get the binding finished and start enjoying this little bit of autumn indoors.

Just in time for Halloween

Here is a little project I just finished last night:

It's a pattern from The Wooden Bear called "October Scare".   My local quilt shop had one as a sample and I couldn't resist giving it a try.  I had never done fusible applique before, so a small sample like this one was a good place to start.

I layered the fused pumpkin pieces with the batting and backing and did the blanket stitch through all three layers so that the quilting was done at the same time as the stitching.   The whole piece measures just 12 inches square.

It was fun to start and finish something all in the same week, and the whole thing was made from scraps.  I went back to the quilt shop and purchased  a snowman pattern called "All Bundled Up" that I will be working on next.

Isn't he cute?  I love the little stand-alone quilt stand that allows you to change out the wallhanging to suit the season. (sold separately, of course!)

I think there will be more of these in my future.

October weekend

A busy weekend here in my neck of the woods.  My husband and I travelled 500 miles round trip to visit with family.  A lot of driving for one weekend, but the beautiful colors of Fall have started making their appearance and made the drive very enjoyable.  It’s not peak foliage yet, but it’s still pretty. 


Today I took Toby for a walk, and then we stopped and chatted with a few neighbors.  While we were standing there,  a car pulled up with a man and 3 kids.  He said that they were on a scavenger hunt for their church and one of the things they had to find was a person walking their dog.   He asked if they could take a photo with Toby.  Of course, Toby was delighted to oblige, so they all got out of the car and we got the picture.  The whole thing took about one minute and then they were gone on their way looking for the next thing on the list.