A Lovely Day

Today was such a wonderful day - went to the Quilt Show in Geneseo with my friend and my granddaughter and we had such a great time.  Lots of beautiful quilts and great ideas for new quilts - and for additions to quilts that I'm planning.  Had lunch at the show and made it back in time to go dress shopping with my granddaughter for her dress for the homecoming dance.  I learned that she has excellent, elegant taste as opposed to some of the girls in there who went for the flashy, gaudy, revealing dresses that did nothing to flatter them.  We found a great dress and now I have to shorten it as she also got the short genes in the family.

I'm still working on my Block of the weeks and Block of the months,  and my row by row experience quilt.  I'm learning to quilt on the machine - not free motion quilting as I can't manage to do that at all well and it is too frustrating.

Anyway:

Loyal Union Sampler

Petersburg

Seminary Ridge

Vintage Farm Girl

Tractor - this was a much larger block and I resized it to 12 x 12

Kettle's on

Scrappy Strawberry

Threads

Autumn Star

I hope the weather holds for a few more weeks so I can get out and enjoy it - have many things on the calendar to do outside and would love nice weather for them.

More BOM's Finished

My goodness - between broken dryers, hacked Debit cards, and bridge closures, we really needed the power to 1/2 the kitchen and 1/2 of the bathroom to go out - including the refrigerator.  We finally figured out what the problem was and got it repaired, but moving appliances and nearly laying on the floor to get to the plug was  exhausting - in addition to cleaning out under the refrigerator.  It is amazing to me how all that stuff gets under there - I mean there just isn't that much space under there!!  Anyway - the dryer has been delivered and is perfect - the debit card has been taken care of and the electricity is repaired - I can't do anything about the bridge except avoid it as much as possible - yeah right!!  my kids and grandkids all live across that bridge - I won't go two years without seeing them.

Anyway I have completed several blocks for several BOM Projects.

Loyal Union Soldiers:

Pennsylvania

Nevada

Augusta

Farm Girl Vintage - last block for August Meeting:

Baking Day

Baby Chick

From my Row X Row Experience

Expressions in Threads, LeClaire, IA

The Quilt Basket, Kewanee IL

Quilting in the Valley, La Salle, IL

I also Completed August's SunBonnet Sue around the Year.  She turns out so Cute.  I've heard people say that she freaks them out, but I think she's adorable

August SunBonnet Sue at the Beach

End of July

Have you ever had a sudden realization that time is passing and you have been standing still and not doing what you planned to do?  I had one of those realizations today.  It is the last day of July, the summer is 2/3 over and I have not been out to spend any time in the fresh air and sunshine.  Yes we've had a lot of rain this summer and yes we've had several days with heat warnings and many others with the humidity so bad you can barely breathe which sends me into coughing fits.  But there have been many days like today that was warm, not too humid and not raining or even thinking about raining.  So what have I been doing you ask?  I've been staying home - chair potato-ing  and not doing much.  We took a trip to the Grand Canyon, Arches and Canyonlands in May - but since then - nothing much.

So today I decided to do something about it.  I took my granddaughter and we went stamping - also known as Letterboxing.  I looked up a whole list of boxes we haven't found and we took of for a day of fun in the sun.  We found 5 out of 6 boxes - one was missing - and had a great time.  If we get another nice day before she has to go home, we will go again - we still have a stack of them to find.

Today is the day when another block of my Loyal Union Sampler BOW (Block of the Week) is due.  I've been working on this quilt - a block a week - for nearly 2 years.  It will probably never get put together and quilted - but then again maybe it will.

This is the block titled Nevada.  It has a lot of Y seams but I've learned that practice really does make perfect.  I'm not saying I'm perfect at them - but I'm sure a lot better than I was 2 years ago when I would find any way possible around doing Y seams.

I didn't get a lot of reading done in July - just two books which when you think about it, isn't very much reading for me.  I did acquire a tablet with a Kindle App, so I have a ton of books to read there, plus a lot of  real paper and ink books to read.  I will get around to it all eventually.

The two books I read this month are:

The Shell Game by Janet Evanovich

Murder is a Family Business by Heather Haven

Heather Haven is a new author to me - this is the first book in a series about a family owned Detective Agency.  It was interesting enough for me to read the next one in the series.

Winter in November

Winter has arrived - over a month early with temps more conducive to January than November - I have lived here for nearly 40 years and I don't remember a winter that started out like this.  We are slated to set the record low maximum temperature today - the old record you ask - 26 F back in like 1880 or so.  Right now it is 16 and the overnight low was 8.  Believe me when I tell you that these temps are 25-30 degrees colder than normal.  I remember Thanksgivings when we had to run the Air Conditioning!!

Any way - life does continue.  Hubby is talking about buying me another car - he looking at a 2013 Ford Fusion.  My other 2 cars average age is like 15 or 16 and the Cougar needs some transmission work and both cars need new tires.  I guess it is time - I've staved off losing the Cougar for probably 10 years but I guess the time has come.  He is afraid of it leaving me stranded in the winter cold somewhere - I guess I can understand and thank him for caring that much.

Been busy working on Loyal Union Soldiers Sampler Quilt -

Manger Block

Campfire 

Manassas

These are just a few of the new blocks I've made.  I'm quilting the Lovely in Lavender quilt and it is going very well so far.  Soon I'll be in the borders and that might get a little tricky.

Found a book on barn quilt blocks - the blocks that were painted on barns.  There are also Barn blocks themselves.  I'm planning on making a barn quilt with a panel I found - but to add the barn blocks that were painted on the barns and to actually read about the reasons behind the custom is going to be a lot of fun.

Well, I need to get off of here and hopefully get some work done on my Storm at Sea quilt today.  I'm on Blocks 18 and 19 of 35.  Getting there - but still a ways to go.

The time has Flown by

Here it is, the first of November - the Summer has gone and now Fall is in it's closing days.  We have had some beautiful days this fall - far more than I expected after the less that stellar Summer.  I have completed a quilt and started several more.

This one is called Spring Garden - and I completed it in September.  I had originally planned to keep it, but then I listened and just knew it belonged to my friend.  I was invited to her surprise birthday party last week - so I gave it to her.  It is a throw quilt - not large enough for a bed but great to cuddle up with on a cold Illinois winter evening.

We had mirror tiles on our entryway wall for many years.  It is a 12 foot tall about 6 foot wide wall and I liked the mirror tiles.  But one night a few weeks ago, one of the tiles fell off the wall - scared my granddaughter out of 3 years growth and shook up hubby.  Anyway they cleaned up the tile and the next day we decided to tear down all the tiles.  Good thing we did as about a dozen more were ready to fall.  We have patched the wall and picked up the paint for it.  I'm also making a wall hanging quilt for there.  It is burgundy and eggshell with gold flecks - in a Storm at Sea Pattern.

This is one form of the Storm at Sea Pattern.  This one is for my Loyal Union Soldier Sampler and is in different colors.  But it gives you an Idea of what it will be.

This is the wall we are redoing - the tiles have been removed and some of the patching is completed.  it is a big job, but will certainly be glad when it is done.

New Block of the Week

Just what I needed was another Block of the Week or Block of the month, but I couldn't resist.  I have the Underground Railroad quilt ready to quilt - this is more or less a companion piece called Loyal Union Sampler.  I am really excited about it and I am determined to do this one in the 6" blocks.  I've completed two blocks.

This is the first one I completed last week - it is called Abel's Favorite.  I have one to make up as I started at the end of the second week - but I will get it together.

This was this weeks block and is called Winged Square.  I'm using material from an 1800's quilt that I just completed and some Thimbleberries fabric that looks like 1800's fabric.  Hopefully I won't have to buy too much more fabric.  

We have had 4 or 5 really beautiful days in a row.  Sunny, relatively warm considering it is October and beautiful.  I love this time of year.  I'm hoping the good weather lasts a bit longer as we want to take a ride to look for fall foliage and I don't want to do that in to rain or if it is cloudy.  Tomorrow we are having a new water heater installed so that is out and Tuesday they are talking about rain and I have quilt club that morning - I'm leaning toward Thursday - hopefully it will be Sunny.