A little of this and that

 Much of my time has been on the computer over the last week or so.  I've been working on publicity for the Nov. 4 genealogy fair as well as a mailing for the Friends of the Library's annual Light Up the Library program.  We solicit contributions from local businesses and groups to decorate the library with trees, wreaths, and other things during the holidays.  This year it's tricky because all of our downtown business owners suffered some sort of flood damage, with at their businesses or at their homes.  So we're trying to be sensitive in our solicitations.  It's a major fundraiser/raffle for the Friends. 

Last week, I read a couple of mysteries as "palate cleansers" in between copy editing a friend's new novella.  He usually writes creepy stuff, but this is a straight whodunit, which was a relief for me.  It has taken me seven hours to go through on a first pass, and I will now read it through from start to finish again to make sure I didn't miss anything.  By the time I finish Paul's books, I have usually looked at them at least three times and still we find typos in the final work.  So I want Alan's to be in fairly good shape when I turn it back over to him.  This is the first time I've edited anyone else's work besides Paul's, so it took me a while to get comfortable with Alan's writing style.

Today I hope to get the last borders onto Rows Parade.  One of the nine 73" rows is at left, unassembled.  With sashing and borders, it's grown to queen size very rapidly, and that makes it difficult to handle.  I hope to take it to the quilt shop tomorrow to choose a back for it and to give it to Marie to quilt.  Although I received ten yards of unbleached muslin from Paul's sister, I will save it for smaller quilt backs as it's 60" wide.

A gallery visit

 

On Saturday, we braved some heavy rain to drive about 1.5 hours south to tiny Reading, Vermont, to visit the Hall Art Foundation's exhibit of smaller Andy Warhol pieces.  Through the rain, it was difficult to see any foliage, but when things let up a bit, I was able to take a photo of part of the sculpture walk area.  Maybe next time we go, it will be dry enough to enjoy!

The gallery consists of two renovated lovely old farm houses, one of them stone, across the road from each other, and two barns.  The massive walls in the barn we visited (featuring Sherry Rothenberg) were perfect for larger paintings.  We saw quite a few of Warhol's smaller works, including the famous Campbell's Soup painting which was quite interesting.

We also stopped to look at part of a 39 minute video of Warhol eating a hamburger meal from Burger King.  He looked a little uncomfortable as if he'd never eaten a fast food lunch before.  He had a big ketchup bottle rather than little packets so it was all staged.  How many bags of food did he use to make that film?

Speaking of lunch, the restaurants were packed with leaf peepers from all over, including Vermont but mostly elsewhere.  The parking lot at our favorite Harpoon Brewery was impossible so we drove into Windsor to try their diner.  Good food, but rude service - an embarrassing visitors' introduction to our sweet little state.  A sharp contrast to lunch at the Hardwick diner which we visited last week.

Today I hope to put the final border on the Rows Parade quilt.  It's now queen sized!  If it's sunny out, I'll try to do a little yard clean up before going to quilt guild tonight.  My bags are packed for that, including a round robin bag - yet another UFO but always fun to work on.

Busy times

Our roads are full of tour buses and cars from out of state - sure signs of fall.  Saturday, I drove down to the quintessential Vermont town - Woodstock - and was impressed by all the people wandering the streets, standing on the covered bridge downtown, and ducking into all the cute shops.  I was coordinating a meeting about barn quilts with my friend Sharon who is our state expert on all things barn quilt.   25 people gathered at the public library, a Richardsonian building that has been renovated inside for high tech service as well as coziness.   

The ride back and forth revealed pops of color among the trees, but much of our foliage seems a bit muted this year due to the heavy rain we've had all summer.  We are having a bit of a heat wave for fall right now with temperatures in the 70s and lovely blue skies.  I have been doing a bit of yard work - not too much as I have plenty of other stuff to do.

I finished the neutral baby quilt over the weekend and popped it in the mail yesterday along with a comfort quilt for a cousin who's going to be having chemo.  I wish we lived closer so that I could be of some help.  We just reconnected after 50 years, but I remember being giggly girls together when we had to sleep in the same bed on visits to her home in Hershey, PA.  Their family lived on Chocolate Avenue, and sitting at the picnic table in the backyard, the aroma was wonderful.

Today I baked a loaf of bread and, while it was rising, started sashing the queen-sized quilt that I've been working on as a row of the month called "Rows Parade."  Each row needs to be about 73" long, so it's taking a little longer to put the whole thing together.   I have to add a little here and taking a tuck there on some of the rows.

I made most rows in colors chosen by the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, although some rows have a mix of colors.  The sashing and inner border are a "quilters linen" in beige, but I have no idea what to use for the outer border.  Hope I get inspired soon - I have lots of possibilities in my stash.

Jammin'

The Friends of the Library book sale took up most of my time since Thursday, but thankfully it's all over.  We did fine, and Heritage Days, which had been postponed due to the July floods, went very well.  People seemed happy to be together again, temporarily not worrying about sludge and stuff.  There were plenty of food vendors downtown although Al's French Fries were noticeably absent.  My neighbor's daughter sold us some great oatmeal butterscotch cookies on Friday night, so I ordered more that she delivered Saturday.  We are sorry they are gone now!  I'm not sure if she'll be at the Farmer's Market this afternoon, but if she is, we'll be shopping there.

The last few days have been filled with catching up on errands.  I also took Pauline to lunch for her birthday, had a pedicure, emptied flower boxes and pots.   I made a big pot of spaghetti sauce and plan a pot of chili today.  Temperatures are cooler in the morning these days although by mid-day it's warm enough to go without a jacket outside.  The morning fog has been quite thick, a clear indication of the seasons' changing.

I also made some raspberry peach jam from frozen fruit.  The last two batches of jam I've made have turned out runny, so I was glad to see this all jelled nicely.  I have enough fruit in the freezer to make another batch, so I just might do that soon.

Today I'm hoping to sandwich a baby quilt - another "neutral" one (ugh!).  This one's for Paul's sister to give to someone in Utah.  It won't take long as I'm planning to quilt a simple grid.

Another neutral quilt

I'm not sure what's going on in the world, but I was asked to make another neutral baby quilt.  With all the colors in the world, it seems a shame to surround a baby in neutrals.  Nonetheless, when Paul's sister sent me a suggestion, I realized that, rather than doing a custom job, I had a small top in the closet waiting to be quilted.  I quickly took a picture of the top and she loved it.  

Our Joann Fabrics is closed due to the flood, so she's going to look for some flannel for the back and mail it to me.  When it comes, I'll quilt it in a simple grid and send it to her in Florida.

This little quilt was made completely of "strings."  Foundation pieced strings were surrounded  by scrappy log cabin blocks.  I bought no new fabric for this top, always a plus!  

A little hand work

Over the last few weeks, including our all-too-brief vacation in Colorado, I did a little hand sewing and no machine sewing.  I even packed up my old Viking 100 and sent it with my brother down to my niece Evelyn.  That leaves me with just my Elna machine which is OK.   I am happy doing hand work when/if the machine needs service.

I made a few Manx blocks and started a new Jen Kingwell quilt.  Both of these projects will be on the "slow go" over the next few months, but it's really nice to begin something new.  

I love Jen Kingwell's patterns and have had Green Tea and Sweet Beans for a while.  It has both pieced and appliqued blocks, and I have several yards of a nice off white print for the background.  I decided to use mostly wool for the appliqued blocks which are scattered throughout the quilt.  It is a whimsical design that was Kingwell's first block of the month.   

The quilt finishes at about 71" x 74", but I'm not sure how big I'll end up making mine.  I am not doing the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year so that I can finish up a few other projects.  I'm not even sure I'll do Abby's block of the month again because I still have blocks to make for that queen-sized project.

The Manx blocks are very portable, and these were worked on at my mom's house, both at the dining room table and the one on the back porch.  It was fun to watch the birds and look at all Mom's flowers, well-tended by my sister Jenny.  I am using traditional colors for this quilt - red centers, with white prints and blues.  I have so many blue scraps that it's difficult to put the lid on the bin at this point.

I made four blocks on our trip and had one already made before going.  But one does not fit with the others since I started with light blocks rather than dark.  It will be a potholder!  

These four would make a cute table topper, but I'm going to aim for nine 8" blocks for a 24" square.  I need to get some pointers about putting the blocks together from my friend Soni who demo'd the technique at guild meetings.

It's a new guild year, so there will be new blocks of the month to make also.  The background color has changed to off-white, and the September block will be "No Name" from quilterscache.com in fall colors.  I try to make at least one block each month out of scraps to enter into the lottery, so I'll get busy with that today.  In that guild, I'm also in a round robin group and have an orphan Christmas Dresden plate block to start my quilt with.  That's all ready to pass along at the October meeting.

Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum

We've been in Colorado for a week, visiting Mom and my sister Jenny.  Mid-way through our visit, my Wisconsin brother Axel arrived.   We squeezed into the car one day (with two walkers) to go to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden.  Thank goodness it is only about 15 minutes away.  There were three quilters featured, including Lea McComas who I've seen on Quilting Arts TV.  She does some incredible thread painting.

Another quilter on exhibit was Sharon Schlotzhauer whose applique and 3-D quilts were also amazing.  I was very impressed with her use of pieced prairie points in the curvy lines of this quilt.  

Many of her quilts included beads and other shiny things, along with hand applique.

The sheer simplicity of this quilt really inspired me to try something similar very soon.

All in all, it was a peaceful trip with lots of family time.  Mom is 101 and still pretty sharp although she is a little less mobile than when I saw her last year.  We sat on the back porch, chatted, and watched the birds and gardens a lot.  I handsewed some Manx quilt blocks which are turning out pretty nice.

Now that we are home, it's time to get back in the swing of busy-ness, with lots of fall events coming up.