Back in "business"

Our internet, TV, and landline were all down for three days last week.  It wasn't a total tragedy because my cell phone is on a different carrier.  But it was an inconvenience.  Spectrum was "upgrading" the system, but I was still able to get email and play New York Times games on my phone.  We have a TV with a digital antenna in the basement, so we only missed Jeopardy one night, much to our relief.  But it all recalled days gone by when our homes were quiet and our lives less distracted.  Not a bad thing!

I got some sewing done, too, this past week.  I finished the Rainbow baby quilt top and hung it up in the closet to wait for quilting.  I have a bunch of beige squares that I got from my neighbor Carol that I'll sew together somehow for the back.  The parents to be requested a beige quilt with the previous baby, so I'll do the same this time - bright back, beige (ugh!) front.

Meanwhile, I got out a box marked HSTs and sifted through all the cut-offs and leftover half square triangles.  The tiny ones, mostly likely from a long ago Bonnie Hunter mystery, were thrown out which I should have done ages ago.  If I still had a dog, I might have used them to stuff a dog bed.  But I know I'll never do anything with them, as there were potential HSTs in larger sizes.  I'm not sure where I'm going with the ones I sewed together, but I now have a collection of 9 patch blocks made of HSTs.

Then I turned my attention to starting a new row-by-row quilt, my 2026-27 guild row robin project.  My theme this year is "Fall" which includes colors I don't usually use together.  But my stash holds quite a few oranges, browns, beiges, greens, etc. to use up.  I'm telling the other quilters not to focus on Halloween, so I left out any fabrics directly related to that "holiday."

It's really difficult to take a photo of something so long and skinny, but you get the idea.  My initial row turned out to be 48.5" long.  The blocks were 6" baskets set on point, making the row is about 9" high.  I could have made maple leaves, but I thought I'd leave that for someone else to make.  I also made a small strip of 2.5" yellow HSTs (from the aforementioned box) that I will save for another row when the row robin return to me.   One of the members of the group wants people to attach their rows as her quilt moves along, but I'm asking everyone not to do that with mine.  I'd rather put the rows together myself, maybe with a bit of sashing in between the rows.

A touch of fall in the air

Yesterday our neighbor came over for dinner wearing a sweatshirt.  It was a bit too chilly to sit outside while Paul and he grilled the brats, Wisconsin style.   Rich is from the midwest so he was coaching lifelong New Englander Paul on the finer points.  They turned out delicious and went well with my potato salad and baked beans.  At any rate, I'm sure we'll have some warmer days going forward, but we did enjoy the cooler evening.  "Good sleeping weather," as the former TV weather lady always said.

Fall is just about everyone's favorite season here, and I now have a hankering for cider donuts, chili, and apple pie.  But there are plenty of summer things we haven't done yet, including walking up to the Grand Lookout (at left), visiting the Shelburne Museum, and more. Where does the time go?

I spent yesterday morning hemming a curtain for another neighbor's front door.  I had been worrying about it because home sewing is just not what I do.  To begin the project, I cleaned my machine thoroughly and changed to a 70/10 needle with white thread.  I also measured against the former curtain several times to make sure I'd end up with the proper length.  And it all worked out great, and my neighbor was pleased.  

I did sew another white round on the rainbow baby quilt, and today I'll tackle the blue scrappy round.  I continue, albeit slowly, to knit on the purple scarf.  I'd like to finish it so i can get back to knitting a few more hats for foster kids through Bags of Love.  I use bigger needles for those so they get done faster.

I'm reading an interesting mystery for my book group, Murder by Degrees, set in 1873.  It tells the story of a woman doctor who discovers during an autopsy that a supposed suicide is really murder.  So far it's very atmospheric and full of medical details.  This is a bit of a departure for me, but I'm enjoying it.

Another start

On Sunday afternoon, I decided to sort through all the catalogs and magazines that had been piling up in the living room.   The ones with clothing were all advertising stuff for spring and summer!  Consequently, almost all went into the recycling bin.  

But one of them went up to the sewing room with me.  It was a pamphlet with patterns for scrap quilts that came with my renewal of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine (sorry about the glare), and it showed a very do-able little quilt using pieces of the rainbow, arranged ROYGBIV style.

I have a new grandniece or -nephew coming this winter, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.   I'm sure the parents haven't decided on a color scheme for their little surprise, so I'll wait to create a back in a color(s) of their choosing.  (I hope it's not "neutral" like the last one I made them!)   I've made three rounds and hope to add the green round today.

I'm using a white dotted fabric for the strips in between.  The original pattern shows a light blue dotted fabric which is also nice, but I don't have enough of any color for that.  It's quite easy although it's important to square up everything after each round of color.  I don't want to end up with a parallelogram!

I'm heading to the quilt shop this morning with the Gumballs and purple Round Robin quilts.  I'll tell Marie there's no rush on the quilting.  Having just finished Dear Jane and Wensleydale, I am definitely not in a hurry to bind two more quilts.

I need to get some more thread as well as a new blade for my smaller rotary cutter.  I am hoping to make a Flowering Snowball quilt this fall also, and I find the smaller cutter is easier to use around the plastic templates.   I already took a small chunk out of one point the other day as I tried to cut some pieces ahead. 

Quilt pictures

 It was sunny and not too wet outside yesterday so I decided to take pictures of two quilts I finished recently.  First is my Modern Dear Jane, which I started 1/1/23 and finished 8/2/26.  Phew!  I love it and can't wait to put it on our bed.  That will have to wait until the cooler nights when we put two on.  I will enjoy looking at each little block.

I quilted this myself, in sections, and hand stitched the binding to the back.  Here's a close up.

And here's my Christmas Wensleydale which I started last winter and finished in the spring.  I had Marie quilt it with her long arm.  I machine stitched the binding.

I really don't need another Christmas quilt, but I had a lot of scraps.  I thought I could do the whole thing with the scraps in my stash, but found I needed more fabric, including the fabric for the border.  It's hard to see in the picture but that inner border is a soft blue to go with the floral outer border.  This will be fun to use during the holidays because there are some cute little motifs here and there.

Maple leaf blocks

For the sampler I'm designing for the state quilt guild, I made a couple of blocks that I really like this weekend.  One is a 12" maple leaf block and the other is a 12" block made of four 6" maple leaf blocks.  They will end up as the centerpieces of the sampler, I think.

I wish I had cropped the photos before downloading them from my phone!   I was just too eager.  I'll have to crop them before I write up the instructions.  Maybe I was thinking ahead to the yellow rainbow scrap challenge blocks I plan to make this week.  

I did make five log cabin blocks yesterday after I made a batch of nutella cookies and a large pan of brownies for library programs this week.  The kitchen got quite hot, but the cookies were delish.  

Our friend Fred is coming over for coffee on Friday morning, and I'd like to make something special to serve.   Will we have enough cookies left over or should I make something with blueberries?  That is the question!  And if the latter, shall it be bread pudding or muffins?  I guess I'll decide tomorrow...

A hot week coming up

The weather people are predicting a hot and humid week ahead except for today which I had already set aside for baking and, perhaps, jam making.  I promised cookies for library programs Wed. and Thurs., and our friend Fred is coming for coffee on Friday.  Luckily, we have a heat pump which offers air conditioning when we need it.  I'm going to try to do a little cooking ahead today.  Our blueberries are coming in fast and furious.  Peaches are ripening, too, for some blueberry peach jam.

Over the weekend, I worked on blocks for my planned Green Mountain Sampler, a compilation of blocks selected from the last 40 years of the state quilt guild's various raffles and challenges.  2009's block was a maple leaf, and I made a 12" and four 6" blocks.  Those were fairly easy.  

I've been thinking about how I'm going to put all the blocks together in a sampler with some fillers like checkerboards and flying geese.  This is a fun project for me as guild historian.  My goal is to have the written instructions and the finished throw-sized sampler quilt ready for the spring meeting.

Yesterday I tackled the 2019 block which was the center of a guild logo challenge based on the 12" APQS Vermont block which is paper pieced.   The result was disappointing to say the least.  I now remember doing this back then and finding it very difficult to make all the points match.  

I will have to do my sample over before I can publish it in the booklet/web page I'm planning.   I now remember making an 8" block based on Marcia Hohn's Vermont 2 block, also paper pieced.  I'll pay better attention to the colors as well when I get around to it.  I really don't like the way these colors are arranged.

But before I tackle a re-do of the Vermont block, I will work on this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks:  log cabins, improv houses, and traffic jams.  The color is yellow - hooray!  My yellow/gold box is full of scraps.

Gumballs top

Even though I had a lot to do last week (Heritage Days, after all), I started a new quilt.  It's a scrappy one called Gumballs, a pattern I saw in another blog and which appeared in McCall's Quilting some years ago.  I decided to try to use up some blues and, unusual for me, cut all the pieces before sewing them into blocks.  I needed 120 nine patches and 120 half-square triangles, plus other fillers!  I can almost close my blue fabric tub now.  

Over the weekend I managed to get most of the blocks together and finished the 60" x 72" top yesterday.   I have some pieces of previous backs ready to put together today.  But I'm not all that thrilled with the whole thing.  Maybe I'll like it better once it's quilted.  At any rate, I'll take it to Marie for quilting when I have the back ready, and I'll probably give it to Bags of Love after that.  

Meanwhile, Dear Jane has been languishing on a chair, waiting to be bound, and I did get half-way around over the weekend.  Our perfect weather has come to an end, and it looks like I'll be indoors watching the rain for the rest of the week.  

Our blueberries are coming in strong right now, and I've already frozen several bags.  I want to bake another blueberry buckle for Friday (my birthday) so will try to get outside in between showers to pick two cups more.  We're planning to go out for Chinese on Friday with Chris and Paul's sister Pat.  I'm sure we'll be too full after dinner for cake, so I'll give them each a piece to take home afterwards.

And speaking of blue, I must be in a blue period as last week I also finished a blue tote bag for my brother Axel to give to a friend who has been driving him around.  It's hard to see, but both sides have a pocket between the handles.  I used pre-quilted fabric from "Connecting Threads" for this bag and another one I need to put a button on.

Yesterday I went to the quilt shop where they offer a discount of half my age around my birthday.  I bought about many yards of mostly neutrals, stocking up for the coming year.  Phew!  Had a nice, long awaited chat with Robin while she cut everything.  That in itself was a birthday gift as we don't get together often enough.