An amazing stretch of weather

I'm not sure when it started - Tuesday?  Wednesday I drove over to Waterbury via the interstate to meet my old friend Sue for lunch.  The fall colors were beginning to really pop, and I thought perhaps we'd have one of the most colorful seasons in a long time.  And it just kept getting better.  Friday, I took a group through the town forest and up to the Grand Lookout on Millstone Hill.  Everyone oohed and aahed.  Saturday, I took another group, much larger this time, to the Empire Lookout.  Same reaction! 

This is the time of year when we don't know where to turn next - but every view is just amazing.  I know it won't last but a few more days, but we are enjoying the color in the meantime.  It's been near 80 every day, too, making everyone smile.  This is a photo of a tree in our neighborhood.  That hazy mountain in the middle is Camel's Hump, the state's most recognizable peak.

A beautiful day

Just when we thought no one was interested in going on walks in the town forest, we had quite nice group show up this morning.  The weather couldn't have been better, and there were 9 of us all together, including two kids, aged 7, and Pierre's dog Princess.  We all stopped to soak up the sun at No. 6 Quarry on the new picnic table!

Granny square quilt top

I finished this a few days ago but my camera told me it was "exhausted."  I took this rather blurry photo with my phone on a gloomy day.  It's waiting for the fabric for the back to arrive, and then I'll sandwich and pin baste for quilting.  It's OK since I need a little time to think about how I'll quilt it.  Probably simply on a grid.

Everything except the solid black in this quilt was something I had in my stash, including lots of 2.5" strips and parts of strips from when I belonged to the monthly "Strip Club" at my LQS.   That always feels good!

Fall is definitely here

Friday was the day I first began to feel a change in the weather.  It was chilly, and although I still wore sandals out and about, I also wore a jacket.  After lunch with a friend at the Old Firehouse, I snuggled up under a quilt and finished reading Louise Penny's new book, The Long Way Home.  It was great!  I'm only sorry to have to wait another year for the next one.

We discovered our new furnace heated the upstairs and the basement, but not the first floor.  The service man was called but couldn't come until Sunday, so we cranked up the heat elsewhere and hoped it would warm the first floor.  Saturday was another chilly, drizzly day, but I had to venture out to help with the Lions Club disc golf tournament.  Actually, I helped with refreshments to benefit playground renovations.  And despite the predictions of rain, 13 teams of five showed up for the event.  It was great to see the mix of ages.

 

When I arrived, I thought we really didn't need those tents, but later in the afternoon, it started really raining, which was mid-way through the course.  I had to leave before then to go to a program (indoors) at the Vermont Historical Society, and I'm glad!

 

Sunday afternoon, the furnace guy arrived to connect the first floor thermostat to the new furnace.   Guess we are all set now.  As is typical, we awake to fog and chilly temperatures, with the crisp, sunny days happening later.  Everyone in Vermont loves fall!

BoBs (Bags/boxes of blocks)

I store my projects in plastic project boxes, pizza boxes, and extra large plastic baggies.  Occasionally, parts of tops get hung on hangers.  This summer I've been trying to whittle these projects down, and I'm making progress.  The only problem is that I have a tendency to start one as soon as I finish one.

I have five quilts going at the moment:

  - A block of the week to go along with the reading of The Jane Austen Quilt Club by Ann Hazelwood for an online book group.  I really hate the book, but I love Barbara Brackman's Austen Family Album blog.  Every week, she posts a brief look at Jane, her times, her family and friends.  This week's block is "Old Maid's Puzzle for Tom Lefroy," Jane's fiance-for-a-day.  I'm using pinks and greens from my stash.

- A traditional log cabin made of scrappy blues with red centers, including blue shirting, for Paul's great niece Tori who graduates from high school in the spring.  I figure if I start now, it might be done by then.  :-)

- A granny square quilt, also made of scraps from the stash.  I've made 12 blocks so far and think I need 12 more, but I need to buy some more solid black.

- The "ocean" quilt, using teal fossil fern and scrappy 2" squares, I blogged about months ago.  I finished the center, and it's hanging in the closet.  I've also finished appliqueing three of four borders, and the fourth border is all prepped and ready to sew.  The next few days are going to be sunny, so I hope to get working on it again.

 - A house quilt for which I've been collecting fabrics and have made one block.  It will have all sorts of houses with international ladies peeking out of the doors and windows, along with some "landscaping."

I am also gathering Civil War reproduction fabrics for one of my guilds' "square robins," which we do every year.  I am including two of Brackman's "Threads of Memory" blocks-of-the-month in the package.  I started doing these but didn't like two others that I made.  Those two have gone into my pizza box marked "Year's End."  Every year, I look at the orphan and trial blocks that I've collected and sometimes I put them into a quilt.  Last year I tried to use blue and white for all of my trial blocks, and over the last couple of weeks I put them together into a small throw to go to the Parkinsons Comfort Quilt Project.   I'm calling it My September BoB quilt.

Another Jane Austen quilt

My Jane Austen-themed quilt, made with Downton Abbey fabrics, is still at the long arm quilter's, but I am about to start another one using Barbara Brackman's block of the week called Austen Family Album Quilt.  There are 36 blocks in this series, so I'll be making eight or so to go along with reading The Jane Austen Quilt Club by Ann Hazelwood for an online book group.  The book offers a 12" block of its own which I made earlier this week in my pink and green scraps.  I'll be shopping my stash for this one.

I love Jane Austen, but I have to say Hazelwood is not at all at her caliber!  The language in her book is stilted, cliched and annoying.  Every other paragraph ends is "Hmmmmm."  The "mystery" occurs nearly two-thirds of the way through the book and is absolutely lame.  It's easy reading, though, so it offers plenty of time to work on a project and read other, definitely better, books.