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.