Quilting the rainbow

I sandwiched the rainbow baby quilt yesterday and started to quilt it.  Earlier in the day I bought the batt at the local quilt shop.  I needed a 60" x 60" batt fpr this little quilt which  measures about 49" square.  While I was there, I also found a fun striped fabric with many of the colors in it which I may use for the binding.  If not for this quilt, then for another.

The Quilters Dream batt is 100% cotton, and what a difference it is from the 80-20 batts I'm used to using.  It's much flatter and more solid which works well so far.  I started by using white thread on the top and cream on the bottom - so far so good, with no cream peeking through to the tp.  When I get to the various colors, I'll switch thread colors, although I will probably use cream for the yellow since I don't have any yellow thread.  I'm just stitching 1/2" from each seam.

I'll continue quilting with the white today before we head to the neighborhood annual summer picnic.  We have 18 people coming today for barbecued chicken catered by Randy the Racin' Chef.  Last year only two men came, but this year there will be four.  Most of the women are the same ones who come to the monthly women's lunches, and I'm disappointed that none of the newer neighbors are coming.  Summer is a busy time, and now that school has started again, everyone is getting their final gatherings and trips in before fall foliage season.  

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.

Favorites from Billings show

 I forgot to show photos of two quilts I really liked at the Billings Farm Museum show last weekend.  The first was called "Eclipse," and I loved its simplicity.

Next is my favorite of the show, perhaps because I met the quilter, Susan Damon Balch, a year or so ago at a meeting of the state quilt guild.  I forgot to write down the name of the quilt, but the use of monochrome gave it a peaceful feel and I liked that she blended in some traditional quilt blocks in the background.

Billings Farm Museum show

I spent yesterday in Woodstock at the Billings Farm Museum "Quilt Guild Day."  The Green Mountain Quilters Guild was the featured guild in an old barn set up just a little way from the main building where the annual Vermont Quilt Sampler exhibit is.  Five members of the statewide guild showed some of our work and demonstrated some techniques, including three ways of working with hexagons, hand quilting in a large hoop, Hawaiian quilting, and sashiko.   Several people asked how to get started in quilting which was fun to discuss.

It was a gloomy day, but morning and mid-day visitors to the grounds all stopped in to see what we were up to.  At around 2:00, the heavens opened up and it poured off and on for about an hour and a half.   We decided to pack up and go home at 3:30, even though we were scheduled to leave at 5 pm. 

We did sell about ten small quilts made by members which was good.   Several people wanted to buy my little landscape, but it was promised to a lady who had to visit the ATM first.  I love how the sky turned out in this one, and I have another hanging on the wall over my desk.

There was a distinctly "farm" smell throughout the barn perhaps due to the pigs and other critters in the barn next door.  Because it was a bit damp, I'' run all five of the quilts I brought with me through the dryer on "air" to freshen them up a bit.

I was also surprised that my bookshelf quilt received a lot of comments from visitors.  I made as a "row robin" several years ago with my international friendship swap group.  

I enjoyed looking at the quilts in the show, too.  This is the third year for the show, and the jury takes great pains to make sure there's a variety.  I was especially pleased to see quilts by three members of my local guild there.  All were deserving of note.  I didn't take too many pictures but the museum's website (link above) has several good shots.

What I do on Mondays

 

For the past few years, I've been Zooming with old friends from my work life on Monday afternoons.  These are all people who worked for their state libraries and collected data about public library use.  We were mostly all together in Washington, DC, on 9/11/2001 when the twin towers were hit.  We spent some tense days then and really bonded.  All retired now, we talk of books, movies, politics, and anything else that comes to mind.  States represented are Colorado, Georgia (now living in FL), South Carolina, Minnesota, and Massachusetts (now living in Chicago).  Quite a spread!

A trip and a finish

First, the finish!  Another small hat for a child going into foster care.  I've only been knitting this for a few weeks although I probably would have finished sooner if I'd stuck to it and sewed it together right after I finished knitting.  Instead, it languished as usual.

I love the "Hawthorne" yarn that Knit Picks sells and have made a few other hats using it.  I still have enough of this yarn left to make most of another hat, but I think I'm going to concentrate on finishing the purple scarf I started months ago.  It uses smaller needles so is taking me a while to finish.

We went to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, for a long weekend and returned this morning after spending the night in Glens Falls, NY.  It's about a 10 hour drive to NOTL, which I could do if I felt like it.  But we decided to break this trip up into two days each way to give ourselves a chance to relax.  We are, after all, retired with no real place we have to be.  Going back and forth over the border was easy, which was a relief.

NOTL is a charming village on Lake Ontario, just over the border into Canada.  Every summer, they hold a series of plays and musicals in a festival honoring playwright George Bernard Shaw.  Two summers ago, we were wowed by My Fair Lady.  This year's offerings included the musical Funny Girl and a wacky play about Jeeves and Wooster.  Both were very enjoyable, and we're glad we went. 

NOTL is a real tourist destination with lovely shops and plenty of nice places to eat.  Walking down the street, one hears all sorts of languages, and one needs to be careful not to photobomb anyone.  My favorite view was a whole window full of red and white pajamas in a maple leaf print.  Wish I'd gotten a picture.  The Sunset Grill saw us twice - once for lunch and the next day for breakfast - so it was obviously a hit.   We noshed on great ice cream cones while people watching in the city park which is beautifully landscaped, and we splurged on a Thai dinner complete with fried bananas Sunday.  Our room at an older inn was conveniently located and comfortable albeit tiny.  A perfect minivacation!

Two finishes!

Last week I picked up the Wensleydale quilt from Marie, the long arm quilter, and had it all bound by machine on Sunday.  She quilted it rather loosely in a snowflake pattern which looks a bit like a large stipple.  I like its puffiness and am glad it's done.   Foundation paper piecing made it easy to put together.

I realize that blue isn't considered a Christmas color, but it is used in most winter ones, so I chose the light blue stop border because the outer border includes blue.  I used the same outer border fabric for the binding because the inner part of the quilt is busy enough!  Of course, the holidays are plenty busy.

I may take this quilt to the library to hand on the wall during the holidays along with another quilt I often use with the auction items during "Light Up the Library."  When I get a chance, my plan to is make shopping bags for all the members of the library staff for Christmas.  Right now, I'm looking for a pattern that's easy and folds in or rolls into itself without snaps, buttons, or elastic.  

Over the weekend, I also got all the quilted pieces of my Modern Jane quilt together, bordered, and partly bound.  That was a lot of work, hauling the sections around and squaring them up together.  I was amazed that I had made almost the perfect lengths of piano key borders.  Sometimes things work like a charm and other times they are a pain.   The corners were duplicate DJ blocks that I made by accident during the three years I made them.  I lost track here and there along the way.

The spirit of Jane Stickle was with me on this quilt, I guess.  Besides the almost perfect length of borders, I found I needed to create about a foot more binding to get all the way around neatly, which used up all of one black/white fabric in my stash.   I had plenty more other b/w fabric but didn't want the binding to be scrappy.  I now face the task of sewing the binding down by hand, and I'll do that in spurts.

To give myself a break, I've been working on the July Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  Why - oh why? - did I decide to make three different quilts this year?  The color of the month is Bonnie Hunter's favorite - aqua.   Unfortunately, I have very little of what I consider to be that color, so I have expanded it to be what I consider to be teal which I have a lot of.  Five log cabin blocks are in the bin and put away already.  The "traffic stop" blocks are well on their way to completion, and today I'll start on the improv houses.

Home is best

Off hand, I can't remember the quote so well - east, west, home is best?   But it sure is good to be home in peaceful, green Vermont although we enjoy visiting Mom and sister Jenny in Colorado.  Saturday was Mom's 104th birthday, and we celebrated with two online video chats.  My brother took a screen shot.  It's difficult to see anyone, but the upper right has Mom, my son Chris, me, Jenny, and Paul.

Later in the day we had another video chat with my nieces in Los Angeles and Queensland, New Zealand.  It was good to see them both.

The day before we had a visit from my second cousin, twice removed, Joice, her husband Bob, and one of her sons and his family.  Mom hadn't seen Joice and Bob for 60 years.  The last time was when she gave them baby furniture, and now her son has grown up with kids of his own.

Joice lives in Pennsylvania, and we last saw her and Bob a couple of years ago when we were traveling through on our way home from the south.  We hope to see them again this spring.

Our visit included a lot of "mom care," taking her to appointments, helping her navigate the oxygen tubes, and just helping her in general.  I did a little cooking but also discovered delicious pizza already made at Whole Foods.  Wish we had one!  We browsed around Barnes and Noble, stopped at Starbucks, and generally enjoyed life in suburban America. 

A trip to Colorado is never complete without a trip to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum.  This time, there was a fabulous exhibit of medallion quilts by Cindy Vermillion Hamilton.  All were hand sewn, hand appliqued, and hand quilted.  Very impressive!  

The blue and white quilt is about the plainest one in the exhibit, but one I think I could actually do.  It gave me the idea that I could surround the map of the Netherlands I made last winter with a border of appliqued melons.   

The red background with bright blue on this quilt is stunning, my favorite of them all.  It was Cindy's wedding quilt and reflects her and her husband's Native American heritages.  

We've been home a few days, and laundry, grocery shopping and other household chores have been done.  I think I'll get a chance to quilt today before going over to Pam's with lunch and gossip.  She had a stroke about a month ago and needs a little pick-me-up.

Going scrappy

Even though I've been busy quilting Dear Jane off and on, I've taken the time to work on this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks and do the guild monthly challenge.  I showed the Improv Houses a few days ago.  

Here I am at guild with our June challenge.  Each person received a baggie of scraps and was asked to make something with them.  All of the scraps belonged to Lisa, so I decided to make her a "thank you" fabric postcard with the scraps I received.  Lisa does a lot for the guild, including a massive fabric auction in May.  I came home with 18 yards of lovely purple fabric for $30!  All the money went to the Vermont Food Bank or a project to support Afghani refugee ladies learning to sew and earn a living.  

At the June meeting, some guild members brought a large number of tubs filled with the stash, much of it yardage, of a lady who had moved to a nursing home.  I felt pretty smug, taking home only two large pieces of Christmas fabric which will become tablecloths.  I have too much stash as it is.  I'll use the fabric for table cloths during this year's Light Up the Library event.

The guild's summer challenge is to make a tote bag from scraps.  I am planning to make each library staff member a fold up shopping bag for Christmas this year.  I'll be looking for a pattern very soon so I can peck away at the bags over the summer.

The 2026 round robin

The last Heart of Vermont guild meeting was this past Tuesday, and we had the reveal of our 2025-26 round robin.  One person in the group couldn't make it, but we showed her quilt anyway, and we all took home our own quilts which were begun in the fall. 

I started with a left over 14" square from last year's Optimism quilt along sampler designed by Aby Dollinger.  Then it passed along to the other five members of the group monthly or bi-monthly depending on the size.  Each made a round with fabric I provided.  As you can see, it's another purple quilt, my favorite. 

Toward the end of the nine months, we had two months to work on a round, which some bigger quilts needed.  In the next to last round of Diane's quilt, I made a ton of nine patches in 30s fabrics, and for Marie's last round, I made quite a few friendship stars in red, white, and blue.  It's really a lot of fun to work on these round robin quilts with fabric other than my own.  Everyone does her best work, which is really nice.  As I said at the meeting, "it's a matter of trust," and it usually comes out great.

I didn't know some of the quilters in this year's group very well, and it was nice to get to know them through their quilts.  Here are five of the six of us, with me holding Marie's quilt top.  Our red ribbons denote that Ginny and I were "founding members" of the guild back in 2008.

I'm not sure when I'll get to my round robin quilt top or if I'll add another round to make it bed-sized.  These days I peck away at quilting my Dear Jane which is coming along pretty well.  We're heading to Colorado for a week to visit Mom, and I hope to finish Dear Jane all together by the end of July.  I have a few small projects I'd like to work on but meanwhile, I'll just think about what I'll do with the purple quilt.

Summertime and the living is easy

 

The rugosa roses in front of our house are blooming, and I picked lettuce yesterday.  Friends came for lunch Friday and gave me a lovely bouquet.  The whole house smells delicious - peonies will do that.  Wish we had some in the garden, but at least these are ant-less.

We had some pretty muggy days with summer temperatures.  School is almost out here - I know it's out elsewhere around the country, but ours stays in session longer to make up for the inevitable snow days.  We've had the fan on in our bedroom at night and the AC on in the living room and sewing room a few times.  We've had a few salad and cold cut meals, too.  Tonight we'll grill some pork chops from the freezer which I'm trying to empty in anticipation of having a crop of blueberries later this summer.

I am now ready to quilt the last section of Dear Jane.   I worked on the borders last week and made four 3" blocks for the corners.  Then I made another Improv House block.  I'm not sure how many of these I'll make, but so far I've been following the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colors.  This month's "pastel" turned out not as light as I wanted, but that's OK.  I plan to vary the landscapes a bit so that not all the hills go in the same direction.  It's pretty easy pattern, but I can't remember who designed it off hand.  Jo Avery?  Will have to go through my notes to make sure.

Yesterday I did a little embroidery at quilt guild while chatting with the group.  Some of us are planning to go to the first Vermont Quilt Show this week by a for-profit national group.  I'm curious to see vendors and some displays by local guilds.   My other guild meets this Tuesday for the last time before a summer break.   

Progress!

So far this week, I've been making all kinds of progress.  I finished a book and started another one.  And on Monday, I finished machine quilting the third of four sections of Dear Jane.  I'm pleased and want to work on the final section and work on the borders soon.  

But I also want to get the month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks finished so that I don't fall behind (as I often do!).  This month's color is "pastel," which is a little vauge and presents a bit of a challenge.   I have a lot of pastels, but I'm not sure how good they'll look with the blocks I've already made.  I decided to combine some colors, so yesterday, I made a couple of Traffic Jam blocks in pinks and purples.  

Then I made an Improv Houses block in light blues.   I added the houses to my RSC list last month because (a) I love making house quilts and (b) I have plenty of scraps.  I have yet to make the log cabin blocks for the month and hope to get to them today.

Yesterday morning I made a stop at the Vermont Historical Society library with a bankers' box full of the archives of the state quilt guild.  I had been sifting through several tubs all year, with turning the files over to VHS for safekeeping the ultimate goal.  I was so glad and relieved to be able to finish this long term project.  The tubs had been languishing in the former historian's basement and garage for ages.  Now they will be preserved, indexed and available to anyone doing research.

Naulakha

On Saturday we drove two hours south to Dummerston where British author Rudyard Kipling lived for a time back in the 1890s.  His house and outbuildings, "Naulakha," are open to the public one weekend a year for Rhododendron Weekend.   The rest of the time the space is reserved for overnight guests in a sort of B&B arrangement.  

The highlight for visitors on this particular weekend is the rhododendron tunnel as long as a football field.  Once inside, it is amazing!

It was an overcast day, which means it was a little humid, but it didn't rain until the afternoon when we were well on our way home.  We had a tour appointment for 11:00 and found that only about 25 cars fit in the parking areas down the hill from the main house.  It was all very well organized with volunteers directing traffic,

All three main buildings were open for view and all are available to rent during the year.  The main house sleeps 8 and all of the bedrooms looked comfortable and inviting.   I took this photo from the upstairs balcony.  The views of the mountains were very nice.  The main house had a billiard room on the top floor, which was impressive considering how the staircases wound upstairs.

People were encouraged to bring picnic lunches, and drinks (water and seltzer) were complimentary.   Of course, everyone ventured into the tunnel.  I took this photo about halfway through.  We have a rhododendron at home, but it is much shorter than these which must be as old as the house.

There is a pavilion area at the end of the tunnel which must have been a nice spot for cocktails in Kipling's time.  We could see a tennis court down the hill from there, and we heard voices in the woods behind.  We couldn't find a path to walk out there, however, and I thought it was a bit buggy.  June is black fly season for Vermont, so I didn't want to attract any, having already been attacked in our yard a few weeks ago.

We enjoyed our visit very much and talked about renting the house some time with family.  It has the potential for a peaceful, fun weekend.   After about an hour, we had seen it all, so we ventured back toward Brattleboro and stopped at Panda North, a delicious Chinese restaurant, for lunch.  

Now that we're home, we are still curious about why Kipling was there.  He wrote several of his more famous books there, including Captains Courageous.  Paul ordered a book, of course!

Orchids and more

Several Mother's Days ago, my son gave me an orchid plant.  It bloomed for a long time and then nothing happened for a year or so.  I transplanted it into a larger pot, and it immediately bloomed.  After the blooms were finished, maybe 6 weeks after beginning, maybe even longer, I snipped the stalk near one of the "elbows" (or whatever they are called).  Finally, that branch began to grow and started blooming.  There is still one bud at its end.  

Much to my surprise, another stalk appeared and now has some fairly sizeable buds.  I'm amazed!  My other orchid plant looks awful even though I water it just the same (minimally) and it sits right next to this larger one.  Orchids are fickle!

Our kitchen and dining room were painted during the last three days.  Our painter is just wonderful - very neat, precise, quiet, hard working.   She's a pleasure to have in the house.  Prior to Monday, I moved everything off the kitchen counters and everywhere else I could.  We moved the dining table into the living room and a large antique sideboard into the middle of the dining room under the chandelier. 

The kitchen bench was stashed behind the couch and paintings were stored in various places.  This morning I rehung curtains, removed a slight film of dust here and there, and started moving stuff back into the kitchen.  This afternoon, Chris is coming by to help us move the bigger items back, and life should return to normal, albeit much cleaner and brighter.