Teal mini swap

The best thing in our mail which was held at the P.O. during our vacation was a package from my Teal Mini Swap partner, Shelly in SC.  Each participant - and they came from the U.S. and Canada - received a small piece of fabric to incorporate into either a mug rug or mini quilt for a partner who was assigned.  Ten of the $15 we sent in went to ovarian cancer research, so it's a fun and useful swap.   It is amazing how well we are partnered, too.  I have a lot in common with both this year's and last year's partners who are so nice - but then, quilters are generally nice!

Here's the mini Shelly made me:

I love the puffin fabric she used as a border.   The fabric we both received is the teal print at the top left.  Both of us weren't enamored of it, but it ended up working fine in our minis.   It's clear we both love color.   How did she know that I have been trying to use more orange in my quilts lately?  Here's the string star mini I made Shelly:

Shelly's package also included several items she made herself:   some knitted dish cloths, a neat scrubby, and a tea caddy for my purse or travel.  This is a great way to meet quilters around the country as well as a way to contribute to a very good cause.  I hope to join in again next year.

Colorado memories

Our week in Colorado went by much too quickly, and now we are back to "life" - grocery shopping, mail, laundry, to-do lists.   But we had a fine time with Mom and Jenny - a ballet honoring the Harlem Jazz Age, a visit to a Dutch artist's studio, a Vietnamese lunch with the Indo-Dutch group, and a trip to Leadville, the highest municipality (over 10,000 feet) in the USA.  We took a tour of  the Matchless Mine shack where poor Baby Doe Tabor spent her impoverished last 36 years, and we stopped at the public library which had an extensive local history collection.  Lunch was super there - delicious grilled cheese, tomato and bacon.  In fact, we ate too well the entire week, and now it's back to watching our intake again.  :-)


We also visited the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden where there were two outstanding exhibits - one of Russian quilts and the other some amazing thread painted pieces by Jill Kertula.  There were quite a few Russian quilts using traditional American patterns like Trip Around the World.  The fabrics were muted even though they used a lot of red.  Many of the appliqued quilts showed scenes from folk tales, but any words were not translated, unfortunately.

I'm sorry I didn't get any photo of the Kertula quilts - they were outstanding - but a couple of Russian ones caught my eye.  The logs in the log cabin quilt finished at less than 1/2" and many of the centers were grass green satiny fabric.   It ends up looking like an oriental rug.

The appliqued quilt was pieced first and then appliqued with butterflies, yo yo flowers, etc.  I think the background was mostly hand pieced, too.

 There was a fun display of Matryoska dolls, including one featuring the Washington Redskins football team and another featuring heroes of the Soviet Union, with Lenin being the smallest.

The gift shop in the new museum location has grown considerably, and pretty soon they'll outgrow the space.  I didn't buy anything, but I admired the Laurel Burch scarves and t-shirts, and Mom got greeting cards and fun socks.  In fact, I didn't buy any souvenirs at all.  We were too busy to shop!

We love to go to the movies when visiting Mom because there are two multi-plexes nearby.  We saw BlackKKlansman, a Spike Lee film about a black cop infiltrating the KKK in Colorado Springs in the 1970s, and Crazy Rich Asians, a very lightweight romantic comedy with great music - familiar pop songs sung in Chinese.

Honkin' n wavin'

Our local Democratic Committee held a "honk n wave" yesterday afternoon for various candidates.  It was a perfect fall day to stand on a corner with a sign and wave at passing motorists at a major intersection in town.   I'm helping my friend Guy as campaign treasurer again this year.  He's running for the state legislature, and lost by a narrow margin in 2014.   We're going low budget and low key this time around, and we did have fun yesterday - lots of honks and waves (including a whole school bus of kids), only one raised middle finger, and some adorable dogs in cars!

Teal mini swap

Shelly, my swap partner in this year's Teal Mini Swap, a benefit for ovarian cancer research, posted a thank you photo of the mini I made her so I feel safe in posting a photo today.   Each person received a small piece of teal fabric that we were to incorporate in our mini - it's the one with the wavy white section peeking out here and there.  I wish I had had time to applique something, but I felt somehow compelled to make a string star this year.  

I cut some light paper into 3" strips and then added "strings" of various teal fabrics from my stash along with the wavy teal we received.  I cut these on a 45 degree angle as we did for a Stack n Whack Lemoyne Star.  I removed the paper (ugh!) and sewed the diamonds together.  I was happy to find a good use for the slim outside border fabric which I have been hoarding.  

I'm so glad Shelly likes it.  I also enclosed a small teal shopping bag, a pieced key fob, and a teal fat quarter.  I hope to make more of those key fobs later this fall, but perhaps not all pieced as Shelly's was.  I bought some kits with hardware on etsy.com and plan to start working on them when we get back from Colorado next week.

Our guild had its first meeting of the "year" (which runs Sept.-June) last week, and we broke out into monthly teams to plan our programs.  Our March team will be "going green," so we'll focus on reusing and recycling.  I'm responsible for planning the block of the month for March and am already thinking of a string block, perhaps made with selvages.  I'll be testing it out later this year.  

The guild will also have a block swap and a mystery quilt this year.  For the swap, we're to make 30 blocks of any style using bright traditional cottons on a white-ish background.  We can vary the blocks but I think I'm going to make 15 string blocks and 15 Dresden Plates (there are 15 people participating).   I was hoping to use stash for the mystery quilt, but I just don't have enough of anything but the neutral for what will end up as a throw.  I headed over to Joann Fabrics Sunday at got some rather traditional prints for that.  I have not liked any of the mystery quilts I've made so far, but hope springs eternal!

Free as a Bird

This week's Splendid Sampler 2 block is entitled "Free As a Bird," and I finished it (except for a bead eye and embroidered legs/feet) today.  The blocks come out on Thursdays and it always takes me a day or two to pick my fabrics.  I may add a button for the center of the little flower.

It was full of lots of fussy little pieces.  Those leaves were a bit fiddly, but my trusty round toothpick helped me roll the points under smoothly.  What will I do if I lose it?  I can't remember which restaurant it came from...

We've had some busy days and this week the busy-ness continues with a library board meeting, a Democrats meeting, leading a nature walk, yoga, picking up a quilt at Dee's shop,volunteering at the Vermont Historical Society, and serving as my friend Guy's campaign treasurer again as he runs for state House again.  But at least that will end in early November after I file the final report.  More immediately, my brother and his wife are coming Saturday and leaving sometime Sunday.  So, whenever I can, I'll be cleaning and straightening in advance of their visit.

But after today's library board meeting, my term will officially be over.  I'll do the last minutes, and then go back to being "just" a Friend.  Phew!  It is hard, being a trustee.  Then on Friday, will be my next to last volunteering morning, as the personnel is being shuffled to have Diane work at the reception desk rather than in her other office.  She will handle visitors in the place of volunteers some of whom are admittedly aging and not as sharp as in the past.  So I will be "free as a bird" myself in a few weeks with less of a schedule.  I'm trying not to fill it immediately, too, so that I'll have more time to work on UFOs and to travel.  We'll see how that goes!

"Lifestyle changes"

I have been making a conscious effort to eat less and walk more as part of my "lifestyle change" regimen.  The P.A. used this gentle way of telling me to lose weight and lower my cholesterol which has always been OK until recently.   It's especially difficult when one goes out to eat, as we did last night, but I did pretty well.  First of all, I did a little walking, first in the mall and later from the Old Labor Hall to the restaurant and back, a good half mile, for dinner with Paul and Fred.   I chose a falafel burger, with salad rather than fries on the side or pizza.  Absolutely no dessert and, thankfully, no wine (the house variety costs $10 at this particular place).    Eating at home is easier to control.  Tonight I'll make a pork tenderloin with vegetables.

Our Tuesday morning walk went up to Barclay Quarry and back, over 7,000 steps, and everyone seemed o enjoy it.  It has been very humid and last night's rains made the forest quite steamy.    Here's some  ragweed  I noticed near Barclay Quarry this morning.

As Suzy says, for an ugly flower, it sure causes trouble for some people.   Some mistake goldenrod for ragweed, but that isn't usually allergenic.   In fact, goldenrod looks really nice in bouquets with asters at this time of year.

Even though I don't like to have a schedule, I will miss the Tuesday morning walks when they're over at the end of September.   Our little group of "regulars" is nice, and I enjoy introducing newcomers to the trails.

Appliique etc.

Dee asked me to teach another beginning hand quilting class at her shop in October.  It's just days after we get back from Colorado, so I thought I'd better start getting things together.  Yesterday I made a flannel board to attach samples of different methods of applique to.  I decided another Lafayette's Orange Peel might be fun to work on this winter, but in scrappy colors.  So my samples are all melon shapes.  I'll try and take a photo soon.

I usually start by having people practice the applique stitch using melon shapes created with the "used dryer sheet" method.  I don't really like this method because I can never get a sharp point with it, but designer Lori Holt uses it, as does a member of one of my guilds.   I need to buy a little more unbleached muslin to make a few more squares for the class, which is sure to be small but fun.

After they get the hang of the stitch, I move on to the class project, involving stems, leaves, and circles, mostly using the freezer paper method.   I used this design in 2016 for a class and then finished it for Cindy to hang in her newly painted room.   I made one last year which is now a pillow, so guess I'll make another along with this year's class.

This week I made four 6" basket blocks and then cut out four borders for the red, white, and blue medallion quilt I started last winter.   It was the biggest UFO in my closet and I thought it time to get back to work on it.  The background fabric for this border is a blue and white-ish stripe, so the flowers are red on a navy blue vine, and the leaves will be various scraps of blue.   I stitched the vine down by machine, but I'm doing the flowers and leaves by hand.  Because the weather got a little cooler, I worked on two of the borders quite a bit this week.  It's really relaxing.

I also put the August low volume blocks together today and started quilting this section of my year-long Splendid Sampler/Moda Blockheads quilt.  All this activity is good because it keeps me from snacking.  My cholesterol has gotten a bit high, so I'm taking the "life-style changes" (the P.A.'s gentle term for diet and exercise) route to avoid medication.  I walked about a mile and a half in the forest today, and we'll be having salmon and salad for dinner.   I hope to get more walks in if/when the weather cools.