It's finally cool here and I felt like getting out the fall decor. I haven't done too much yet, just got the quilts out of the cupboard. I love the cat and pumpkin quilt, made years ago. I had found the perfect background with little cats and pumpkins on it that set it off perfectly. The tablerunners are my own concoctions, one made around the large square of Halloween print in the center. The little ghost embroidery just sits on a side table. I like redwork, orangework, blackwork, in other words doing embroidery in just one color. Maybe this weekend I'll get down the tubs of pumpkins, silk leaves and old fashioned figurines that I picked up at Michaels last year.. It's fall! It's finally under 100 degrees! This week the highs are only 80! Time to decorate!

Charming Girls Quilt Club

My October projects for the Charming Girls Club! I just got these three quilts back from the quilter - she did a fabulous job, and now my job is to trim and bind them. Plus my tablerunner (shown on the chair), which I am going to machine quilt myself and bind. It's little, I think I can get all this done!

The second pic is a little bit washed out, but it is the peachy pinks from Moda's Wuthering Heights line from several years back. The tablerunner is leftover scraps from a queen quilt I just put together. I think you can tell that I like pastels a lot from the pinks and greens. The second to last quilt is half square triangles from Kashmir IV put together with pink and sea foam green scraps I had. Just leftovers in my own pattern. The other pink and green is a Jacob's Ladder variation. There you have it, I will finish these 4 quilts! Yay!

Little Getaway

We did another long weekend trip to California and slept on the sailboat at Dana Point. This trip we did a couple touristy things we had never done before. One was to take the ferry over to Catalina Island.
Isn't this pretty? I know the pic isn't that good, but this is our full moon cruise back to the mainland from Catalina Island and Avalon. We decided to brave the wind and sit outside on the return trip. It was a beautiful ride, just about an hour and 20 minutes.

For all the 'Beaches' fans out there, this is the cottage from the movie. For those of you who don't know the movie - go watch it! Bette Midler - it's very good. The cottage is in disrepair, but they have plans to restore it. It is at Crystal Cove which is now in the California State Park system.

Hope everyone else had a great weekend!

Applique update

I'm working on block number 31! Yay! I did a layout in EQ and decided I needed 41 to make a queen sized quilt, with even more for the end triangles, and corners... My problem is that I'm going to run out of the red fusion floral, even though I had yards of it. I searched the local shops with no luck and ordered two packages off the internet, one wasn't a good match, the other has yet to come. I want to bind it in red also, so I'm hoping this next package will do it. Otherwise, I go to plan B , which I haven't devised yet. I don't want a smaller quilt, so I'm hoping this will work. The white is Kona white which I buy in bolts from JoAnns with their coupons. Love those coupons!
On another note, I took three quilts to a quilter last Sunday. I gave up on ever getting my backlog done myself. I'll feel good when the backlog is cleared up and I can make tops with a clear conscience! I've ordered several books from Amazon and I am geared up to clean the stash. The babysitting keeps me from doing anything but handwork right now which is why I hope to have this top done soon!

Cutter quilts I won't cut

Years ago (about 20) I picked this quilt up in a thrift store... I was attracted to it's tiny triangles which are about 1 1/4 inches on a side, and the pink and green which I absolutely love. It was labeled a cutter quilt, but I won't do that, I value and respect the workmanship of tiny triangles, hand piecing and hand quilting. It was never a museum quilt, but somehow it speaks to me. I really really want to make a copy of this someday.. perhaps soon! At first glance this quilt looks pretty random but when you really inspect it, you would find that it was planned out perfectly. It would be easy to copy but time consuming... I think I should do it! Twenty years of wanting to is enough isn't it? I think the printed fabrics are 30s or 40s, and the pink, green and white are solids. That too is my cup of tea, combining prints and solids in antique reproductions. I hope you appreciate this as much as I do. Someone added satin blanket binding to the top and bottom and there are some holes, but for five dollars, it's a real charmer. When I bought this I did all hand piecing, but now, I'll have to machine piece. I'm over the hand piecing! ha!

September 11

September 11

I thought I'd share a little wall hanging I made after 2001. How many remember that it was a Tuesday that year? How many remember the year? How many remember the shock we felt to be attacked? I'm not a political person, but as a quilter of the last century documented her life and times in her quilts, I felt the need to embroider these simple words on my red, white and blue wall hanging. I believe I got the pattern from the internet somewhere. Perhaps the Jinny Beyer site? That I don't really remember, but when I went to work that morning, I found out that one of my friends' college roommates worked in the towers. Simply putting this on this quilt means that future generations will remember too.

Quilters will always remember their lives through their quilts. I think we should document our lives more often in our quilts. Email has pretty much insured that we won't leave any actual letters behind! Sign your quilts with a story of who, what, why, where, and when. Leave a legacy.