Quilting Season Kicks Off in Autumn

 We are quickly switching from Autumn colors to WINTER….NOOOO!

I know…last time I posted it was still summer. Autumn is my favorite season…love the colors. But it only lasts about three weeks where I live. No hard frost yet which is amazing but most of the leaves have dropped from the trees. My biggest accomplishement was finishing the quilting of my version of Lori Holt's Chicken Salad, "Kauai Chicken Salad." I still have button eyes to add but I had to take a photo outside while I had some decent sunlight.

I really love this quilt! I did Lori's method of an interfacing backside on the applique pieces...and tiny strips to make the feet. Would never do either of these methods again. Fusible applique would look just fine and be so much quicker! I will probably do a post with close ups of all the blocks once I get the eyes stitched in place.

On to all the activities that took place in September. 

I busy with lots of quilting happenings...SWEET!

The Alaska State Fair ended on Monday, September 2nd. I entered five pieces and came home with five ribbons. I don't enter to win ribbons but it sure is nice to get them! I enter to support the wonderful tradition of sharing accomplishments in my community in the hope of encouraging others to enjoy these hobbies too! I love taking time to look at all the handmade pieces entered...especially the junior categories. 

We do have a lot of great quilters in Alaska...and I wish more of my friends would enter. 

All three quilts I entered won blue ribbons. The second quilt hanging from the rafters at the fair was my king-sized blue version of, "Sky Full of Stars." 

My favorite photo of the quilt is my grandson, Austin, on my son's shoulders as they checked out my entries.

The third quilt hanging in the rafters was my smaller version of Bonnie Hunter's mystery, "En Provence."

And my third quilt entry was a lap size version of the pattern, "Take Flight.

For the first time I entered some of my Bucilla pieces. Understandably, kits are not as favored as more original pieces. My goal here was just to share them. I want these kit to continue to be made and no stores in our area carry any felt kits so how will others learn about the possibilties?

I am working diligently to encourage my granddaughter Kate to enter pieces into the fair. I tried to get a photo of her in front of her stocking but the camera couldn't focus on both locations. 

The last of my entries were two cross stitch pieces. 

The winning cross stitch pieces were all large...and beautiful. No aspirations to take on full coverage or large pieces.

Quilt retreats start up in September. 

The first was the, "Sisters Retreat," group...started by three sisters, one of which asked me to join several years ago. We meet at our local quilt shop in Eagle River for three days, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

I worked on two quilts. I started with making log cabin star blocks. I am trying to decide how I will handle the borders. I have very little fabric left of fabrics in the log cabin blocks.

The second project was a pattern using 6-inch strips, "Stepping Up." I bought several sets of 6-inch strips over 10 years ago when I went to Hancocks of Paducah. I expect to make three more tops with this pattern. I think that means I like this pattern.

The second retreat I attended was also a daytime retreat at my local quilt shop, Twisted Sisters' Quilty Pleasures. This group only meets once a year...every September. A lot of the ladies were in the Breakfast Club with me that I attended sooooo long ago. We picked a new name, Savvy Stitchers. 

I mostly worked on a big, but simple pattern, 2M Quilt from Villa Rosa Designs. Super easy and very striking. I saw this made up at the Houston quilt show last fall and immediately came home and ordered the pattern and fabrics. Most of the fabrics are from Tim Holtz through Free Spirit fabrics and it is on their website.

We also had some surprise projects to make at the retreat. A chicken pincushion and a little basket

The next retreat is with the Material Girls at a B & B in October. 

I worked on many hand stitching projects in the evenings.

I finished the ornament set that accompanies the stocking I made for my granddaughter Kara.

This was a challenging set of ornaments...just like the stocking.

I then took a detour from Christmas projects to a new kit for Halloween,

Another mantel series from Merry Stockings

I set up a small Christmas tree and am working on putting Halloween decorations on it. Photos to come once I get it done. 

Since I use this blog as a journal I am including a couple of photos of quilts taken in the sunlight. We are losing daylight hours and I hate when I give a quilt away and don't have a decent photo of it.

Not sure who will get, "En Provence," but it will be one of my granddaughters.

I'm giving, "Take Flight," to my grandson next time he is over at the house...hopefully next week.

It's rutting season for the moose so lots of them roaming the area. I feel like half of my trips into town involve a moose sighting. It was a little foggy but you can see we did have some pretty fall colors.

August…How Can It Be Gone?

 Wow…I know time flies but really…what happened to August?

The weather was gloomy…totally typical for August in our part of the world. 

It was confirmed again this past month…I am primarily a topper when it comes to quilting. More tops finished…no quilting of any tops. I did start quilting a top yesterday that has been loaded on my frame since early July.

I finished three tops that are for my granddaughters. I snagged the fabric and panels on a close out sale at my local quilt shop. Little ballerinas. I’ve ordered cuddle fabric to back all the lap sized tops.

I have enough fabric to make pillow cases for the girls too!

I finished Kara's stocking that will hang at her other grandmother's house. That grandma is an amazing sugar cookie decorator so that's what led me to pick this kit from my stash. This is a kit from 2009, "Santa's Sweet Shop."

I had a fun Christmas print in my stash for the lining.

Instead of putting her name on the stocking, this kit has it on an ormanent that hangs with the stocking.

Some details. Lots of satin stitching but in small bites so I didn't mind it too much. I tacked the gingerbread men and other sweets in the basket so they won't get lost over the years.

My other handwork project for evenings has consistently been a Noah's Ark cross stitch series. 

Two more animal sets finshed. 

Skunks.

Camels.

My grandson was at the house to visit when it dawned on me to check the stash of baby things from when my boys were young and found several smocked coverall sets I had made. Here's Austin wearing one of them. Fits great!

The one thing I did do very well in August was spend time with all of my grandkids.

Kara and Kate are with one of their three chickens. Kate, the oldest, carries that chicken around like she's a baby doll. The other chickens don't really like getting picked up but this little red hen does.

I had a memorable visit with a bull moose.

 I caught sight of him strolling along my garden while sitting at my computer. 

I was standing inside my dog run which has a 6ft tall fence.

Since I was charged by a moose cow earlier this summer...I've been more cautious.

My dogs slept through the entire episode.

It was amazing to get such a close look at the velvet on his antlers.

Heading to the Alaska state fair tomorrow. I went two weeks ago but I was with Kate who is four and she didn't want to spend as much time looking at all the quilts as I needed. I did well, blue ribbons on the three quilts I entered. 

July Recap - Quilts, Bucilla Felt Kits, Cross Stitch, New Granddaughter and a Grizzly

 July has been a busy month. 

Some rain and quilting crept into my summer gardening schedule.

I had a daytime, 3-day retreat at my local quilt shop with my Material Girls group. Several of us really enjoy this type of retreat where we can go home in the evenings and sleep in our own beds but leave all our stuff in the classroom of the quilt shop for the three or four days of our retreat. 

I very often start a retreat by finishing a project...most often adding borders. For this retreat I wanted to work on one new project so before the retreat I finished up two UFOs claiming space on my sewing table. I did mention there was rain...no sun to call me outside.

"I Believe In," probably looks very familiar to you if you have been quilting for the last 15 years. I started this in 2013 while we were living in Paris. It's a design from Nancy Halvorsen and she re-released one of her previous Christmas fabric lines in May.

I used the fusible web method for the applique and machine stitched the edges with a blanket stitch in black thread.

When I was sewing the blocks together I realized I had missed blanket stitching around the inner edge of an "a."

So glad I caught that!

My next finish is so much more eye catching in person. I named it, "Blue Alaska," and it will be for my grandson. The first grandchild has several quilts from me but my other grandkids haven't gotten any! My quilting priority is to fix that dismal fact.

This was a very fun project that is a, 3-Yard quilt from the design team, Fabric Café. They have several books  with eight quilt designs made with one-yard of three different fabrics. This pattern is, "Enchanting," from the book, "The Magic of 3-Yard Quilts." It's a good book with several other designs I would like to make.

With two more tops added to the the "To Be Quilted," pile it was time to start a brand new project! I bought this kit from Shabby Fabrics a couple of years ago which features a digitally printed panel, Dragonfly Dreams.

It was a challenging design with lots of points to match. But I stayed on task and only had the last border to add which I quickly did at home. This is destined for one of my granddaughters. 

Every New Year I start a dimensional kit from Bucilla from my extensive stash. This year it was Santa's Ark. It was super challenging making the ark.

As always...the kits are always so much prettier when done than the kit photo.

My four-year-old granddaughter kept me on task...always checking on my progress when she came to our house.

After finishing that enormous project I picked a quick project. A set of Christmas Cookie ornaments. All the tops are done...just have to add the backing pieces. 

I'm still loving my cross stitch projects. I think it took me a couple of weeks to finish Liberty Sam. As usual...the final finishing is probably the hardest part and I haven't tackled that step. There is a companion piece, "Lady Liberty," I have kitted up and ready to stitch so I will probably wait to finish the two together.

 

Back to the Noah's Ark theme...I have two more sets of animals done for a cross stitch ornament series.

The llamas.

 I just love how the designer has a "fabric design" look to her animals.

A plaid hippo. So cute!

I was blessed with my fourth grandchild just a couple of days ago, Hannah Jane. This is my son Zack's third daughter. I love it so much that he has three girls! 

Zack is a fighter pilot in the Air Force and when I was newly married to my fighter pilot husband there was an article in a science magazine that addressed a statistic that fighter pilots had more daughters than sons and it was believed the pulling of  Gs affected the sperm to create this outcome. We had two boys...didn't happen in our case. And I did have a few little girl dresses smocked in anticipation of having girls. Some friends in the squadron got those dresses for their daughters. 

I had a very brief but big critter visit a couple of weeks ago. I was sewing in my basement studio when I got a text from a neighbor two doors away...grizzly headed my way. I looked up from my sewing machine and there he was...walking quickly through my back yard. Both my dogs were napping in the studio so I quietly opened my basement door...with iPhone in hand and managed to get a photo!!!

The black fencing is the dog run off my sewing room door. The dogs woke up pretty quickly...barking like crazy from the smell but bear had already disappeared into the woods. The neighbor on my backside is new and sits on 22 acres. I need to get their phone number one of these days.