One border left

These blocks are part of the pieced border on my Summer Mystery Quilt and they are the same as the center section of this quilt too.

I got some quality time on Tuesday night, and finished enough blocks for one of the side borders. So 3 of the 4 borders are on the quilt. Our guild has a sewing day on Saturday, so I plan to finish the last border there.

October goals

What goals, you ask?  I really did have some goals set for this month, but they probably were not very realistic considering what my month was going to look like.

• Begin Fall Mystery Quilt at The Pin Cushion - YES - have month 1 steps done
• finish the additional border on the Summer Mystery Quilt only - NO
• make Thanksgiving 60 degree table runner - NO
• 3 more flying geese pinwheels - NO
• dragon fly applique on my wall hanging - NO
• bind pink/brown Saturday Sampler UFO - NO

However I did get a couple more of the border blocks done for the Summer Mystery Quilt, and I made a couple of baby burp cloths as gifts.   

But I did spend some important time doing other things: a road trip with girlfriends for shopping and seeing Wicked, and a whole weekend with grand-kids, kids, and big dogs visiting.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

If you haven't yet checked out the online Blogger's Quilt Festival, then it's time to that.  Bloggers all over the world will be posting about their beautiful quilts, and you can vote for your favorites in many different categories.

My entry is in the ROYGBIV category, which is all about the color wheel.  I made Polka Dots & Pachyderms for my oldest daughter using a rainbow of charm squares from a swap and adding the pieced elephants from my stash. It is a long and narrow throw quilt, so it even covers the legs of a tall husband.

Go online to the Blogger's Quilt Festival to vote for your favorites from Nov. 1-7.

Weekend visitors

We had a busy, crazy, noisy house this weekend. But it was fun!

Mason is almost 2 1/2, Jonah and Olivia are 6 months - these 3 belong to my older daughter. And Sophia is 18 months - and belongs to my younger daughter.

You can easily see why there was no quilting going on at my house.

Weekend visitor

We are going to have this little dolly at our house for the next 3 days while mommy and daddy take a little trip. And the other 3 grand-kids (and parents) will come on Saturday for an overnight visit. Should be a noisy, crazy weekend.

Can't wait.

Mini quilts on display

Don't you just love displaying your quilts so you can enjoy them?  I love the little iron quilt stand that sits by my fireplace because it holds the little seasonal quilts in my collection. This one is 12" square with an appliqued pumpkin and letters.

And I also have a small iron hanger by my kitchen door that holds my Count On It mini quilts for each month. These are about 10" square. Every time I walk into my house from the garage, this quilt hanger greets me.

A lovely gift

I work with really nice people! This morning, the school librarian (my office is in an elementary school) stopped in my office and gifted me with a beautiful hand made 100% cotton dishcloth. She loves to knit crochet these and had a huge color selection that she let me choose from.  Wasn't that nice of her?  It is going directly to my kitchen.

2 mystery quilts

After a couple of weeks with no time for sewing, I finally got a little time in my sewing room today. Oh so relaxing.

I made the strip sets for the new fall mystery quilt project I'm starting.  And I have the slices cut from those strip sets. Ready for step 2 in November.  I've chosen a black, a pink, and a grey for my 3 colors.  This month's steps only used the light (grey) and the medium (pink).  What we are doing with the dark (black) is still a mystery.

Then I made 4 more blocks for the pieced borders on the summer mystery quilt. I decided to add the borders after seeing the other finished quilts at the show 'n tell.  I just really loved that extra border, but it takes a lot of these blocks. So I'll just keep plugging away on them. 

Fall table topper

My office needed some colorful fall decor, so I brought a small 60 degree table topper to use on my office table.  I made this runner both as the original shape (long rectangular) and the hexagon shape.  These little ones just use 6 triangles and go together in about 5 minutes. This one is hand quilted around the floral and along the stripes.

A quilt-free road trip

This weekend is a long anticipated road trip with 2 friends to Minneapolis to see the play Wicked at the Orpheum Theatre. Can't wait - the play begins in 2 hours.  Earlier in the day we did some power shopping downtown and then had a late lunch at Key's Bar and Grill.  What a terrific way to spend a Sunday.  But it is a QUILT-FREE day as these friends are not quilters. So no fabric shopping.

Here we are at the Mary Tyler Moore statue on Nicolette Avenue - the location of that famous scene at the beginning of the show where she tosses her hat in the air.

Decorating with quilts

Decorating my home with seasonal quilts is part of the main enjoyment of quilting.  Last fall I made this door hanging for Halloween. It was made with the Twister ruler, fabric from my stash, and graph paper. The graph paper was because I saw this online, and knew I could "do the math" myself and not buy a pattern.  I love this quilt.  And my front door faces north, so I don't have to worry about the sun shining right on my quilt to fade it.

I hung this on my door using an expanable curtain rod and 2 of the removable hooks.  Those hooks plus curtain rods serve as the hangers for 3 quilts currently hanging in my home. Very easy and it allows me to move them without leaving hardware holes in my walls.

What goals?

Well - October is almost half gone. How did that happen?  And the bad news is that I have not worked on any of my October goals yet. Zip - zero - nada . . .

I've made a mess in my recently cleaned up sewing room however - and nothing to show for it. Oh well, there is always next week, right?

Shorn like a sheep

Our 20 pound tuxedo cat, Sammy, was getting a lot of matted areas of fur that he just couldn't seem to reach anymore for grooming.  We try to brush him everyday because he is such a long-haired cat. I've even cut out chunks of matting, but it seemed to be getting worse. So my husband finally got frustrated and took him to the vet for professional grooming.

Not sure we can call it grooming when they shave him practically down to the skin - all over.  He is now kind of grey and looks quite naked.  He also wears a look of total humiliation all of the time. Poor thing - I hope it grows back as pretty as it was before - but without the knots.

Chop, chop . . .

A big thank you to my readers that helped me decide the original shape of this table topper just didn't work.  That gave me the courage to take it back to my cutting board and a little chopping.  I like this much better and the floral border doesn't overpower the center as much.

Thanks ladies!  This is one of the best things about blogging friends - I can solicite advice from lots of experts.

On the fence

I have not decided if I like this yet.  Love the fabrics, but am not convinced that I like the shape.  Maybe before quilting it will become more square . . . and mayb not. I think this will stay unquilted for awhile.

Big Hexagon

I love the hexagon shape and have been making some little ones. But this one is made from 60 degree cuts from a border print.  Just a little hand quilting to give it some dimension, and it's hexagon table topper.

Color Me Black & White

I decided to wait to photograph this quilt until my husband was home to hold it up for me. The blocks were part of a past Saturday Sampler, called Color Me Happy. My original version was given away as a gift already. But my second one was done with my stash of black and whites, with a lot of different brights tossed into the mix. 

This UFO is going to be gifted as well.

Using leftovers

I had lots of leftover "corners" trimmed off flying geese blocks and had this brilliant idea - make them into 2.5" half-square triangles.

So I made tons of little HST blocks and put them together. Next steps involved deciding what they would become when they grew up.

Thought I could just dig in my stash to find what I needed to turn this into a tablerunner. But that was disappointing. Too many shades of brown - too orange, too red, too dark, too light. Thanks to Carma at The Pin Cushion I found some gorgeous fall floral to make a border.