Tuesday evening I took the final class on how to do the cut work for this Six Hem Sampler by Indigo Rose. Now I am working on adding the beads and hope to complete it tomorrow. The original design is done with teal blues and rose pinks. Fortunately for me, the shop was out of those colors and I was forced to choose another color-way. I love Fall colors, so I chose greens and rusts, and the Waterlilies silk used for the letters is called Rainforest. I'm pleased with the end result and will spend the additional money to have it framed.

Between the counted cross-stitch and knitting a baby blanket for my great-niece who is expecting her first baby, quilting has been put to the side. On September 14th I blogged about a batik crazy nine-patch that I was working on and below is a picture of the tree fabric I had in my stash for ages that will be part of this quilt also. I love this tree fabric and have been waiting to find just the right place in which it could be showcased. I hope to get this top done over the weekend.

It is a good thing to have so many projects from which to choose. It would be even better to blog about things I have finished!

Blogging

This quilt hangs in my living room and I have shown it on my blog before, but I know that a blog post without a picture can easily be ignored. So I added this picture to get your attention. Did it work?

My blogging posts are too infrequent and I know I have lost a lot of readers, but there are some faithful friends and relatives that I know check out my blog. So for those faithful lookers, please keep looking. I promise to be more forthcoming in my blogging after this week. You see, I have been busy thoroughly cleaning my house and this week I have company all week.

After that I am definitely going to get cracking on some serious quilting, stitching, and knitting. There should be plenty of pictures and progress coming up soon.

The Star quilt pictured above was made many years ago with absolutely no plan in mind for fabric colors or placement. The fact that it came out nicely was a complete surprise to me and it continues to be a surprise as the years go by. I seem to like it more and more. That's the way I wish every quilt would end up.

Come back in a week and see what I am doing..........

Wonky Star

Crazy Mom Quilts ask fifty-some readers to contribute a Wonky Star block so that she could make a promised quilt for Quilts of Valor in a short period of time. Here is the block I made today for my contribution.

In addition to making this block, I spent some time cleaning and organizing my quilt studio. It was depressing. There are too many unfinished projects - way too many. I know most quilters have the same problem, but I think mine is out of control and I may need professional help. Is it time to purge?

Mini Quilts Silent Auction

This past Friday and Saturday our quilt guild had it's big quilt show. I volunteered for a few hours on Saturday at the Mini Quilts Silent Auction. There were about 120 quilts each day and this is how the Saturday display looked when I got there.

Fifteen minutes before the end of the auction, people started checking their bids to make sure they would get the quilts they wanted.

One minute before the end of the auction the last minute scramble to make final bids.

The bids were lower this year undoubtedly because of the poor economy, but the silent auction is still one of the best fund raisers for our guild.

Busy sewing day

Batik fabrics are so amazing. This picture shows more of a grayish color, but the fabric is actually a sage green with darker green branches. I have a small collection of sage green and gold batik fat quarters. There are not enough to make a large quilt but I really wanted to use them, so I decided to make a lap quilt using my favorite easy pattern - the crazy nine-patch.

In addition to the batiks, I added some golds and greens from my stash and got started on the blocks. I have a surprise fabric that I hope to use either in the borders or as straight blocks that will add something unexpected to this quilt.

Between sewing and ironing sessions, I started the process of putting borders on this very scrappy quilt. The first border is this black stripe and I'm thinking the next border will be a happy polka dot fabric.

It was nice to have a whole day to play in my Quilt Studio.

Smells from my kitchen.......

No sewing or stitching today, but I was busy in the kitchen for part of the day, baking cookies for a church reception tomorrow. I made my two favorite kinds of cookies - peanut butter (in the aluminum pan) and peanut marshmallow clusters which are more like candy than cookies. My kitchen smells like peanut butter and sugar. Yum.

The day after Labor Day I worked at church substituting for the secretary so that she could take an extra day of vacation. She gave me this wonderful acorn shaped candle as a thank you gift. It smells like apples and cinnamon. Another Yum.

Don't you just love the smells of Autumn? Sure wish it would cool down around here so that I can have a fire in my fireplace, make some popcorn, heat up some cider, burn this acorn candle, and put a jigsaw puzzle together. Sounds heavenly.

A Sewing Day

I spent the day sewing on a project but even though I have this great new camera, I cannot show pictures of the project because it is a gift and the person receiving the gift just might be looking at this blog. However, because my new camera takes such great close-up shots, I am showing this little portion of the project. I'll show the whole thing at a later date.

Would anyone care to guess what this is?