It's been awhile since I've posted--because I've been BI-IZZ-ZY! I don't know what all I've done but all of a sudden we're well into October! Yikes! I hope I had a good time with whatever I was doing! :)
The last weekend of September Don and I went to Nelson Dewey State Park near Cassville WI in the SW or "driftless" area of the state. The weather was perrrfect! This is a pic I snapped from the car window as we rounded a corner on the way there. Beautiful autumn colors. I love the deep wine color of the sumac. Autumn is my absolutely favorite time of the year--such beauty but only for a few weeks unfortunately. In the North where I live, the trees are just beyond peak color and the fierce winds are blowing off the leaves in heaps.
While on this camping trip, we were joined by some friends and Elaine and I spent the day exploring downtown Mineral Point while the guys played golf. I liked the old turn-of-the-century (the last century, not the most recent one. LOL) buildings in this town. A lot of the shops were closed for the season or at least for the day we were there, but we were still able to see lots of local art and crafty things for sale.
The second day of our trip we spent several hours at Stonefield, Gov Dewey's Victorian era "gentleman farmer's) 2000 acre estate. It's now a state historical site and includes some of the original buildings as well as recreated buildings of the era. The state farm machinery museum is there--lots of old steam powered equipment, if you like that kind of thing! Also a typical small farming village of the 1900's which I found very interesting. We'd been there about 15 or 20 years ago and on that trip, I had my first (and only) glass of sarsaparilla in the saloon as well as my first (of many) pickled egg. This time, we were too late in the season for the saloon to be open. Darn! And, I forgot to bring the camera that afternoon--double darn!
Since we got home from camping, we've been outside a lot, getting the gardens in shape for winter so I've not been doing much sewing. But last night I played with my fabrics for awhile and made several 6" friendship star blocks. At the recent guild meeting, we were challenged to make these blocks in autumn colors and bring them next month. You'll get an entry in the drawing for each block you bring and whoever's name is drawn will take home ALL the blocks! I made 6 blocks last night and hope to have many more to enter. I'm already thinking of how I could use a bunch of these blocks--Hmmmm.
At the guild meeting we discussed the upcoming retreat--only 6 more days! And I can't wait! I've been having trouble deciding what to bring with and I decided to begin working on a new quilt for my son. I'd bought this collection of fabrics a couple of years ago and have finally decided on a pattern for them.
When I looked pulled them out, they were OK but then I remembered what our guild guest said the other night about adding from your stash to liven up the collection fabrics. So I did. Look at how much richer they look together with the additional fabrics.
This will be a "controlled" scrappy quilt! I usually think I'm "cheating" if I add to the collections, I suppose because I think the designers have done their job perfectly and who am I to second guess them. But Jill gave me "permission" to go ahead and trust myself in this area, something I should have been doing all along. Why do I not trust that I'm doing things correctly???
So, I'm going to make a modified log cabin pattern out of these fabrics using 2" strips, and I can't wait to get started! I also will add the borders to Lily's Disappearing 4 Patch quilt and have it ready to begin appliqueing the flowers on the border. I'd like to try needle turn applique, but for a child's quilt, I think I'll do it by machine.
That's enough for one post. Got to plant tulip bulbs before the rains come today and before I get ready for a baby shower this afternoon.
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