The S word

As I was setting up my coffee pot for a couple of cups of brew this morning, a bit of motion through the kitchen window caught my eye. It's very windy here today so at first I thought I was seeing the last leaves from the apple trees blowing around out there. But wait!  The bits were too small to be leaves. Could it be?  Was it true?  Yes, indeed. I was seeing snow flakes!  Kind of like this picture that I found on the internets of a first snowfall .   First snow of the season for me.  It's pretty yet ominous!

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I doubt that any of the snow will stay on the ground, especially since the sun has come out now and the temps are rising a little. Still, it looks to be a nice day to stay indoors and bake.

That's right. I have baking to do. A batch of cookies--haven't decided on the kind yet--and I think I'll try making these Clementine-Fig Spice Cakes that I found in Better Homes and Gardens magazine as I sat at the car dealer yesterday.  I think my daughter and daughter-in-law will enjoy these when we celebrate Thanksgiving together. The guys can have some too but they usually want Doritos and beer instead while they sit glued to the football games on TV.  Oh well, their loss!



I also have sewing to do. I have yet to make the monthly blocks for the quilt-along the guild is doing of Barbara Brackman's Civil War Jubilee quilt.  This month I need to make 8 blocks in reds plus a couple of extras to be used in a guild charity quilt.  I love making these blocks--so easy and fast. The hardest part is deciding on which fabrics to use! I posted about the block pattern here if you want to see what it looks like.

I also have finished the embroidery of the second Santa table runner also shown in this blog post and need to begin finishing it off. It's been sold to a customer and as soon as it's delivered, I need to begin the third one for another customer. I couldn't guarantee that it would be ready before Christmas but I'll do my best.

The other quilty thing that's on my mind is the Farmer's Wife quilt that we're doing in the guild.  I got this pic off Pinterest.  I haven't decided what kind of fabrics I'll use in making my blocks--the 30s seem appropriate for the block patterns but now that I see this quilt, I'll have to rethink this decision. Since I've not made any of the blocks yet--2 months behind!--I just have to make a decision and get going on it.

So, it looks like it'll be a busy day today and I'd better get going on it.  What tasks do you have set out to accomplish today?  Whatever they are, I hope you enjoy them.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

I've been traveling for the past 10 days or so. Don and I drove to Maine to spend some time with our daughter who has just moved into her first home and she wanted some help with getting things situated in the house. She and her boyfriend had also broken up and she was feeling a bit blue over that. So we thought we would take a late fall drive out to the East coast to help her out.  It was a great visit for the most part. Don and Tessa put up shelves and so forth while I sewed simple curtains for the dining room and Lily's bedroom.

It was a great visit with our daughter and granddaughter except for a couple of things.  On Wednesday evening, the day before we were leaving to return home, I accidently blew out the electrical system for the kitchen stove!  That meant going to a number of shops in Portland that night to find a replacement that could be installed before Tessa's housewarming party on Saturday. Fortunately, we found a great stove (it has a convection feature in the oven!) in our price range which was delivered and installed on Friday afternoon.  I hadn't planned on giving her such a housewarming gift but that's the way it worked out!

This is the sweater I'm knitting for Lily but in a black and gray with silver sparkle yarn.  I was working on it in the car and at the house.  The second thing that went wrong that Wednesday night was, I sat on my bamboo knitting needles before we went stove shopping, and of course, broke one.  Which had a bunch of stitches on it.  So we had to find a Michaels after buying the stove and get another set of knitting needles. Not such a bad thing.  I was able to transfer all the stitches and get on with the knitting.

Bad things happen in threes, right?  The third thing was the worst and it happened on Friday as we were sailing down the highway at the Pennsylvania/Ohio border.  Deer hit.  Here's the car. Nuff said.

We had no injuries--thank goodness for seat belts and air bags!--other than my hearing hasn't returned to normal yet and I'll be seeing a doc about this. The car likely was totalled--we'll get the news later this week from the insurance company.  We left the car in Ohio as the insurance set us up with a rental so we could get home. Which we did without further incident.  I can't tell you how happy we were to be in our own home yesterday and to sleep in our own bed.  It was very disconcerting to have this accident so far from home where you don't know anyone or have any knowledge of the area and the people you have to deal with. You simply have to trust people and these days, that's not always easy to do.  All I can say is, from the PA state trooper to the tow truck driver (Mac)  to the folks at Conneaut Collision Center to the Enterprise rental agent (Doug) in Ashtabula Ohio, we were treated so, so well. They all knew the trauma and stress that we were going through and did everything to smooth the way for us. 

So, we're home now and it looks like it'll be a gorgeous late Autumn day here.  If it gets warm enough, I'll spray paint the two little tables I'd like to get done before winter sets in, go to the garden to harvest the brussels sprouts, do a little sewing on a quilting project and maybe catch a little football on TV if there's time.  Quilting comes before football, for me anyway!  :)

That's my adventures for the past few days. I hope your adventures were less dramatic!