road trip

yesterday a quilty peep invited me on a road trip to visit a couple of shops on her want-to list...one i had been to before and the other was new to me.  we skipped up to PA just across the state line and drove past endless cornfields and open meadows to find this...

a barn quilt on steroids!   covered nearly the entire side of the building!  a cute shop called sewnplace in fayetteville, PA....nice little shop, good selection of fabrics and notions, very friendly staff.  and did i mention?  a serious selection of kaffe fabrics too....the other shop, also down country roads and thru sections of gettysburg battlefield, called needle and thread.  a larger shop, more sale fabrics, lots of dressmaking fabrics as well, plus plenty of civil war era fabrics/notions/patterns, even hoops for your costume!  some free fresh produce greeted us at the entrance!  we lunched downtown at "gettysburgers"....because after a week of chicken a change was needed.  back to the city in time for the bookmobile and 2 kaffe fassett books for me!  ***  afternoon sewing consisted of rainbow scrap challenge blocks for september...purple!  skipped august as was just too busy.  where has the year gone???

again had to pull a few purples from stash for enough strips to make these.  ***  mr. mailman brought another squishie, again "scraps" offered by an online quilty friend.  a collection of downton abbey fabrics that my daughter, DA's most ardent devotee, will swoon over.  mom will probably get recruited to make something....maybe highclere in HSTs?   i thought i ordered a daughter who quilted but my request got ignored...LOL!

after a few hot days, the week ahead promises to be more comfy.  not that the 90-degree days are gone but hopefully only sporadic from here.  one just gets to the point where enough is enough.  time for soups and chowders and long pants again. i absolutely love autumn!

welcome to meet and greet!

first,  i want to thank Benita for including me in this event for the second time!  if you haven't visited before, then welcome!  feel free to peruse any of the posts or photos of interest to you.  one caveat:  while most of what i write is quilt related, sometimes things that irk and anger me creep in....just saying!  i am indeed humbled to be included in a very talented group of super quilters.  some of the names are very familiar to me and some i've even met in person!  be sure and include your contact information if you post as i hear there are prizes!!!

before i tell you about me, i'll just say a few things that i am NOT.....not a blue ribbon quilter, not a machine quilter, not a designer, not a teacher, not a professional quiltist/sewist anything!  i'm a recent western maryland transplant from new england.  i've been sewing 62 years and quilting for 40 years.....yes, before rotary cutters.  amish quilts were the sirens that enticed me into quilting.....

and scrap quilts are probably those i make most often....

mostly i've been a traditional type quilter, but in recent years have dabbled in modern type quilts and always with bright colors......

often utilizing high contrast.  i have a medium-sized stash and sew nearly every day, am primarily a hand quilter but recently dabbled in using a walking foot for a few small items.  i've been tremendously blessed by this community of quilters in friendship, sharing of ideas, recipient of scraps, books, notions etc.  i pay it forward in many ways--donation quilts, leading workshops at the local senior center, helping others along when needed.  let me show you something i'm working on right now....

a friend purchased this bird print fabric for me in lancaster earlier this year....isn't it adorable? 

if you can't see, the tiny dots are aqua, one of my favorite colors.  right away i pulled a few go-with fabrics from my stash....and they've been sitting on my sewing table until now....

i might use more but will start with these.....i found a birdhouse pattern that i drafted as a 12-inch block.....

the plan at the moment is to sew up some paper-pieced birds, maybe a couple of trees and maybe a paper-pieced sun to create a wall quilt around the bird fabric.  since i'm not really a designer, going along by the seat of my pants a bit here....but that's the general idea.   i have no intention of copyrighting this idea; no doubt many others can do it better, and i wouldn't be at all surprised to pick up a magazine and see it done way before mine.  but for me it's about the fabric and color and what is pleasing to me for my personal use and enjoyment.

 be sure and enter HERE......

a holiday?

for those of us in a certain age bracket, monday holidays are definitely un-holidays....indistinguishable from many other days.  for quilters, tho, it's another sewing day and i've got my projects for today all lined up.  i'll be tying 2 donation quilts and then basting some small pieces if there's time leftover.  already this weekend have 1) finished a small project for guild meeting that can't show yet.....2) got this little wall quilt assembled...

the background fabric is a gorgeous asian print gifted to me--less than a yard altogether. pulled out some cherrywood scrapbag solids for the leaves.  it's a favorite pattern of mine for my favorite season of the year.  only a very small scrap of the asian print left...used as much of it as i could as it's that pretty!  ***  and 3) found this little unfinished piece and couldn't bear to ignore it any longer.  will be on the lookout for a decorative hanger for display.  shudder to think how long it was tucked away but thankfully no longer! 

i have only 2-3 more cross stitch pieces waiting to be finished.  though i drool over fancy samplers on blogs and am tempted to make one, so far the size of my UFO list has held me back, a good thing indeed.  *** hope you enjoy today whether it's a break from work or not!