Muddling Through the Scraps!

Remember "the moving of the fat-quarters" from Wallburg to here?

They spent a couple of months in the garage/shop at Quiltville Inn, before we could dedicate a day to going down to retrieve my metal industrial shelving and home my FQ collection in the basement sewing studio at the cabin.

Along with that, came the emptying of the small Ikea cabinet I had been using for stash holding - THOSE FQs were refolded, and merged with the FQ stash from Wallburg and have been happily living here in all of their color-arranged glory.

The cabinet is waiting for my book stash which will come up in a future trip.

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Behind the Scenes - And a Quilty Box Winner!

Do you feel it?  

As we turn to November, my thoughts also turn to holiday stitching.  And there are a couple of fun things in the works behind the scenes here in Quiltville!

And no, this is not a Mystery Preview!  Do you really think I would be sharing in color close ups of anything mystery related when we haven't even had our first introductory post yet?

Nope!  That introductory post will be happening on Halloween (Saturday!) and then we can really let the fun begin!

In the mean time, this is just to get you just the slightest bit excited about red and green and wondering just what might be happening here.

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Quiet Remembrances

Sunrises are finally viewable from our cabin on the mountainside.

It's not that sunrises haven't been happening all along, it's just that you can't see them when the trees are full of leafy green.

Somethings are just always there - even through we can't see them.

Like friendships. And family members.

And that is where my thoughts are today.

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Quilting Interference!

Mondays are as Mondays are.

The to-do list was long, but I am grateful for the busy-ness of the Quiltville Store during these times.

With all that is going on in the world today, having something positive to focus my energy into makes all the difference to me.

Even mundane chores such as emptying all the waste baskets and getting the weekly trash to the curb for Tuesday's early morning pick-up gets me up and moving around.

UPS, FedEx, USPS all do their drop off/pick up routines and I wave from a good long social distance sharing pleasantries.  These folks are at it day in, day out - the business of keeping busy keeps them moving forward too.

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Hello, Monday!

It happened!

The last few passes on Nearly Lemoyne finished, I was able to unload the quilt from the machine -

There is nothing like the feeling of "unfurling" the quilt as it comes off the rollers - and I see the whole thing, where previously for days I had only been seeing it advance in sections.

It is such a feel good!

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October 2020 Quilty Box Gift-Away!

I think it's high time we had some fun around here!  And the October Quilty Box is a great way to do it!

Our October box is curated by none other than Jackie Kunkel of Canton Village Quiltworks!

If you are a batik lover, this box is for you.

I am in love with the vibrant colors - and that yellow combined with magenta?  BRILLIANT!

This collection is bound to keep you thinking of summer all the way through winter.

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When Quilting Can Wait -

If I get just a couple passes of quilting in the Nearly Lemoyne quilt, could it count as job done for the day?

The weather was just too perfect for late October to stay indoors.  There is rain on the horizon - but yesterday - oh, yesterday!

The day just BEGGED for me to leave the QPO behind and head up to Grayson Highlands for some hiking and pony seeking.

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Quilting in the Fog!

It finally happened.

I FINALLY found the time to finish loading the Nearly Lemoyne quilt, and start the quilting process.

You know, I really did have a ball making these blocks.  

My concentration was on matching up unlikely pairs in each block.  Some of the strips had come from Jelly Rolls, and we all know that narrow strips don't always work well with sideways directional and large prints.  

So I stopped focusing on the print itself, and instead played with the colors, just finding two colors that I liked together, no matter if there were chopped up butterflies in my block or not! 

(The top left block with the teal was matched to a hard to use jelly roll strip of not-whole butterflies.)

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Parkway Views!

This is autumn on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

If I drive south on highway 16, following it past Jefferson on my way to Wilkesboro, I can pull off onto the parkway, and not far down is a great little rest stop/turn out with a picnic table or two, a trail head (I need more time to actually hike that trail to see where it goes!) and gorgeous views - just like this.

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Wednesday on the Run!

I took a good long time out for some of this yesterday.

Dare I say that I needed it as much as Lola did.

She has this uncanny ability of knowing just what I'm talking about.  She listens.  She purrs.  She looks at me with the wisdom of the ages. She reads my thoughts.

She doesn't stick her nose into my business and tell me how to run things, what I should or shouldn't be doing.  She allows me to talk it through and make the best decision for myself and for my business.

And then she lets me live with the consequences.

I wish the world was more like that.

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Autumn Days of No Sewing!

Sometimes sewing opportunities are minimal - and daily life of taking care of things takes over.

I'm sure that's the same for everyone.  Projects get shifted to the back burner as available time is used to do a multitude of different things from cooking to cleaning to shopping and appointments.

That's the funny thing about this pandemic.  I've gotten so used to "social distancing" that when there are several days in a row where errands have popped up, I get cranky.  I just want to be home!

I grabbed this shot of the cabin from the front end of the yard, wanting to capture SOME of the remaining leaves before they are all on the ground.

It really has been the most amazing fall, and I am so grateful to be here to experience it in its fullness.

Can you believe that one year ago I was saying hello from Kenya?

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Monday Morning Round Here!

This morning's autumn view off the cabin porch.

I watched the sunrise through the trees, knowing that in a few weeks the leaves will be gone, distant mountain ridges will be in view, and that sun will be unobscured!  Sunrise season!

Right now they are visibly thinning, and the morning light that filters through the remaining leaves is just beautiful.

Another sunny morning is at hand!

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Frost is on the Pumpkins!

It's like flipping a switch.

We had our first frost on Friday night - this photo was taken over the cabin by drone yesterday morning.

We've passed our peak of color.  There are still beautiful leaves to see, but more and more, the trees are becoming bare.

It's time for spiced cider, for warm bowls of soup and other comfort foods.

Time to don the wool socks, the warmer boots, that extra layer of denim shirt, or sweat shirt or sweater.

It's time for cold noses and red cheeks.

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Sewing All Day!

How many different greens can one use in string piecing?

As MANY AS YOU WANT!

And let's face it - the contents of my string bins are overflowing as anything that is "still wide enough to be useful" but not really Scrap User’s System width-worthy usually ends up in my string bins either by color family.

I need to make more string quilts to keep up with the string production!

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Friendly Friday Ahead!

Weekend Project! Full Steam Ahead!

And yes, this is my set up at Quiltville Inn this weekend.  

I have a group visiting, and I am jumping right in and retreating with them as heaven knows I've been working my butt off behind the scenes with mystery preparations - This girl needs some FUN!

I posted a tiny sneak preview of what I am working on in Monday's Post.  Did you catch it?

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The Best Kind of Wednesday -

Don't you just love it when things fall into place and you find you have TIME to put something together?

My Nearly Lemoyne quilt was at the forefront of my day yesterday.

Morning chores done - the day was warm and sun-filled.  The windows were open at the QPO with barely the gentlest of breezes stirring the air.

I lit an autumn scented candle.  I made a cup of coffee, drinking it from a new mug received as a gift from a visiting friend a couple of weeks ago.  I think of her every time I use it!

I put my Pandora on shuffle - and oh, what an eclectic mix of music became my backdrop as I laid out all of the border units where they needed to go.  I stitched pieced borders.  I added the inset border to the inside edge of the pieced borders, and finally, it all came together.  

Just like that.

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Right On Time, One Week Early!

Let me premise this post by saying that EVERYTHING can be made better by ice cream.  Well mostly.  And no matter what happened yesterday, it all turned out good.  The ice cream was the bonus!

The Tuesday after a 3 day holiday weekend that didn't feel like a 3 day holiday weekend except for the fact that the USPS was closed on Monday - those kinds of Tuesdays always throw me a little bit backward.  And then shove my week off running on Tuesday trying to make up for the stuff that didn't get done on the Monday.  Make sense?

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Breathing Calm into Anxiety.

 I stopped dead center on the bridge crossing the New River yesterday morning, rolled my window down and took this photo - there was no one behind me.

It's hard to see from the photo - and as they say "Pictures don't do it justice!" But the clouds and mist and fog hanging on to the tops of the trees was just ethereal.

And the colors - OH, the colors!

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Sunday, With Stitches!

"Do we need to go anywhere?" I asked as the rain pounded outside - forcing more leaves to the ground along with the persistent downpour.

"Nope.  We don't need to go anywhere, to do anything, Let's just be home." was the answer.

Oh goodness.  What is a person to do with a free Sunday?

I set an audio book to playing through my sound bar, and began to press and cut.

My Nearly Lemoyne blocks required strips of certain length to be able to cut out enough pieces for each block.

But guess what?  My border units need only half that length, so I was able to dig back into my mess of a 2 1/2'' strip drawer to see what short strips I could clear out.

I found one more strip of the Boo Crew monster neutral! Oh, happy day!

I'm looking at a few more days before I have enough of these units done and can add them to the quilt center, but I'm getting there.

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Baking While it Rains -

It's raining.  It's pouring.  It continued through the night pounding on the metal roof above the cabin -

Which has to be just about my favorite sound in the world.

Also a favorite - Iced pumpkin drop cookies - a perfect way to warm the cabin with the yummy fragrant aromas of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.

I will always go for a spice cookie before I grab anything chocolate and these moist little morsels do not disappoint .

I posted this recipe originally last May - during that first episode of Google Photos messing with the embedded URLs that posted my photos to the blog.

After the second episode last month - I am now resorting to needing to be online using only the blogger software, also a Google product - but I swear my photos will NEVER go missing again.

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Life Between the Seams!

This happened yesterday late afternoon. Just a couple of hours of sewing time in between all of the run around errands after lunch, and before heading out again in the evening.

Sometimes productivity just happens in small bursts like that.  But if we add all the small bits of time together, it really adds up!

One final press on this Nearly Lemoyne center and into the waiting game it goes while I decide on what to do for borders.

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Falling Leaves & Sewing Time!

Things are looking very autumnal in the Virginia Highlands!

This was my view coming up Grassy Creek yesterday late afternoon.  Wisps of clouds, pale blue sky and sunshine.  Leaves gaining the courage to turn from green to gold, orange, rusty reds and browns.

It was that strip of grey asphalt that encouraged me to use grey along with cream as backgrounds for my Appalachian Autumn quilt.  

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Wednesday in the Scraps!

For all of those times I wished I could just let the world pass me by while I cut and sewed the day away -

Wednesday, you were the bomb!

So much so, that I didn't really stop to take photos.

Well, except for Lola.  Because there is ALWAYS Lola!

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Must Pet Quilts!

It had been months and months – my favorite antiquing spot in all of Ashe County, NC.

The last time I had been in was early March, just before lock down started, and though I didn’t “NEED” anything, I had a bit of time to fritter as I was running early for my chiropractic appointment not far up the road, down and around.

I spied the “antiqued in green” circa 1960s paint job right on the vintage Hoosier cabinet right away.  I remember being a little girl in that time frame – and my mom was busy “antiquing” everything she could set her brush to.

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Meanwhile, in a World Away -

Jason has been exploring South Dakota over the past few days and has sent us the most amazing photos – including a live video chat while watching the sunrise over the Badlands yesterday.

He is seeing so many amazing aspects to this beautiful country, and I know that even though this is a tough time for him in so many ways – it is also a time of self-discovery and reconnecting with family on a deeper level.  Simply because there IS TIME.

He sent this photo of a buffalo just grazing out next to his vehicle as he drove on by.  How amazing is this?

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Autumn From a Different Angle!

We have really loved getting a birds eye view through the lens of our drone camera!

It is amazing what these things can do.

It also makes me nervous having an expensive piece of photography equipment go so high up above us that I can’t hear it or see it.

This photo was taken over Quiltville Inn yesterday afternoon -

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Leaf Peeper Season Kick Off!

Autumn color in the Blue Ridge mountains dazzles the eyes, captures the senses, and submerges one in beauty impossible to capture with words.

Even the camera can’t do it justice – and I count myself so blessed to live right in the midst of it.

With the onset of cooler temperatures we chose the warmest part of the day, around 2pm, to head up to Grayson Highlands for a little hike along the Rhododendron and Appalachian trials.

The sky was the kind of blue I wish I could capture in fabric.  It was magical.

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All on a Friday!

Do you remember this long time languishing project?

The FIRST of two hexie quilt tops I made – one for each son?

The English Paper Piecing was an easy travel project – and traveled with me in my busy bag any time I went anywhere at any time.

My plan was to have two completely hand sewn quilts to leave the boys as their legacy.

When we were still mostly residing in North Carolina, this quilt was always at hand-quilting ready for evening stitching there, and then when we would come up to the cabin “just for the weekend” there would be another hand stitching project in a hoop waiting for me here.

Now we are not much ever THERE, but mostly full time HERE.  Which is about as accurate as I can get at this point.

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Squirreling Around!

What do you call those days where you flit from one thing to another with no real place to land?

Some days I really wish I could clone myself and set that clone at doing all of the must-do-and-mundane tasks while the real me got to just focus on the creating thing.

And I sometimes wish there was a warp-speed button so that the often slow process part of creativity good get a kick in the keester and see some ideas come to fruition just that much faster.

“It’s not a race!” the small voice keeps telling me.

“Yes, but when you are on the downhill side of life the time it takes to do something matters!”

And so the argument goes.

I did finish the binding on the Yellow Brick Road table topper, and it is now brightening our dining table at the cabin.

The beautiful fall colors mixed with that bit of purple just speak to me.

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Hello, October!

And Suddenly (or ever so slowly) the calendar turns from September to October.

October’s arrival always has me a bit wistful, accepting the fact that we are indeed saying good bye to the long days of summer, and ready for warm socks, hoodie sweatshirts, favorite fur-lined slippers, hot beverages, and darkness arriving much earlier in the day than we’d like it to.

Though that dark-before-dinner change of things also leaves much more time for hand stitching away while tucked into my cozy chair.

Last night I was sharing this chair with Zoey, who has this adoring behavior of plopping her head right on top of whatever I’m stitching, usually pinning my leg to the ottoman at the same time.

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