Pretty nine-patch

Rita came and picked up her quilt. Glad I got a picture of it before she left with it. She made it from the blocks from the block exchange we did at church.

You would think that would inspire me to finish mine. But no. I have other plans. I'm still writing a quilt book.  It just might be the last one. Then again,  I can't seem to stop. Then, if and when I do stop with the books, I could post to this blog more. I'd sure miss the good times with all the quilters I meet when I travel to teach. Cause with books comes the teaching. Gotta love that.

I still want to take some time to go through my closet and plan some projects. Wish me luck there. And luck to you in getting some quilting time in.

Still Collecting

You can see here, I've got three columns left to sew to the Square in a Square quilt. What you don't see is that I goofed up rows one and two and had to stop and rip and rearrange them again. Maybe tonight.

 The purple and green block is a 'just cause I wanted to check the math'. It will join the other orphans.

I did take a few minutes to try a few different border ideas for this quilt. Didn't like any of them.  I'm going with its telling me to leave it without a border. We'll see who wins, me or the quilt.

I realize now I didn't get much quilting done all summer because I was busy collecting wildflower seeds.  I checked a seed catalog and apparently I saved over $700.00 by collecting my own seed for the half acre we want to change from lawn to wildflower/prairie. I collected over 32 different varieties. I will only need to purchase the prairie grass seeds. Some of the seeds will be started indoors in spring for plants closer to the house. I was having a good time and I sure didn't know I was saving that much money. No wonder my sister asked me how much I budgeted for that half acre.

And being Monday, it's time to check the Design Walls posted at Judy's. You can too.

Hidden Stars

I had a few minutes to play with my Square-in-a-Square blocks. I don't want to be getting very creative with these blocks, but I couldn't resist the idea of adding a few plain squares to make the stars more obvious. I really like the classic look of simply alternating the blocks. Now I need to decide if I like it enough to leave this way and maybe play a little more, and if or how I want to border it. I'd appreciate your feedback.

I've got the bottom border to quilt on Rita's quilt and then I need to turn it for the other two borders and also quilt the corner blocks.  This is the largest I put on my 10 foot poles and the only reason I agreed to do it was because of the separate corner blocks. I didn't have to quilt close to the edges at all while it's been on the frame. The corner blocks I will handle separately. Oops, no picture. I'll take it when I'm done with it.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon with my sister in Ryerson Park or is it a Forest Preserve. 500 acres of mostly maple woods with trails winding through it. The color hadn't peaked yet but it was still absolutely delightful. It threatened rain but didn't start till I was on my way home. The difference between that place and the places I hike around here is that here there are hills everywhere. I was only 1 1/2 hours from home, so most all the plants are the same, but I did see a few new-to-me. My favorite was the maple leaved viburnum bush.

Autumn days

I finally had a chance to do some personal sewing. I've made a few more of the Square-in-a-square blocks like I made over a month ago and arranged them differently for the fun of it. Between enjoying the autumn days and  programs for quilt guilds, I haven't done any sewing all month till this morning while it was still cold out. We had a pretty hard frost last night, but have no flowers to cover.

A few weeks ago one of the gals from church called me to join her at a fabric sale she found on craigslist. The fabrics were practically all bright cutesy novelty prints.  My least favorite, but perfect for our comfort quilts.  I got  an overflowing tub FULL. We got lots of it bagged into kits and tomorrow it goes to church with the other kits I made 3 weeks ago. Show and tell will be fun tomorrow.

Our church had their fall festival and again we sold some of our quilts. I didn't keep track of how many we sold though, but the others were pleased with how we did.So I am sure we will discuss that tomorrow. We are planning to stay through lunch and get some more serious sewing done. I can't wait. Every time I do a workshop with a guild I get a strange burning desire to do some sewing too.

I've been outside more than usual this year, checking out the woods and marsh in all seasons. We sure see it differently now that it is ours. We just got back from a ride on the ATV to the back field. With the crops picked we were able to see tracks for all kinds of wildlife, including  beaver and coyote. The deer tracks look mighty big in the mud. We were also surveying the amount of buckthorn we want to tackle. No doubt that will be a never-ending job, but very satisfying. The woods looks so nice when it is cleaned out. Lots of that will be done in winter when the leaves are off the branches. I sure hope the weather continues to cooperate.

I'm thinking of putting a few more kits together for this winter. I think I want to do something in blue and orange.And something in batiks, And I bought a roll of Kaffe's prints while I was in Nebraska this summer and I have a bunch of solids. So I might find somewhere I can use those together.Notice I am thinking along the lines of which fabrics I want to use and not which patterns I want to use. I have plans for a few two-block quilts that I think I will work on and then I ought to check out my closet for PHD's. I can think of only one off hand that I want to get done.

Our guest has moved out to his own place now. I am not sure how much he interfered with my quilting time.
Maybe it was that he and Mark were both around so much. Then again maybe it was cause I was outside so much this summer.  And I am still adjusting to Mark's retirement. I still find it easier to work on quilt plans when I am alone and that doesn't happen that often anymore. So when I get the chance and what  with winter approaching I need to have some projects lined up waiting to work on. I will work on those kits/plans when I get a few minutes to myself. Once they are planned then I can work on them with Mark's interference or evenings when he is watching tv I don't like. Or when the snow is blowing. And any time I get a few minutes. Are you thinking ahead to projects for the winter too?
Right now I am thinking of doing a little blogging then maybe some more sewing. So first it is off to Judy's for Design Wall Mondays.