Fall and Frosts

The soybeans got combined last week and the corn will be in another week or two. The grass got cut for possibly the final time of the season. The leaves on the trees look stunning. We have had a couple of light frosts and the other morning a hard frost which simply means, I had to have the house plants back in the house. 

Got most of them. I discovered that the Geraniums up against the house can handle some frost. But not the Banana or Bird of Paridise. I brought the Majestic Palm in last week. It has grown taller over the summer. I bought it on a whim back in June. Isn't that what we do when we go for groceries? Buy plants? I no longer buy fabric for quilting. So I tell myself. Don't hold me to it. But seriously. I do not need any fabric, thread, needles, cutters or chocolate. 

And didn't Ava bring home chocolate for me the other night from work. Yes our Ava is a part time working girl. Her dream job is to work in a bakery but they hired her on front cash. Close enough for now. She brings random goodies home when she closes. Rescuing them she says. She got her drivers licence last week. Now she needs a car. She says she can wait. 

I wrote up a preliminary list of 10 things to work on for the 2026 Chookshed Challenge. What I really want to do is start 10 new quilts. I have at least that many kits I bought or collected everything needed. Now here is an interesting thought. Several years ago there was a 6 and 6 challenge. Complete 6 and start 6. I will give it more thought. The most quilts I finished in a year was back in 2017 was five. I took them to Poland to give to my cousins. I had a purpose and a deadline. I guess deadlines can be good. Even though I do not like the pressure. 

I was reading back through some of  my old posts because I was bored and avoiding writing. Yes. Still doing that. I have been reading up on story writing. That and reading novels. I love Agatha Christie. 

These pictures were taken as the sun was setting.

In the meantime, I am packing my bag to go on the Hallmark Christmas Cruise next week. Now, I do not watch those movies nor much of any TV except bits of football or now the World Series since our Toronto Blue Jays are contenders. And there is a big noisy bluejay flitting around my SonRoom. I see him everytime I sit in the hot tub.  I plan to take some writing and might glue baste all the bits I cut for Lucy. Now that I have given myself permission to do this by machine zig zag I stand a chance of completing it.

After weeks of discomfort and waiting for appointments, I finally had an ultasound on my left breast, after a very painful mamogram no one booked for me but I just happend to be in the room with the thing. I have an abscess and now another drain. This is supposed to be removed before I leave on Wed. And no more hot tubbing for a few weeks so we might as well drain that too and get it cleaned up before winter. 

And yes, winter always comes. We have days and days of rain in the forecast which is okay since I am not supposed to be in the sun nor eat dairy since I am on antibiotics yet again. My OMG goal for Nov will be to get those Lucy hexies glue basted. 

Blessings, 

Chris

Gail from Missouri Came to Visit

She drove for 3 days to get here to our space in Canada. They asked her interesting questions at the border. Where are you going? How long have you known her? How did you meet? You met on Zoom? They let her and her companion bear Lucy in. We had a great time. Gail, Janice and my sister Elizabeth and I shared a room at the Shipshewana Quilt Retreat for a week 2 years ago. They came out to the farm to join us for a day of quilting and visiting. 

I put all the Stonefields blocks and bits on the big design wall to see what it will look like. I am considering putting a center medallion. I started that at a Di Ford Hall workshop in Shipshewana in 2017 using fabrics from the Stonefields project bin. I had been considering this quilt for more than 10 years. Not sure if that parrot will make it into the center. But who knows. 

I still have to decide if there will be 3 rows of hexie flowers around the outside or 2. I put up all I had made - 60. They are pinned on because the papers are still in and they do not stick to the fuzzy board.

I pulled out the circle making things. Gail suggested using the Faultless heavy starch. It does work better than what I had been using. The white background fabric I am using for some of the squares is much heavier than most of the other fabric and would not behave in the Applipop metal rings. Especially the tiny circles. So, I tried putting the Perfect Circles into the larger metal circle and voila! it works very nicely. 

In the meantime my Lucy came out to play.
Progress on Lucy after ignoring her for more than a year. I made the decision to machine zig-zag the blocks together then machine stitch the hexies and squares. Some of these blocks are sewn together in rows and the rows are random on the wall. Now to fussy cut more pieces. My thoughts had been to make 25 blocks. Almost there. I may make it up to 30 or 35. I cut a lot more white hexies. I ran out of the 1 inch square papers but will remove those already sewn together to reuse. They come out easily enough with a finger nail.

I want to make a few more exciting crosses with stripes and frames. I recalled joining the Lucy Boston facebook group several years ago. Got lots of inspiration. So I pulled out a few fancy fabrics and the see-through templates I made from Luann at Loose Threads. 

Blessings,

Chris

linking with smallquiltsanddollquilts.design-wall-monday