Finally a Finish!

Oh finally a finished-finished quilt. Binding and all. It is the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt called "Orange Crush."  I made mine in Mardi Gras colors.  It is a HUGE quilt  and I had to use a fence as a quilt holder.

I adore this quilt and cannot wait to get it all washed and dried and snuggly.

The backing fabric is a Minick & Simpson fabric by Moda. If you click on the photo, you can see the wonderful long-arm quilting by Awesome Beth.

Gomez has already tested and approved this quilt for napping purposes. 

Fall Reading and More Treat Bags

Tiny Treat Bags from Quilts and More fall issue

I made four more little treat bags.  These are just too fun and cute.  A few will be staying here and the rest will be mailed to Michigan for my Halloween-loving family.  This is going to be a short post because I am declaring today "binding Saturday" and am sewing miles of binding on my Mardi Gras quilt and maybe two more. 

If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you know that I read mostly nonfiction books.  Lately, I have been reading a number of World War II books.  Here are two that are really interesting and well worth checking out.  The Women Who Wrote the War by Nancy Caldwell Sorel is an excellent book that explores the lives of women reporters and photographers in both the European and Pacific Theaters.  An amazing book about amazing women and the first time women were allowed to report from combat areas.  

 

The second book is American Nightingale:  The Story of Frances, Slanger, Forgotten Heroine of Normandy by Bob Welch. This is another wonderful book about an amazing woman. Ms. Slanger and her family survived World War I in Lodz, Poland and immigrated to the US in 1920 when Frances was seven.  The book details the struggles the family faced living in the 1920s and 1930s in Boston and how Frances defied her family, went to nursing school, and worked at Boston's City Hospital. Against the wishes of her family, she enrolls in the US Army Nurse Corps and is among the first US nurses to land in Normandy on June 10, 1944.  I triple highly recommend this book. In fact, if I was Steven Spielberg, I'd option this book right away.  It's high time movie studios made some decent movies for women that are not the same ol', tired, retread-story chick flicks.  Hear that Steve?!  Good. Off to bind.   

Autumnal Equinox, Harvest Moon, and Wrathy Grapes

Happy Autumn everyone!  My favorite season and my favorite time of the year.  Although the weather is STILL not cooperating (still 90F during the day) and I am wearing sandals at the end of September. Even without looking at the calendar, I could tell it was a full moon tonight because of the wacky phone calls today. The full moon closest to the autumnal equinox is called the harvest moon.  Nothing to harvest here because we haven't had any rain in weeks!  I'm beginning to feel like a John Steinbeck character in The Grapes of Wrath; the garden and yard are hard-packed dirt with dead weeds. 

Martha does Halloween the best.

Since October is almost here,  it's time to get out the Halloween coffee cups (my usual beverage vessel--the coffee cup--good for everything including wine, white or red, doesn't matter) and stock up on this year's Halloween themed magazines. 

Make lots of projects with Halloween fabric. This fabric reminds me of myself--running around with cats everywhere.

My sewing friends and I (we really need to figure out a name for our little group) are doing another fabric swap.  This is swap #3.  Have I finished the other 2 projects yet?  That would be a big no....

Here are my bundles all ready for swapping (with Halloween ribbon, natch!).  The little black kitty feet belong to Mr. Gomez.  He's Mr. Halloween 24/7.

September Thimbles

Yesterday was Silver Thimble Quilt Club. It was packed full and several people were absent at a quilt retreat (Karin, Becky, Cindi, and Brenda). To paraphrase one of my favorite movie quotes "Pat, we're gonna need a bigger boat!" I did manage to snap some photos of show n tell this time. There was not much room for quilt showing this time. I think we need a stage area too.

Here is Jane with her "Minnesota Hot Dish" quilt. I love the colors. Some lucky person is getting this quilt as a present. Wish it was me!

This quilt was made by Awesome Beth (she is behind the quilt and that is Trisha on the right). Beth is a longarm quilter and does amazing quilting. She did an amazing job on my Mardi Gras quilt, I just need a couple of quilt holders so I can photograph it outside.

Here is Trisha's quilt (Beth is on the left) and a detail...
This quilt had gorgeous fabric and is perfectly pieced.

I spent time chatting with Kristie and working on a new Halloween project. Here's a little look-see.

Today is more sewing. I made another Groovy Girls Club project using both selvages and a zipper for the first time (this little cutie is a pattern called "Cash n' Carry".
As you can see I am really getting into the Halloween spirit. October, my favorite month, is nearly here! I just love the spiders instead of the usual dots on the selvage in the center.
And the other side
As with all Atkinson Designs, the instructions were fabulous and my first attempt at a zipper went OK. I vowed I wasn't going to start saving selvages because I don't need one more thing to hang on to. Although I do have some neat jars that are currently empty. Maybe I'll just save Halloween fabric selvages...

well, maybe French General too....

Becky's Giveaway

My good friend Becky is having a giveaway over at quiltingbooklady.blogspot.com. Here's the post if you want to enter.

Who's Cooler than Don Draper?

Morpheus. The sleekest cat in black.

Anyone else addicted to Mad Men?

Retro Blog Rewind: Inaugural Edition

Does anyone else come up with great blog posts in their mind then proceed to not blog about the events, then realize that too much time has past for the blog post to be timely, and then well, there it goes, missed blog opportunity? I hope so because I do this all the time.

So today's post is a Retro Blog Rewind Post! If I was clever and tech savvy, I would design a cute button for other bloggers to put on their blogs and start a whole trend.

Because I am not tech-savvy, I'll wait for someone else to co-opt my idea.

This inaugural Retro Blog Rewind Post is made under duress.

Seriously, if I don't post these photos, Sarah no-blog is going to come and get me. She is a physical therapist and they have ways of making you do painful things that you don't want to.

Not that blogging is painful; I'm just under pressure. So without further ado, here are photos taken by Sarah no-blog to go along with the previous post about the Party on the Porch at Sweet Home.

Here is Bad Melisa casting a spell on quilters in the surrounding five counties
("you shall come to Sweet Home and buy fabric, books, notions and patterns")
(see look what happened to Carol!!!)
And Cindi and Karin

Sarah no-blog is toting how many bolts???!!?? Don't you love her big bag? She is super sweet, a gifted quilter, and really needs to write her own blog.....

As reported previously, we started a new tradition this year with a post-Party on the Porch side trip to Bruster's Ice Cream
Say "Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Hot Fudge Sundae!!!!!"

The nice ice cream "dealers" at Bruster's took our photo
The End.

I really hope Sarah no-blog liked this post. And now back to our regularly scheduled blog....