Autumn's Song

Autumn leaves

combine all the colors that are my favorites.

Back in May I began working on

a small embroidery pattern by Crabapple Hill Studio.

I had gotten out crayons and

started coloring.
It even traveled with me over the summer.

When the embroidery was finished it
seemed way to big for a pillow.
So it became the center medallion for my
September small quilt.

"Autumn Song"

I added some simple borders
in those wonderful fall colors.

Why not include some beads
rather than make all those french knots
for blackberries.

Keep it simple with some quilting in the ditch

and a leaf motif for the outer border.

Autumn Song is complete and
ready to accompany the changing season.

Another month finished.
Check in with Wendy to see
some other September finishes.

****
This weekend will be an interesting one for me.
I'm traveling back to my home town in Michigan and
attending my 50th high school reunion.

Good grief!!!
How did that happen.!!

Should be interesting to say the least.
How many people will I recognize from the class of
about 200 kids?
Or even, how many people will recognize me?
I'm sure we have all changed a lot.

We were the class of 1968
and we are forced admit we are all 68.
A special combination that only happens
once every 100 years.

Two of my long time girlfriends,
(nursery school and kindergarten friends)
will be accompanying me, so we have each other
for moral support.

 I saw this recently.

It made me laugh or wonder.
I'll let you know if Barbie shows up!

Until Next Time-

Kyle

Embroidered Hearts

It was time to gaze into my crystal ball

to see if I was ever going to finish my

Sue Spargo Embroidered Heart to Heart bag.

The crystal ball revealed that

the embroidery had been done for awhile.

The individual wool hearts

were complicated and a delight to work on.

Lots of time, 

a wide variety of thread sizes and colors

and lots of different stitches.

What small woolly wonders.

But that was all in the past.

So what did the future show.

It showed the part 

that always seems to trip me up,

making it into a bag with a zipper.

I needed to adapt the pattern 

because the wool I used for the bag

was a bit heavy.

It would be too thick to stitch

the zipper the traditional way.

Because the wool felted so nicely,

I stitched the raw edge right up next to the zip.

Adapted the lining too and 

Wow!  The future was actually looking good.

The bag was finished.

It stitched up fairly easily.
It stitched almost perfectly.

Could my future hold more bags?
Not anytime too soon.

Until Next Time-

Kyle

Thanks!!

It's been quite a week. 

 I've just had to keep 

pushing forward.

A little bit of stitching,
a little bit of cooking + harvesting
and a lot of Nana duty.

Hanging out with my 16 month old grandson, Weston.

Chasing bubbles and
playing with wrenches to
help Papa put together the

new honey extractor.

Thanks Weston for keeping me
on my toes and hopefully young at heart.💙

****
That extractor, of course, lead to actually harvesting
some honey from our very productive hive.

Pardon the cliche,

but they have been very busy bees!

3.5 gallons of honey from 8 frames

with plenty left in the hive for the bees

to survive through the winter.

Thank you bees! 🐝

****

We have one small peach tree

that literally went crazy this year.

bending it's branches 

nearly to the ground. 

We picked well over 500 peaches

Lots have been frozen, shared and eaten!

That's been along with a couple of bushels

of apples;

Thank you fruit trees

for being so generous this year.

****

The tomatoes?

Well, enough for 

a couple of tomato pies

and being able to enjoying the simple BLT's.

Thanks tomatoes for giving 

a good effort.

****

The stitching has been minimal.

I've been working on the next border 

on my Di Ford Sutton Grange quilt.

 4 petals are being machine appliqued to a square.

I opted to sew the background squares together first,

 add the borders to the quilt,

and then applique the petals to squares.

The reason was because that I KNEW I won't be able 

to place and stitch those 4 petals properly.

I knew some would probably get sewn into the seam allowances.

There's no way I could have gotten all those

points to have come together as well as they did 

if I was concerned about the seam allowances.

Yes, it's a bit awkward handling this 

much fabric while machine appliqueing,

but for me, the results are well worth it.

Not all of them came out perfectly anyway,

but most did!

The good news is the pattern actually

has an appliqued circle over the centers.

Any issues will vanish!

Thanks, Di.  

****

Thanks to all of you

💗🧡❤️💙 

for taking the time

to read my blog and 

to leave a comment or two.

I appreciate it very much.

Until Next Time

Kyle

Christmas or Not?

January seems like such a long time ago.

"The list"
with the quilts that I wanted to make or finish

during the year

was filled with challenges

and high expectations.

One of the projects I was 

going to tackle was this lovely vintage

applique pattern .

I have looked online

for the pattern again, but haven't been able to find it.  Sorry.

My plan was to applique

two blocks each month.

 I decided to try the Aurifil 80 weight thread.

I loved it!

It was lovely to work with.

Very thin, but strong.

Slowly over the months

the pile grew and grew.

By August, the 12 blocks were complete.

Then came the scary part,

trimming the blocks to 18.5".

If you applique, you know 

the importance of cutting your base

bigger than the finished size.

That base can shrink and 

get distorted during the applique process.

Next the three borders were added 

after measuring carefully. (see last weeks blog)

Christmas or Not

 72" x 90"

The blocks are sewn side by side

creating nice open spaces

for some fun and interesting quilting designs.

This one seems to be calling to

be hand quilted.

So I have sent it off to my machine quilter

to baste it for me.

I think I'm done crawling around

on the floor with large quilts.

I'm still considering

what kind of designs to use.

 Red and green makes you immediately think

of Christmas, but not necessarily.

We'll have to see what happens.

Any thoughts?
Christmas or not?

Until Next Time-

Kyle