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

It's That Time Again

It's that time again to share

my August small quilt

along with Wendy and the rest of the quilter's

participating in her monthly mini.

Earlier in August I was sitting outside

and noticed how pretty the prairie sage looked in the garden.

The dusty purple and green colors looked so soft

and luscious on that hot August day.

I decided I would use this as my color palette.

(Running Man's bees are crazy in love with the flowers.)

A while ago I was the lucky winner of 

Janet O's blog,  rogue quilter anniversary giveaway.

Besides sending some of her awesome soap,

a mini Dresden plate pincushion, fabric,

the prize included Jo Morton's newest book!

I turned to the first quilt in the book, sorted through fabrics

and started sewing.

I love sewing hourglass blocks, especially

when they are over sized and easy to trim.

Using the easy sewing method Jo

describes in her book,

the blocks came out perfect every time.

Before I knew it the quilt was finished.

Prairie Sage
20" x 22"

The colors and the simplicity of this quilt

harmonized with the Prairie Sage.

It's a lovely way to remember August.

Thanks again, Wendy, for your monthly encouragement.

Until Next Time-

Kyle

One More Memory

It's hard to believe that it's been 

a year and half since I went to 

Den Haan & Wagenmakers

in Amsterdam.

 It was a wonderful shop to visit.

I treated myself to a kit.

and started sewing it earlier this year.

I substituted lots of other Dutch Heritage

fabrics into the pattern.

Well, I got the top finished earlier this spring

and finally had opportunity to get it quilted by

one of my favorite local machine quilters, Debi R.

All the quilting has brought it to life.

So much color and pattern.

So much texture. 

I was initially concerned that stitching over

the big chintz pattern would be distracting and

take away from the beauty of the fabric.

But I was very happy how those large squares looked.

The border was the same wonderful complicated fabric, but

even using a feather design it worked out beautifully.  

You might have noticed that I didn't add a

tradition binding, but rather finished the edge in

the traditional Dutch way.

This method involves sewing strips of fabrics together,

 then sewing them to the front of the quilt 

and bringing it the the back of the quilt

where it's hand stitched in place.

In essence, it's creating a facing to finish the edge.  

 It's a very clean and sharp finish.

There are many tutorials online to get the specifics.

I used the same backing fabric so you can barely see it.

I finally got to use this special label

that I had been saving.

It includes the names of the wonderful quilters

I traveled with and those that I had the privilege to meet

along the way.

I am so happy to have this quilt finished.

The pattern name was called Clafoutis,

 which is a classic French dessert that

combines fresh cherries in a rich dense custard.

So obviously, to celebrate

I made a cherry clafoutis.

Both the dessert and my quilt

turned out perfect. 

Hope you agree.

Until Next Time-

Kyle

Paris, France

I just got back last week from a 

truly incredible trip to France.

Running Man and I were in Paris 

 enjoying the iconic sights.

The Louvre

Notre-Dame

Paris is a huge city with so much to
see, do and taste.

  We were only
able to explore a small portion of what
the City of Light has to offer.

We were on a Tauck Tour called
Savoring France: Paris, Lyon, and Provence
with a 7 night river cruise on the Rhone.

While in Paris we had the extraordinary opportunity
to have a class at Le Cordon Bleu Paris.

We were so excited.

We each had our own cooking station complete
with all the equipment laided out, and an
assistant who would whisk away our
dirty equipment.


What were we making?

Our delicious chocolate macarons

Now I'm a graduate!

Me and Chef Vincent Valton

What did we do with all of our chocolate macarons?

I did say they were delicious!!!

All too quickly we had to leave Paris
and head to Lyon to board our ship,
the MS Emerald.

Many wonderful adventured awaited.
I'll share more on another post.

Wishing you many adventures,

Kyle

Trimming the Tree

Last week I had a wonderful visit

with my daughter and son-in-law

in the Sunshine State 

despite the weather.

We shopped and played and

enjoyed the local bird life.

Flying time was approximately 4 hours

each direction

and amazingly you can get a lot of stitching done.

Working on a red work embroidery project,

"Trimming the Tree",

made it pretty easy dealing with only 

one floss color.

I loaded 12 needles ahead of time,

put on my sea bands,

and was able to finish the embroidery

on the two flights.

The embroidery is the fun part.

 

Making it into a pillow seems to 

take more time, at least for me.

I added some buttons and beads

instead of pom poms and french knots.

I made the pillow smaller than what the pattern said.

Why?

The piece of red plaid wool I wanted to use

for the scalloped top was smaller than 

what the pattern called for.

Improvising!

Making do!

I actually had enough red ric rac,

red buttons, 

and the kit for covering buttons.

If you haven't covered a button in a while,

you're missing out of some fun.

It's not hard and

you get a great coordinated look.

(The simple things can humor me

sometimes.)

Despite the fact the weather

here in Colorado is extremely

hot and very dry

this delightful wintery pattern

from Crabapple Hill Studios

is done and ready whenever the 

seasons change again.

I'm hoping my next flight

will go as smoothly.

My stitching is packed

along with my party dress.

Until Next Time-

Au revior

Kyle