Over the river...

I have not posted my progress on this in some time. My Crabapple Hill project is into its 3rd year of work and sits next to the couch.

This is the second of three panels. The last one being only the word panel. 

Almost done! And appropriately, during the holidays. Over the River and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go!
I have the entire center and right side completed. 

Close up!

And I was so blessed to have family together for a Thanksgiving meal: only my daughter in law was working at the hospital.

And thanks to my daughter for a great camera and apple pie. 

Happy  holidays!

Retirement!

My husband came home in the middle of the day!  ( I was home as a comp day for  conferences.) What?  " I retired." He had been counting down the days now that all his medical appointments were done. And social security health care is in place. 

I am so happy for him. 

Now a couple more years for me.

But I am working on the little projects here and there.

First some appliqued tea towels.  DONE! 

Next a crane for my Stash Bee. This will be my last block.  I am stepping back for now.

I have had a great time making blocks for 2 years.

Time to finally sew!

For the first time all fall, I finally had energy and time to sew on a week night. I was so happy to get all my pumpkins made and put together into a row. I started making bias strips for vines, but was disgruntled with the size. I ended up purchasing a new quarter inch strip maker. Heaven knows where my other one is. 

I also celebrated a birthday.  My great partner went to a local deli and brought home take out. Awesome turkey, cranberry and cheese panini and 2 desserts. We sat and ate in front of the TV. 

He did buy me earrings. But darn if he can find where he hid them.

Friday morning, look what I was surprised to see.  I knew we were getting snow, but didn't think it was going to stick around.  Absolutely beautiful!  

And still crazy cold!

Part of my being out of commission has been a cold that came for a week, left and then came back.

And the other reason was the weekend in Indiana for a beautiful wedding of my nephew who is  only 6 weeks older than my son. 

And here is my sister and her hubby,  the parents of the groom. 

And here are the 2 grandboys ready for the wedding. Cutest guys ever. 

Halloween start

Creative juices flowing.   I am in charge of our guild's Row by Row this year.  My goal was to include more people and levels of sewers. I think I doubled the number of entrants. And I have been preparing samples for them.

My row by row is  Halloween themed .  Of course, I already had the inspiration sample done from last year. And I had a box of fabrics ready to create with. 

So I wanted an easy row for the beginners.  I found a wonderful video by Nancy Ziemen on Trusty Triangles. She had beautiful aquas, greens and blues and made 6 inch triangles to make this row. 

I made it using my Halloween fabrics.

Then I started with the oranges to make some pumpkins. ( The witch row is in the background.)

Progress. 

This will not be completed for Halloween; and you will see additional rows all of this next year.

But what I am thrilled to get done is this mini quilt to donate for an infant.  I had leftover blocks from my grandson's quilt and added a few more for the 9 patch of them.  I did finish the top at retreat in mid September.  I gave it to a friend who added the back and quilted it.  

I love her geometric choice for the quilting

And the back looks great being gray and white. My binding which was this weekend's project has a nice gray stripe with bright colors.  It took a whole movie to get it hand sewn. 

Finally a quilt block

I made a quilt block, on my sewing machine even.  .It has been quite a great while. But it is a new month. And this is stash bee block for October.  Like putting on training wheels to get started.

My other photos are from the China Lights display at a local park. They were really impressive and so beautiful and this is a mere sampling of the many displays throughout the park. The grandboys loved them, too. It is a traveling display. We would have stayed longer to see the programs and food, but it began to rain and we had not brought any rain gear and became drenched.

Hubby and I

 A Phoenix

Son, daughter in law and one of the boys in a lighted tunnel that the colors changed.

The other munchkin at dinner beforehand.

Hubby

Retreat weekend

I feel like I have been out of commission as far as my quilting. School is in full swing and I do enjoy my new position. I don't seem to have energy to do any sewing or needlework after I make dinner and sit down.  

This is the only thing I have to show for 2 weeks.  I have done other sewing last weekend. I had a wonderful time at a retreat on a lake with my guild.  The weather was in the low 80s, a big change from the cooler days we have. But inside the air conditioning was running, and I was cold.  So hard to plan for clothing.   

But... I did put blocks together for a small baby quilt that had been leftover from my grandson's big boy quilt.  And I left it with one of the members to practice quilting on her long arm machine. 

This is my stash bee block for September.  ( We did another like it earlier in the year.)

We of course, went to the local quilt store and I purchased some Wisconsin red Bucky Badger fabric along with some blacks and whites.  I am planning to make a throw for my daughter's boyfriend.  He did graduate fro UW Wisconsin.  So I hope he will like it. I plan to use the Yellow Brick Road pattern from Terry Atkinson. 

I also started a tree skirt for my nephew whose wedding will be the end of October

These are the colors turned 90 degrees.  I have a few other strips to add to it and then cut wedges and assemble. I had a friend there who had the beautiful red tree fabric left over from another project. It is perfect to go with my Tonga strips of reds and greens.  I was so appreciative to find just the right fabric.

Back to school and Door County

This has been a long but good week. 

First I will show a little of my Labor Day weekend. My honey and I went to Door County which is the thumb peninsula of Wisconsin sticking into Lake Michigan.  It has several cute communities of little shops, bays with lots of boats, and unique eating places. ( no fast food chains). And we love it because of the water and will wade in it, sit by it to watch sunsets, walk the rock or sandy beaches, and listen to the waves roll and  splash. We love going on Labor Day as there is a Maritime festival with lots of music and even fireworks at night. We have gone for several years. It was cool but very restful and relaxing. 

I wish my camera phone took better pictures, because the colors were gorgeous. 

We tried a selfie.  It just shows how many laugh lines we both possess. And I earned every one of those.  But you can see the piers and some of the boats behind us.

The drive takes a couple hours from Milwaukee to get there.  I usually do some handwork as we travel the freeways. This time, I took all the beautiful pineapple blocks I have from an exchange a few years ago.  ( next UFO project). And as we drove I very carefully removed all those lovely shreds of paper in the stitching on the back. Ha ha! At least it was easy to see against the black.

Here is the wonderful tool I used. I had searched two quilt shows for something like this. A friend had one that was just a breeze to help remove those itty bitty corners and spots.  So I bought it from Amazon.  Really.

This will be my layout. I think I will use a 3/4 inch lattice of the black.  I currently have 28 of these 6 and 1/4 inch blocks.  "Why such an odd measurement on the block?" you ask.  Well, it is because the pattern which was master copied for all the exchanges was supposed to have 1/4 around all sides. But it was short 1/8 on one side. So I carefully trimmed them to a perfect square 6 and 1/8 on each side. 

Tuesday was our first day back to school. And to tell you the truth, I had not been looking forward to it. After the end of last year, I was a bit frayed.  

But...I have a new position to supervise students needing a little TLC and push to get their work done during their study hall. I have organized folders to keep track of their work and help set goals.  It has gone very well, so far. Hooray for a new year!

In the evenings, I have only felt like sitting after being active all day.  Very different from my sedentary life over the summer. And I have been slowing inching down these branches with my embroidery. This all that is left to complete on this panel.  

I leave you with another sunset picture.  Hope all is well with you and your projects.