I MADE THINGS!!!

Oh, I'm SO happy! I finally got some time to sit down and MAKE something! A few somethings, actually! Today was the first time I sat down and sewed since October 6th. That's WAY too long!

First off, for the Sweet Dreams Quilting Bee I made these blocks for Missy:

She sent "Katie Jump Rope" Fabrics... some of my all time favorite fabrics!!

Then for the Buzz Cuts Bee I made these blocks for Andrea:

She sent Michele D'Amore fabrics- also some of my favorites!!

And finally for the day I made a laptop case for my sister!! The print is a Kaffe Fassett fabric, and the pink is a Moda, but I don't know what line it's from.


I also did the fall cleaning in the kitchen today... emptied all the cabinets and scrubbed them, washed ALL the dishes (yikes!) cleared off all the counters and scrubbed them, scrubbed the appliances, swept and scrubbed the floor... it looks so nice and clean now :)

Tomorrow I plan to make November bee blocks, make a quilted backpack that was commissioned by a friend, and finish up the set of 6 grocery bags I'm making for myself. I also have a few quilts I'd like to get quilted, so I may load one on the frame tomorrow and get going on that, too!

It feels good to have my creative mojo back :)

At Home

Wow, this has been a busy few days!! I cleaned the house like mad before we left for vacation... and I am at a loss to explain how it got so out of shape with no one in it!! I've been cleaning like crazy! I think I finally have it how I like it now.

I've also been catching up on the blogs I read, baking, prewashing and ironing the fabric I bought on vacation... the list seems endless!

I actually plugged my sewing machine in this morning... I'm making progress! I have some bee blocks to make for October/November. Then I want to get back to work on my Park Slope log cabin quilt. And I might work on the Heather Bailey wonky cabin quilt a little, too!


Finally.... I just got home from a fabulous vacation, full of scenery and beautiful autumn colors... only to find the prettiest tree I've seen yet is the maple in the back yard, just outside my kitchen window!

The Kancamagus Highway

The Kancamagus Highway is a road in New Hampshire that goes from Conway to Lincoln, through a pass of Mt. Kancamagus. It's one of the most beautiful highways in the world (in my opinion, anyway) and it offers a wide variety of scenery... and weather, as we found out!!


This is still on the lower part of the road... the fog was VERY thick in some of the higher elevations!


The fog cleared away as we went along (we went from East to West). But wait... is that SNOW on that peak in the distance?!?


Why yes, it IS snow! Lots of snow! There was about 4 inches of snow on the ground at the highest part of the mountain pass.


There was still some gorgeous fall scenery, though... I love this picture!

All in all it was a wonderful vacation! We put 3,400 miles on the car (and ourselves... that's a LOT of driving, folks!) and spent about $3,200, including gas, lodging and food on this vacation. I am so glad we went, and we have many memories and pictures to keep it fresh in our minds for a long time to come :)

Favorite Vacation Pics

We got home from vacation last night! It was such a wonderful vacation!! The only thing we would change is the length- we were gone too long. I guess Hubby and I are both homebodies :)

Today I've been unpacking and cleaning and doing laundry and making bread and getting a grocery shopping list put together. I'm also suffering the sadness and homesickness I experience every time I leave the place I consider to be home (Victor, NY)... it's so hard to leave the friends and the area I love so much. I've been praying every day for nearly 8 years that God will open up a way for me to move back there. So far, nothing. But I keep hoping!

Anyway, enough of the weepy stuff! We got some AWESOME pictures on this trip! Here are my favorites from my camera- Hubby will download his camera tonight and I can show you some of those pics, too!

This is the Portland Head lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. This is my second-favorite lighthouse (my all time favorite is the St. Simon Island lighthouse in Georgia). It's SO pretty, and we had the perfect day to be there!

There are paths along the rock shore that you can walk in the park near the lighthouse. This picture shows you why there's a lighthouse there- I'm thinking a ship would NOT win against those rocks!

The ocean was very calm and scenic that day :)

Hubby took this picture of me sitting on the rocks near the lighthouse, looking into Portland Harbor.

In Vermont. This is called the "100 mile view". It's near Hogback Mountain.

This is somewhere in Vermont. I love the contrast of the hill that has the sun shining on it and the hill that is under a cloud!

Killington Ski Resort in Killington Vermont. It was actively snowing in the higher elevations the day we drove through Vermont.

A view of the Rochester skyline from I-390. Rochester is a little city, but it has one of the prettiest skylines I have ever seen! I especially love it at night.

Blogger's Quilt Festival (Autumn 2009)

This is "So Ends A Fair Day", a mini quilt I made in January 2009. I made it to try to break my way out of a quilting rut I was in! It was so much fun to make, too!

I took a 9" x 12" piece of fusible web, and cut the pieces with my rotary cutter! I knew I wanted to make a sunset, and free cut the pieces to give me what I needed. Next, I dug into my batik stash and pulled out pieces I thought would work, fused the web to them, cut them out and re-assembled the piece of fusible web onto a muslin background with the batiks now attached. Then I covered every seam with fusbile bias tape. I then layered and basted it. Sewing the bias down became the quilting, too!

This quilt really helped me branch away from the "every quilt must have a million pieces" rule, and I had SO much fun making it :)

Maine

So, here we are in Maine!! It has been wonderful so far, the weather has been great and the town we are staying in is so cute! We're 1/8 mile from the Atlantic Ocean and have been walking down to the beach to walk before breakfast... can't do THAT in Illinois :)



I took this yesterday... I spent about 2 hours walking and sitting at the beach. It was heavenly!

Today we drove up to Cape Elizabeth and went to the Portland Head Lighthouse! We were not able to climb the tower since it's a working lighthouse and is in the custody of the Coast Guard... but we were able to go to the museum there, and walk MILES of paths and take about a million pictures!



Tomorrow we are spending the day in Boston, then heading up to Manchester, NH, where we will be staying a couple of days. I don't want to leave Maine, though! I absolutely love it here :)

Vacation!!!

Wow- it's almost hard to believe that we are leaving tomorrow for vacation! We planned it way back in June, and it seemed like it was FOREVER in the future then.... and here it is, less than 24 hours until we leave!

I'm just about ready- 2 more loads of laundry and then I can pack clothes! Most everything else is packed already. I have a couple more errands to run, including stopping by the gas station to fill up, and then we are ready! And then I can relax- I've been going nonstop the past 2 days!

Lucky has definitely figured out something's up... I pulled the suitcases out yesterday, and she gave me a look that said "Um, where exactly do you think you're going?". The real kicker was when our neighbor came to get the keys and say hi to Lucky... then she got all clingy and mopey. Now she's laying on the couch, shooting death glares at me whenever I walk past. She is an expert at the whole guilt-trip thing!

The forecast for Maine/New Hampshire/Vermont is calling for rain pretty much the whole time we are there, but I have seen 10-day forecasts change completely, so I'm not getting too upset about it- yet!

I spent 3 hours Monday morning researching places to go and things to see... including quilt and yarn shops! A couple of the yarn shops look like they are just heavenly... they are all programmed in to the GPS and I am looking forward to going to them :)

Thanks for all the comments about my last post! I think Vicki is right- I've been so wrapped up in vacation plans, and I spent a good portion of September either sick or out of town (or sick AND out of town...!) and didn't really get to do much sewing! I'm bringing my sketchbook along with, and I'm really hoping the scenery and the time away from home will bring some inspiration.

I am bringing my knitting with me. I am so close to finishing my sweater! I also have a hat for Hubby to finish, and a scarf for my mother-in-law. I also brought along some sock yarn in case I felt the urge to make socks, too.

I'll be updating my Facebook status and Twittering along the way, but I don't know if I'll have access to a computer to blog. You can follow me on Twitter if you want- just send me a request! I locked my Twitter account after getting several "porno-tweets" :)

The Quilting Blues

I am in a total quilting funk! I have no inspiration, no desire to create, nothing. I look at my fabrics, and nothing happens. I look at fabrics for quilting bees, and nothing happens there, either. ARGH! What is going on with me?

Maybe vacation will inspire me? I'll be visiting some new quilts shops... maybe I'm just tired of the same old stuff in my local shops. I think the economy is hitting them- none of them seem to get new stuff in anymore.

I'm hoping to be inspired by the ocean and the mountains and the fall foliage, too. It's pretty flat and boring around here! And I am always inspired by trips home to see my dear friends.

In the meantime, though, I still do have the inspiration and desire to knit! So at least I'm still making stuff.

Have you had this problem? How did you bring yourself out of it?

Terry's Quilt Is On Flickr!!

With Laurie's (A Yankee Quilter) consent, I have set up a Flickr group to share pictures of the blocks for Terry's Quilt!! Please visit http://www.flickr.com/groups/terrysquilt/ for more information and to share pictures of your block.

This is a quote from A Yankee Quilter's blog:

"Today is going to be a huge day for Terry. Her husband will be coming out of sedation to find out what has happened. He doesn't know that he lost part of his leg :("

This totally breaks my heart. Please pray for this family!

What Quilting Is All About

Yesterday I read on Lisa's blog that Terry 's husband suffered a terrible accident at work, resulting in his leg being amputated below the knee.

Today, I read that Laurie is organizing a quilt block donation for Terry and her family! The idea is that you make a 9 1/2" block and send it to Laurie. She will put them together into a quilt, and mail it to Terry!

So I pulled some fabrics and got a block put together. Do I know any of these people? No- but that's OK! Someone needs a quilt, and I can help with that. That's all I need to know!

We were asked to use blue, red, yellow and brown, and use a "scrappy love" theme. I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but this is what I came up with:



It'll go in the mail as soon as I have an address to send it to!

Go here for more information!