The Wedding was beautiful......

My daughter's wedding has consumed most of my time for the past several weeks. I'm back and ready to dig into the borders for the block of the month.

Here is a very short Smilebox of the event. It was beautiful!!! The location at Edgewood Country Club in Lake Tahoe was spectacular.

Make a Smilebox photobook

In the slideshow you will see all my adorable little grandchildren...my three children with their spouses....and my wonderful husband that has been by my side for the last 36 years. Life is good.

As always,

Lynn

Scrappy Leaves quilt

Dear Blossom of Friendship followers,

The Scrappy Leaves quilt is almost finished. Just a few more hours on the binding then the hanging sleeve and it will be ready to hang up in the shop. It's always a good feeling to get something completed before teaching the class!

The quilt took me two and a half days of laborious stitch in the ditch around each leaf and border sections on my long-arm. Stitch in the ditch quilting is not very much fun. It becomes tedious and doesn't seem very creative. I'll quilt feathers any day over ditch work.

My admiration goes out to anyone that can machine quilt a large quilt on a smaller machine. The next time you see your machine quilter, give them a hug......they deserve it! Machine quilting takes a lot more time than you think. I usually spend about one hour just loading the quilt on the frame. It has to be perfectly lined up or else you'll pay for it when you get down to the end.

The whole idea of this quilt was to imagine the sun shining down from the top left hand corner through the leaves and trees in the forest. I can't tell you how many times in my walks around the neighborhood that I was trying to capture that feeling. On my walk with Zinny this morning, we saw our first dogwoods ( I think they are dogwoods) changing color. They weren't changing much, but there was definitely some fall color.

I used wool batting so my leaves would just pop right out. I quilted swirls to depict the wind carelessly tossing the leaves every which way. That's my story because my swirls are quilted every which way. I'm consistently inconsistent with the entire quilt.

Look what ambled by the critter cam last night on the game trail! We've never had an animal get this close to the camera.....ever. So, if you go out in the woods today.......................

As always,

Lynn

The Last Month of Summer

Dear Blossom of Friendship Quilters,

The Scrappy Leaves quilt is all pieced together. This is a fun quilt to make. The borders were challenging and took me quite a bit of time arranging and rearranging the sections. I would put all of the pieces up and stand back and squint at them until I think I got the colors in the right order. I'll get it on the quilting machine next week and there it will stay for quite some time. This quilt is from the book called Maple Leaf Quilts.

This is actually the back of the quilt. I went under the deck to take a picture of the back while the afternoon sun was streaming through. Doesn't it look just like a stained glass window?

Zinny isn't so little anymore. She decided to pose in front of the backside of the quilt up on the deck. What a ham.

We have our six-year-old granddaughters with us this week before they head back to school. We spent the day at Calaveras Big Trees State Park. Those two little girls played in a small creek for most of the afternoon.

It's time to start thinking about Autumn. Have you noticed that it's starting to get dark earlier? The sun is taking it's time coming up in the morning too. Occasionally up here in the mountains, you get a fleeting feeling of Fall in the air. You really can't put your finger on it.....it's just "that" feeling that summer is coming to an end.

Enjoy the last month of Summer while making a quilt for Autumn.

As always,

Lynn

Miss Iris Picture again

Let's try this picture again. I'm so glad that Crissie let me know that this image wasn't enlarging.

Hope this is better for everyone.

Take care,
Lynn

Month #10 - Miss Iris

Dear Blossom of Friendship Followers,

Isn't Miss Iris a sweet little basket of sunshine? I like the pinks and the orange together in the same floral arrangement. The purples are very bold and are sprinkled throughout most of the quilt.


I think my border is coming together nicely. I'm going to change some of the colors of the flowers. The flowers that I've already made will not go to waste.....I'll just move them to another location in the border where the colors will compliment each other.


You will not be attaching the border to your quilt until after you are finished appliqueing the flowers on. This makes life much easier. As I work on the border, I roll both ends up to the flower that I'm stitching so it looks like a scroll. This method works well for me.

Stay tuned to see what this beautiful basket of batiks is going to turn into. In my spare time...yeah right....I've been working on the Scrappy Leaves quilt in the Maple Leaf Quilts book. I'll be teaching the class in mid-September so I'd better hurry up and finish this quilt.

The basket is filled with Bali Pops and every scrap of batik that I own....which isn't much. This is the first time I've worked with batiks and I'm loving every minute of working with their rich, rich colors. Doesn't this just put you in the mood for Autumn? Crisp nights and mornings and a deep blue sky.

The leaves changing colors....raking....and raking some more.

On another note.....the bridal shower was a success! I'll include pictures in another post.

As always,

Lynn

The Home Stretch

Dear Blossom of Friendship Followers,

Well, the cocktail bridal shower for my daughter is tomorrow, Sunday at 1pm. The maid of honor and bridesmaids have assured me that all I have to do is supply the home for the shower.....they will do all the cooking, decorating, and clean-up. I know all of the girls and I know just how organized they are. They have bridal shower planning down to a "T".

So, I'm trusting that the tables and umbrellas will show up on time. The tablecloths, decorations, party favors, gifts for the games will suddenly appear. My role as mother of the bride is to sit back and relax....right? After the last few weeks of preparing the house for this, forget relaxed, I'll be passed out on the lawn chair with my cocktail in hand!

Here's a few snapshots of what my honey of a husband and I have been up to this week. Remember I started with the sewing room and had to organize my "mail box" of fabric.

While I was cleaning, I found this Happy Home needle book. (Note to self: Wear hat the next time I get together with my friends to quilt.)

Time to digress for a bit. My husband and I struck a deal about six years ago when he bought his first car (1956 Ford) that he planned on restoring. For every dollar he spent on the car, I could spend the same on my quilting hobby. He finished his first car and I have more fabric, gadgets, and quilting machines than one person could ever use in a lifetime. He's added to his car collection by three more cars and they've been "collecting" in our side yard. He has his treasures covered with lovely blue tarps. So my point is, this shower is going to be in the backyard and I wanted to fence off his collection so we didn't have to look at his pile of ....treasures. So the fence was finished on Monday.

We've had this old window hiding out in the garage and picket fence shutters . So we added a flower box and this is what you see now when looking out the family room window. I hadn't been able to open the drapes for years.....and years. Now I never close the drapes.

Years ago, my Mom went "back East" as she always said, and bought me an ox yoke. It cost her more to ship it than what she paid for it. I brought out my Summer Wind quilt, a Miss Rosie pattern. I made this using Allspice Tapestry fabric by Fig Trees.

I know it isn't Easter, but I had to put out my Rabbits Prefer Chocolate quilt by Bunny Hill. I'm displaying this on a fabric roller that we bought in North Carolina a few years ago.

It used to be in an old Mercantile store and would measure out fabric by the yard. Can you imagine having only one fabric choice?

Last, but not least, a bottle of "I Do" room and linen spray for the freshly painted powder room with the new floor.

On that note......

As always,

Lynn