Summer's End...

    The month of August is rapidly coming to a close and with it, another summer of enjoyment! I have given up on trying to tempt beachgoers, campers, and gardeners to the sewing room and have been quietly working on the fall line up with all due diligence.

     After finishing the Christmas ABCs, I am addicted! So I made this little Autumn ABCs piece for release right after Labor Day.

    It's like a puzzle to think of all the words-- I am particularly proud that I thought of Equinox-- and fall is such a Xenial time of year, isn't it? Can't you just see Winter, Spring, and Summer ABCs, as well as Thanksgiving, Valentine, and Fourth of July versions? I can!

     The next set of five Carefree Highway states are in production-- we are going to leaf peeping states. Just look at that foliage in Vermont!

I decided on these because I want to start filling in some of the rows to see what the quilt is going to start to look like. (You can view the layout in the previous post.) I'm going to stitch mine together in the order they were admitted to the Union and I assumed the northeastern states were first. Wrong again! When I went to look at the first row, Georgia was third and I don't have it yet! If you want to get ahead, I did figure out that you can only add the star points to the left and right of your states for the layout-- the corner blocks are shared. If none of this makes sense to you, no worries-- it's barely making sense to me right now, but I'm going to release finishing instructions with the next set and we can all find out.

     I also spent part of my week on volunteer work-- I'm putting my quilt guild's 24-page membership handbook together. I worked in advertising for years, and I know Adobe InDesign, so that insures that I'm the best one in my guild to do this job, and also that no one else is ever going to be able to take it over. I did ask the artist-in-residence to do the lighthouse-- it is Nauset, on Cape Cod, isn't it fabulous? It's so good to see this group resuming activities, and if you're in the neighborhood, you should join-- but it's too late to get your name in the handbook, though! LOL

   So 2/3 of the year is now over, and I thought I'd review my table-runners-a-month goal-- the next post is going to be dedicated to this. "Where are they now?" I'm proud to say at least three are table ready, one is gifted, and one is in active use. But it turns out I'm missing a month... the final excuse I needed to start the Fat Quartershop's Bats and Boos stitchalong. This picture is of their project:

   They were releasing a free block each week for the last four weeks-- I usually won't begin a project unless I know how it's going to look. And I like Bats, but I'm not keen on Ghosts,which I assumed were the Boos. Well, I guess they just liked the catchy name, because we got bats and then pumpkins-- it's futile for me to resist anything pumpkin, edible or not. 

I made two rules for myself since obviously I shouldn't be starting another project-- ONLY stash, and ONLY if I learned how to use my new Cricut Maker to cut the pieces! Done and done.

    This beauty has been sitting around at the office for too long. I got on the Cricut "Design Space" app and very easily created all the squares and rectangles needed. Then, it organizes them into the most efficient cut on a 12" x 12" piece of fabric. The pink thing is a sticky mat for the fabric, and then there is a cutter in the machine-- well, it's an actual tiny rotary cutter.

    So I'm not ready to say it was quicker than cutting them the usual way, but it was tremendously fun. I got 120 pieces cut for the pumpkins, not to mention the bats-- and an added benefit of this method-- the cutter does not ever make a mistake on size as I frequently do-- LOL.  I do love a bit of gadgetry. 

    Now that I have one video under my belt, I'm looking for potential other things to film, and I promise I'll show you it this fall. I hear shipping is screwed up worldwide and Christmas is in trouble-- this lovely gadget I'm convinced will save me a bundle on presents this year. It does so many things and I love it!

    So here's where I am on Bats and Boos-- I have four bats and one pumpkin. The pumpkins have about 40 pieces each-- wish I'd thought about that a little more before starting, but I'm loving it and enjoying making it so far. The border would be sew much better with a little appliqued pumpkin vine-- yes, we must raise the bar constantly!

   If you now are sucked into this thing-- the link to the free blocks is below, and you don't have to wait, as you are now, four weeks late! heehee. They are soon to start a Christmas one-- I need to see it before I commit, but you might not be like me!

Fat Quarter Shop Bats and Boos

Fat Quarter Shop All the Trimmings

    Coriander Christmas arrows are sewn (all 31 of them) and are in the process of being attached to my twelve blocks. I much prefer to add a side and a bottom sashing to each block instead of sewing long rows as is always suggested. It keeps the pieces a manageable size for longer. My shoulders don't enjoy pinning and hoisting 70" of quilt through the machine. 

    I found a friend on Instagram who's at the same place I am with it, and we've been encouraging each other to keep going. All that being said, I do not think I will make my goal of finishing by the end of the month. I do not prefer this part of a project-- and it shows when you see my UFOs-- all blocks, waiting patiently to be sewn together.

    So that's it for this week. I have a little road trip planned next week, but I'm hoping to be able to keep all the balls up in the air at the same time. As they tell me, there's always HOPE!

xox

Carol