Time for Jo

The next quilt for the Jo Morton Little Women's Club is a Christmas quilt. We meet in September, so I figured I better get started now if I want to get it done. So that means lots and lots of HST's. I saw Jo Morton last Saturday on the Fons and Porter quilting show and she said that HST's are her thing and I believe it. She has a group of sewing friends that she calls together for a Sewing Saturday and they make all the pieces for her quilts. They make tons of HST's and then she sifts thru them to layout her demo quilts for the Club patterns or books or whatever. What a brilliant idea? I wonder who I can con/ bribe/ wheedle/ ask to sew for me???

This quilt has an interesting technique that is giving me a little trouble. You start by making 3 HST's and 3 triangles.

You sew these together to make a triangle. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Once you have made two of these you lay them face down on a slightly larger square of background fabric and sew on the diagonal like a HST.

Cut down the diagonal......

and press open just like a HST.

Trim to size. The only problem is mine came out skewed when I cut down the diagonal and there was not enough fabric to square it to size. It was supposed to trim to 4 1/4", but because it skewed, it barely measured 4". So I had to take it apart and start over. I had to resew the same seams about 4 times until I got it right. I ended up doing this over 2 days because I got so frustrated. I usually feel pretty confident when I sew, but this one small thing really got my goat.

It's That Time

I pulled into the parking lot at the mall today and there was a long line of people.

What are they waiting for?

You guessed it. Peaches!!!!! One of the greatest joys of the summer. I can't wait for them to ripen up a little and I will be filling my freezer and my tummy with lovely fresh, juicy peaches.

25 years and Counting

While we were travelling all over Eastern Canada, I realized late one night that it was our wedding anniversary. And it was our 25th - a pretty special one at that. My husband and I just laughed. We were enjoying our trip so much that we really didn't pay much attention to what day is was, let alone the date.

It is a standing joke for us that I can't remember our wedding date. I remember the events of the day very well, just not the date. We changed the date of our wedding several times for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons we changed was that my brother who was an Air Force pilot at the time got the assignment to fly to Antarctica on the date we chose. It was a once in a career opportunity for him, so how could I stand in the way of that? Plus he was walking me down the aisle and I didn't want to go by myself. I remember he and his wife and daughter decided to go to Door County the day of our wedding. The ceremony started at 4 or 4:30. I was dressed and ready to go. No brother. He showed up about 5 minutes before the ceremony started. He was in a new Air Force uniform and was still trying to pin on all that bric-a-brac they wear! This is so normal for him.

Anyway, I am lucky that someone made a needlepoint sampler for our wedding, because it has the date on it, so I can always check it -- which I do, because I truly cannot remember.

So, last night I fixed lobster and opened a bottle of wine to have a belated celebration.

Here's to 25 years with my favorite guy and a wish for 25 more.

She's Off to her New Life

We took our daughter to the airport this morning as she took off to start her new career as a teacher. She graduated in May with a degree in teaching English as a second language. She is now on her way to the Marshall Islands where she will spend a month in orientation and the following 9 - 10 months teaching on a teeny, tiny little island. She is very excited, but a tad nervous too. Today she goes to LA, then on to Honolulu and then tomorrow, she heads to the capital city of Majoro. We have spent lots of hours on Wikipedia and Google Earth learning as much as we can about her new home.

What an amazing opportunity! I am trying hard not to be sad that she will be gone so long. Don't know yet if we will have a chance to visit. Her island is very remote with no hotels or any amenities, really. No computer, cell phone, TV. At least that is what we have been told so far. The real life may be very different.

My main task for the near future is cleaning out a lot of stuff in her room that she has left behind. It is kind of a disaster area.

When my son left for college, I was away for a couple of months taking care of my mother. My husband asked him to clean up his room and throw away anything he didn't want to keep. When I finally got home, I was in shock -- the walls were bare, drawers, closet, shelves empty! All his sports trophies and memorabilia were in a box. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or cheer! I will definitely NOT have that problem with my daughter's room. LOL!

So not much sewing for awhile til I have found the carpet again in her room.

A treasure

I fell in love with this sweet quilt at the Green Gables house. It is so simple and faded and hopefully was well loved. I couldn't really tell what color the solid squares once were.

The house also had this neat little sewing room. It would be nice to have a little room like this to keep all my sewing stuff in. But where's the stash?

Fly your flag

I took these photos in Lubec, Maine. It is a very small town with a lot of heart.

They must have the highest ratio of flags per capita of any place in America. It is just the most perfect little town. It is located on the US/ Canada border on the way to Campobello.

We wandered around the town which was only a few blocks square and found the Masons were having a picnic and had live music on the bandstand. They were getting close to shutting down for the evening, so they fed us for free. They had wonderful barbequed chicken, baked beans made with maple syrup, potato salad, and rhubarb for dessert. What a treat!

We stayed in a small inn that had a restaurant on the first floor.

There were picture windows on two walls so we could watch the sunrise over Canada on one wall and the sunset over Maine on the other. The people were so friendly and nice. We sat down in the restaurant around 7 :30 pm and some rowdy guys came into the bar. They had already been kicked out of a bar down the street. I thought I would die laughing when the owner of the inn pulled out a yellow card and gave them a warning when they used some foul language. The owner was the nicest man. He gave everybody hugs and made sure the restaurant was closed down by 8 so the noise didn't disturb the people who were staying the night.

Today is always one of our favorite days and we try to make sure we are in town for the fireworks. They really do it up right. Hope your fourth is fun.

Happy Canada Day

We have been traveling the last 3 weeks. We drove to Montreal to pick up our daughter who just graduated from college there and then spent 2 weeks touring the Maritimes.

We visited Green Gables.

We watched the tides rise and fall at the Bay of Fundy.

We toured Campobello.

We saw wildlife - moose, coyote, fox, bunny rabbits, eagles.

We climbed the highest mountain on the east coast in our car.

We visited friends and made a few new ones along the way.

It was so interesting and wonderful and tiring. The best part was doing this all with our daughter. She will only be with us a couple of weeks and then she is off to start her new life.