One of the nicer things about living in this part of Maryland is the long, long growing season. Roses bloom here until almost Thanksgiving every year. :)
Generally by this time of the year pretty grasses are all there is to see in 'bloom' - except when the weather stays mild; I've seen roses and even iris blooming in the late fall.
Our October weather, so far, is epitomized by hurricane-sourced windy rain and chill. 50 to 60 degree highs and overcast skies with drizzle to heavy rain is unpleasant (not as much as floods, admittedly!). I've gotten out my lap quilts to cover up when reading in my cozy living room chair again - a sure way to know that Autumn Has Arrived. :)
Today was the monthly meeting of Mimi's Grad Class ... but I stayed home in bed. :P I woke up really early with a terrible headache that was not responding to drugs ... so gave up going out after all. It's gone now (as I type) - not sure if it was weather related or not. shrug.
I have been sewing and doing but I feel like I'm moving in molasses time right now (oozing as opposed to moving along). I took a pile of pieced tops to be quilted last week - took them to my friend Janet Schoenfeld from the Baltimore Modern guild who has started a long arming business this year. In the pile were several charity baby tops, a small birthday quilt for my oldest grandson, a nice twin sized piece that will be a bingo prize quilt for the modern guild and my Kimberly/Halloween top. Soooo excited to have some finished things to pet when they are done! :)
I got all the pieces cut for the Tilda fabric quilt (Strippy Stairway by GE Designs; scroll through the pics) last week so I sat down on Saturday afternoon and started sewing them together. I think it will be a pretty design - certainly it is the most organized I've been with a project in ages. :)
I've also been working on making ribbon flowers for my Floral Elegance class project piece:
ribbon pansy
wired ribbon rose and rouched mum
The yellow Mum was easy - it's just like making a cotton rouched rose a la Baltimore album quilt techniques, but done in silk ribbon (slithery stuff:). There are five pansies in the design (first one I made in purple/yellow in the top photo) - all of them are different colors and, like the fabled princesses, each one more beautiful than the last! The wired edge roses are new to me and I am still flustering with them - I have a medium sized one and a bud to make, yet, from orange/pink ribbon. I am enjoying the process but it is fiddle-y. Silk is slippery and the ribbon is so light weight the finished pansy blossoms feel like real ones in the hand.
I have had some luck recently. I won a set of 20 fat quarters from Island Batik's blog drawing last week. I was ecstatic as I LOVE batiks:
I have not decided, yet, what I will make with these but they're in my construction queue right after the Tilda prints. Soooo pretty!
My second bit of good luck came along yesterday evening in my email ... I won one of 10 spots at the MidAtlantic Modern quilt retreat next April ('23). So many people from the Baltimore group want to go, the guild has a lottery to choose who can attend (we get a certain number of spaces as a sponsoring guild). And I got one!! YEAH! I have been to MidMod three or four times and have loved every visit. It's usually held somewhere in Lancaster County, PA.
So, Autumn is off to a good start. Looks like we will be going to Kansas (my niece and I) sometime next week to collect my brother and move him out here to Columbia. Gotta check with the moving company tomorrow to set the exact packing/delivery dates and so plan our drives.
:) Linda
PS Sharing with Monday Making
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