Fall Fun with Family and Friends!

It has been a busy month of October!

 Over Columbus Day weekend, our DD2 and SIL visited from Austin, TX for 

6 days. Our family tradition is to camp up in Door County, WI and enjoy the lovely Fall colors! Our DD2 hadn't been there in 14 years, since her freshman year in high school and our SIL had never been to Door County. We were so excited for this visit!

We camped in Peninsula State Park with a large group of friends and enjoyed hikes, cooking over the fire, the fish boil at the White Gull Inn and breakfast at Al Johnson's.

Although the weather was beautiful, it was a bit nippy for these Austinites!

No sooner was our visit over, when our attention was turned to Fall Fest at the nature center where we keep bees.  My DH is a hobby beekeeper and once a year he does presentations about bees at the Fall Fest. Earlier, we robbed the hives and extracted the honey. This years crop was about 50 lbs! 

Next up, my DD3 and her boyfriend's visit from Austin. Although her 25th birthday was in August, he bought them tickets to come home this weekend. 

(They are currently sightseeing downtown Chicago) 

For her birthday, she wanted a black & white quilt. She found this print that she liked. It is a Luli Sanchez and Russell Busch collaboration. 

I started by drawing it up on graph paper then started doing the math to make it into a quilt. Here is the finished quilt!

I am so pleased with how it turned out!

The black and white stripes are 4" finished width done in Kona black and white. It was pieced on the diagonal.

The backing is a black and white geometric print. 

 The quilting is straight line. Its finished size is about 73" x 84".

Hopefully, I'll be back before too long to show you the quilt that I put on hold to squeeze in this one for my DD3! 

We Interrupt This Regular Scheduled Program...

I am putting aside my daughter's wedding quilt temporarily to start on a baby quilt for my nephew and his wife.  There is a possibility that the baby shower may be sooner than I expected.  I kind of felt that panic feeling.  Will I have time?  So I started on it last night but not before I finished all 48 blocks for the wedding quilt.  That's 1392 pieces!   Here is what I have done so far.  

I'm using the method for pinwheels that I found on a tutorial at the Missouri Star Quilt Company.  It is quite unique way of stitching pinwheels! It is fairly quick and very accurate.  The downside is the pinwheels are cut on the bias.  Here is a link to the tutorial.

I'll leave you with a few pictures from the fall...our honey harvest, fall fest, another fall texture picture and a visit from my DD3!

A DAUGHTER IS A DAY BRIGHTENER AND A HEART WARMER.

                                                                                                      unknown author

Edit: Something I forgot to mention.  I joined in on the Scrap Along over at Pleasant Home.  Just click on the Sew Scraps tab or see the button on my side bar. There are some great organization ideas, the start on the first scrap project and links to some giveaways!   Hop on over and join along. 

More news soon!

A Little Sidetracked and a Sneak Peek

So I got a little sidetracked from my goals...

Sew many of the blogs I've been visiting are showing off their fall/Halloween quilts.  I saw this cute little quilt on Stash Manicure posted by Polly of Aunt Polly's Porch.  I just loved it and couldn't seem to get him out of my mind.  So I just had to do it!  I cleared away the wedding quilt and the Frosty Flakes (the commission bags are waiting hardware) and started cutting away.  Here he is!  Hanging around outside.

but it was chilly outside so on the table seemed more comfortable.

It's not bad to have a diversion now and then...

As for my daughter's wedding quilt, I have finished 1/2 of the blocks!  

Now normally I'd wait to finish all the blocks before sewing the rows together to finish the top. 

Do you do that or do you put together the rows as you finish? Hmmm! Just wondering. 

But I just needed to see how the knots were going to come together.  

As I promised, I was given permission from my daughter to just give a peek.  

[She reads my blog and she wants it to be a surprise although she knows the colors and pattern.]

That's what I've been up to...what about you?