end of October fun...

A little rain.
Then some freezing temps,
along with some sleet and snow blowing through the fallen leaves.
Seems like Winter is trying to sneak into late October.
Fun, huh?!?
But I'm not ready for that yet!

I have a little Halloween-y quilt finish to share first:

This little quilt finished 17" by 24"

and I used the disappearing nine patch block method

with a little charm pack of 2 1/2 inch squares. 

These little pre-cuts/charms were from the fabric line BooCrew.

The inner border was an orange scrap from Honey and Me fabrics with little pumpkins.  Outer border is also BooCrew.  The binding was a Lynette Anderson print - kind of a purplish-gray with little web-dangling spiders - too cute! 

I quilted it by hand in a big, freehand spider web design. 

I quilted it using the Utility Stitch (or big stitch) with a ball of

Valdani variegated thread - size 12, color O540.

I love Valdani threads!!! 

Color O540 is a black and green variegate

and just the perfect color for this little mat.

It took longer to finish than I had anticipated because I decided to hand-quilt it. 
But turned out really cute, I think, so totally worth the extra time.

I don't know if you can tell from the pictures,
but I took it outside to photograph. 
The slanting, late October sun and dry leaves tell the story of Autumn in Ohio.

That's some of my end of October fun!
What's happening in your part of the world?

friendship / enemy /bread

OK -
I know that you know what I'm talking about when I mention
'FIENDSHIP BREAD'.

Well, I call it Friendship Bread too,

but only for the first week.

After the first week,
I call it Enemy Bread. :)

And if you've ever participated in

this chain letter/pyramid scheme of food,

then you know what I'm talking about.

The premise is great! 
A 'friend' gives you a baggie of friendship bread 'starter'.
Just 'Squish' the bag of 'starter' for a few days,
'Feed' the bag of 'starter' once,
then 'Squish" for a few more days.
Measure out enough for a bread recipe, bake it up, and
SHARE the leftover 'starters'!!

Seems innocent enough.
But here's the problem...
The 'Starter' has re-grown.

 Grown enough that you have to do something with it-

i.e. BAKE it.
And Give it Away Again!
And by now you have multiple new bags of 'Starter' to do something with.
REPEAT. THIS. EVERY. WEEK. WITH. MORE. &. MORE. STARTERS!
Oh, sure, at first, you CAN give a couple of 'Starters' to friends.

But, all of the people that you first gifted the 'Starter' to
are now starting their own chain letter/pyramid scheme-of-food process. 
And your 'friends'

DO NOT WANT TO SEE YOU COMING!!

(and by now your friends have gifted their friends, thus eliminating your potential friends' friends that haven't seen you coming!)

OH, and you weren't able to give all the Starters away,

 so you have MULTIPLE 'starters' to feed, squish & grow again.

SEE?

Enemy Bread!!!

OK, I admit, it is good bread!
Really, REALLY good!
But truly, who needs 11 loaves of sweet bread this week. 

(stole this pic from an enemy a friend)

 Or month, for that matter!?

BUT - if you are gifted with a 'Starter'
here's a recipe for a nice & easy, moist pumpkin bread:

PUMPKIN Spice Friendship Bread!

1 cup 'Starter'
3 eggs
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup milk
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 cups flour (I did half whole wheat)
1 small box INSTANT pudding -dry (vanilla or pumpkin spice)
1 cup canned pumpkin

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  
Grease 2 large loaf pans. 
In large bowl, mix all of the above ingredients as listed.
In small bowl, mix topping of 1/2 cup sugar & 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon in small bowl.  Use half to sugar the greased pans.  Pour batter into greased/sugared pans.  Sprinkle remaining cinnamon sugar mixture over tops.  Bake for one hour or until bread loosens from sides of pan and toothpick in center of loaf comes out cleanly.

Fair Warning:
If I 'stop to visit'  you in the next few days -
I am really stopping to gift get rid of my Starters!

Happy end of October!

June Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses

My Lucy obsession continues-

I have been pretty good on doing one block a week
(mostly meeting my goal of a block a week for this year).

(Though I haven't been good about sharing pictures!!!  
I have to blame it on not have a computer that I could add pics easily... Sorry!)
Anyway, here are my June blocks:

my June Patchwork of the Crosses/Lucy blocks

I've noticed that my June blocks

are maybe a little more springy/summery in color

than previous month's blocks. 

Looking back at my other blocks,

I think I was unintentionally choosing seasonal colors. 

With these June block finishes it means that half of the year is gone...

also means that

HALF of my LUCY blocks are DONE!!! 

YAY!!

Which then leads me to thinking
that I should probably get off the horse and
choose the fabric for the connecting squares.
That way I could get my Lucy
more quilt-like lookin'
than just a bunch of quilt-blocks. :)

binding question & WINNER

Well, to my surprise,

 there ARE folks out there in blog land

that expressed interest in my leftover strips from my table topper!

So I chose a winner by random draw.

But before I get to the winner -

there was a question/comment about the binding on my finish:

 

I cut binding at 2 1/4 inches for a double-fold, not the usual 2 1/2". 

When attaching binding (by machine) onto the quilt top, 

I move my needle over (away from the raw edge) 

to make the binding itself

just a little more than a quarter inch wide.

 

Just that 1/4 inch cutting difference &

a few threads over in needle-moving

makes a binding that I really like -

reminds me of the thin binding on antique quilts!

Hopes that answers that question.

Now,

on to the WINNER!

 

The winner of my

strip-y string-y leftover

thingies

GIVE AWAY

is

Karen -

the first comment left!

Congratulations, Karen.

Karen, get me your snail mail address,
and I'll get the string-y thingies in the mail asap!

**********************************

Now, on to my English paper piecing project -
somehow I've not posted my finished blocks for the last handful of months! Oops!
Don't know why, but haven't shared since May! 
So I'll be back soon with my

"I'm still lovin' my Lucy blocks!"...

more Lucy Boston- Patchwork of the Crosses blocks to share!

Hope your weekend was a great one!
Debra

Stripping. And strip give away.

Last week or so I shared with you the stripy quilt table-topper
that I made with some of my left-over stripy-strings of fabric:

I think it might be my favorite quilt ever!!!

(But I guess I say that after every finish, don't I? :)

And I heard back from quite a few of you that you also
STRIP
do the Strip-y String quilt thing too.
There are some really GREAT quilts and quilters out in blogland!

At first, I thought I'd make another quilt with the left-overs. 
If you can imagine, 
I didn't use all of my Autumn colored strings. :)

(see that nice pile of Strips below my finished quilt?)

After more thought

 ("who am I trying to kid- A.D.D kicking in here!"),

I decided I'd rather move on 

had already moved on to another project.

I've had so many comments and compliments

(thank you very much!)

about my little quilt,
that I thought that there might be someone who'd like
to have my left-over stripy-strings.
They are random width & length strings -
predominately browns, with some blues, golds and brick reds thrown in. 
Most of the fabrics are reproduction fabrics, but a couple are not. 

If you are interested
in adding these STRINGS to your collection,
just leave me a comment on this post
before MIDNIGHT, Saturday, October 19th.
If there are multiple folks that would like them,
I'll do a random draw  on Sunday, the 20th.

Make sure I have a way

to contact you in your comment;

as I'll send you an email

to get your snail mail address.

 

Happy stripping Stitching!



group, gang, rafter or flock?

 
Wild turkeys are in town!!

(no, not the alcohol, but the bird!)

There has been this large 'group' of turkeys  
in our rural neighborhood the last couple of months.
Seven to ten birds strolling the fields and meadows...

I snagged this photo from longislandpress dot com
'cause the wild turkeys in our neighborhood
are more than a little camera shy.

I think that these wild turkeys are beautiful. 

And evidently they are doing a good job hiding from the coyotes,

as the contingency is staying in high numbers!

Then, there are domesticated turkeys:

Stole this pic from my sis -
my niece and nephew had wonderful turkeys
for the County Fair this year.

I think that these turkeys are beautiful, too.

So then comes the discussion:

What is a Group or Gang of turkeys called?

Rafter? or Flock?

I said: Rafter of turkeys.
Neighbor said: Flock of turkeys.
 
We did an on-line search - guess it depends on which site you use.
Rafter AND Flock are both correct. 
Though we did find that 

rafter is used for domesticated turkeys

 and flock is for wild turkeys. 

But then, there was exactly the opposite. 
No matter - neither my neighbor or I
are going to go on some trivia/game show
where we'd need to know this answer.

Anyway, I've been enjoying seeing

the coming and going of this bird family...

and though I have a very nice turkey call,

I haven't used it to lure them in.  Yet. :)

Maybe I'll make me a

Turkey of a Quilt

errr, quilt of a turkey

 to remember this turkey event. 

Then I'd HAVE to know the answer to the question -  

Rafter or Flock? for my quilt label. :)

 

Happy October, and

hope you get to stitch a little this week!

please don't forget...

It's Pumpkin time!!! :)

Thanks for the reminder, Maxine!

I String Thing... Do you?

String piecing with foundation, that is.

A friend got me started on these stringy things...

Don't know if she is

more of an inspirational instigator

or trouble-maker, :)

but, I do thank you, friend - you know who you are.

Like most quilters, I have plenty of scraps to use...

 String Things sure make for great use of scraps.

And use scraps I did!
I used some of the great colors of Autumn for my strings -

browns of all shades:  

from warm golden browns to deep, almost blackish-browns.

Throw in a little Autumnal accent:

brick-y red, some mossy-greenish-teal and dark, stormy blues.

I made four- 20" string squares and put them together for
a very nice table-topper size.
Since the strips on top were random in size and spacing,
I quilted using randomly spaced squares also:

Perfect for my Autumn table!

Thanks again, friend, for getting me started with a new addiction.
Just what I needed - another fabric addiction!
Albeit an addiction that's totally worth it!!!

If you do the String Thing, let me know...
I may just have some Autumnal Strings to share!

Happy early October Stitching!

signs that Autumn has arrived

Pumpkins

(my quilt, pattern and quilting)

 

Apples

(and apple pickers).

 

Nights cool enough to need a quilt

and turning leaves.

Happy October!