Red Rum, Red Rum

Halloween Eve, the festivities begin in my house tonight! My daughter is Halloween crazy. She has been watching all the horror movies on tv for the past month. As I have written before I am not a scary movie fan and usually can’t sit through them. I did make it to the last 15 minutes of Halloween the other night which has to be a record for me. When I was growing up we would go on Saturday afternoons to the large movie house in the “city” and catch the show of the week. That movie theater closed years ago but recently re-opened to show old movies now and then. Tonight they are showing “The Shining”. I have seen parts of this on tv numerous times over the years. My daughter thinks it would be so fun to go to the old movie theater and see it in the dark on the big screen. So that is the plan for tonight. My son and a few of his friends have decided to join us so we should have a good time.
Since we never get any trick or treaters at our house we are heading to town on Halloween to pass treats out at my parent’s house. The live smack dab in the middle of town and get more then there share of little goblins. Riah took an old wedding dress she had bought at a garage sale and dyed it pink. She sewed pink and black trim on it and purchased some black net stockings and gloves and a mask. She is going as the bride of something or other. We wonder if she will ever grow out of this!

Dawn to the Rescue

I have a funny. As some of you know, every time I run into a quilting crisis I contact Dawn and she figures my problem out for me. She also gives me great color advice, etc. Last week Bonnie posted a fantastic string quilt. I loved it but immediately thought that I would want to avoid the set in seams. I thought about emailing Dawn to see if she knew how to make 8 pointed stars without set in seams but figured I had better give her a break, so I googled my question. Guess what, google led me to Dawn’s site where I got my answer. Now isn’t that crazy! So I ended up emailing Dawn anyway and she has instructed me on how to proceed. I figured before I was to start another project I need to finish some up. I have so many near the last stages and have just set them aside. This weekend was very productive for me. I finished 4 full size quilt tops, made my doll quilt swap top for my December swap and put together this little pumpkin quilt top. I also got all my little pieces sewed into blocks from my previous post and I am now in the process of tearing the paper off. That is definitely not a fun job!
Last week at Sossity’s she gifted me with this wonderful little embroidered pumpkin block. I just love it. It is so primitive looking. I fretted all week as to what I should do with it and decided that all it needed was a nice frame. It will be my next little hand quilting project.

Quilting with Dawn and Sossity

I had a great time sewing with Sossity and Dawn this weekend. Our friends Lanna and Heather were with us also. We all met up and had a slumber party of sorts at Sossity’s. She is such a sweetie and her home is just filled to the brim with quilts hanging. Her little boy Donovan is such a delight also. He is really mom’s big helper and loves playing with fabric. And I love getting together with Dawn. She is my quilting guru. She seems to know a little about all facets of quilting. I took all my “crisis projects” and she helped me through them. Thanks Dawn! I worked on making a couple of pillowcases for a Christmas exchange I am in and also some sawtooth stars in plaids, and a little wool pincushion that Dawn had given us a kit for. It felt good to actually sew again as I haven’t done much of anything lately. Sossity has a big, beautiful, organized sewing room. I haven’t seen anything like it. I took some pictures but they turned out dark. Her husband built her a large sewing center. It is just gorgeous. We set up in front of it with our little sewing tables. Lanna and Heather worked on hand projects. We also had a little doll quilt swap drawing. We are to have them done by Christmas. I already have my partners quilt planned out. Late Saturday afternoon we went to an antique mall and then onto dinner at a restaurant famous for its catfish. It was a really nice weekend. I feel ready to start being productive again!

Another Doll Quilt

I really don’t have much going on to write about! I have been dealing with aging parent issues and sick and injured kids. I didn’t even touch my sewing machine again this weekend. I have been doing handwork. I have all my pumpkins done and I am ready to move on to the black cats. I also completed another little doll quilt with scallops that doesn’t have a binding on it either. It was made from some leftover triangles from a mystery quilt I had done this summer. I moved on to a strippy doll quilt I had done a while back and it is half quilted.
We have been having record breaking temperatures. It has been in the 90’s for awhile now. It is really strange to have this type of weather at this time of year. I haven’t even thought about changing my summer clothes out yet for the winter ones. We are heading to Florida in less then a month so when I do change the clothes out I will just go ahead and pack my suitcase. This weather sure is making it easy on me!