Just Beautiful!

Today I want to show some of the glorious work of my fellow quilters from the Golden Gese quilt shop at 22 Liberty Street in Concord, New Hampshire.

Maureen, below, was hand hemming the binding on her batiks quilt.

The colors are fabulous and so bright!

Maureen has an embroidery machine.

She made this label, but was cursing herself for forgetting to add the attribution to Eleanor Roosevelt for the quote. She plans to re-do it.

Beverly had a big finish also with her own Drunkard's Path design.

Both Beverly's quilt and Maureen's quilt were professionally quilted by Tracy Szanto of Dreamland Machine Quilting. Link.

You may click upon any picture to enlarge it.

Forgive me for forgetting the exact measurements, but suffice it to say that these are both queen sized quilts, big and beautiful!

One of the Upstairs Club at the Gese is Darlene, pictured below.

She brought in her wonderful Pink Flamingos quilt, also done by Tracy Szanto.

Tracy custom-quilted the central panel with a flamingo motif in black thread on the hot pink.

Here is another shot of it, from the backside.

Thank you to everybody for your willingness to share your gorgeous quilts here on my blog, they are all awesome!

I took some more Fall foliage photos driving home and I thought you might like to take an "Armchair Walk" with me.

Route 129 hay meadows are often bound with granite gateposts, and, as you can see above, we are the "Granite State."

Yes, there are cows nearby for all that hay!

Happy quilting!

The Zippo Pumpkin Festival

Yesterday I made a quick phone call to my sister, Suzanne, and the two of us agreed to get together for the annual Pumpkin Fest.

This was the first year that the festival was moved to Laconia, New Hampshire, but it has been 25 years strong as a tradition.

There were over 10,000 carved and lit Jack-O-Lanterns to be carefully counted as the event tried for the Guiness book of records.

Alas, no, we didn't top the record of over 30K pumpkins, but the throngs of people enjoyed the mild temperatures, no rain, and no wind for the all-day event.

All of the pumpkins are recycled after this event to feed pigs at local farms, so we ate a pulled pork sandwich to complete the circle.

It was great fun to see kids carving pumpkins on the spot.

They were doing a bang-up job of being so creative with parents happily looking on and coaching.

Main Street was closed to automobile traffic all day but a "Pumpkin Express" train was available for brief rides.

Can you see the red caboose in the background below?

Parking was at a premium with scalpers charging $20 per car for a berth in a nearby driveway, yikes!

Suzanne and I were horrified that no vendors were selling Pumpkin Soup, but rather, only corn chowder.

There was pumpkin ice cream but the weather was just a wee bit too raw for us to welcome it.

Instead, we opted for fried dough ($5 each) slathered in butter and sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon. Yummy!

Can you spot the three small white pumpkins stacked to make a snowman in this group below?

Remember, you may click upon any of these pictures to enlarge them.

The kids were also enjoying a portable rock-climbing tower.

We walked more than I am used to doing and soon it was time to lumber on back to the car, just about at dusk.

There were many "favorites" of mine of the displays.

This one, below, was the one pumpkin that made me laugh right out loud!

Keep laughing and enjoy the world around you!

Happy sewing

Some Ramblings

There is nothing prettier than traveling along a country lane in New England during the fall foliage season.

Our foliage here has peaked as the wind and rain have stripped away the color to leave bare trees, but it sure was lovely when it was here!

On Tuesday, The Sunshine Club at the Alton, New Hampshire Senior Center enjoyed the breakfast served just before our meeting. Yummy sausage patties and Belgian waffles with real maple syrup!

Sue is almost finished assembling her Easy Hourglass top from the directions by Jenny Doan over at Missouri Star Quilt Company. Link.

Sue had enough of the vintage fabric to make the quilt 12 blocks by 12 blocks, so it's big! We will take final measurements after it is pressed, but with blocks that are approximately 8", it's near 96 inches square.

Marjorie joined us and was sharing the fun of arranging all her cute-as-a-button yoyos for her pillow project.

We all took turns helping her arrange them to avoid two "alikes" from being right beside each other. There were so many giggles!

This is Marge's new 12 inch cutting/pressing mat, too, and such a handy size!

We helped her safety-pin each single row of yoyos together with a slip of paper that indicated the row number so that she'll be able to sew them in order.

Beverly was the one that thought of that solution, good thinking, Bev! Bev worked on her Tee shirt quilt blocks.

Sue also had cut up some of her Marden's fabrics to begin yet another Easy Hourglass quilt in black, white, and reds. Here is the link to the post of our "Stash Enhancing Xperience" at Marden's. SEX

Looking good, Sue!

I had fun assembling pre-made swapped 4-Patches into long rows for my pieced borders on the scrappy Jacob's Ladder.

Finally, the delivery guys came to take away the rented bed that Matthew and Bella were using, so it gave me a lovely empty floor space (after a good damp mopping) at home to pin borders onto my top.

On Thursday, I enjoyed being taken to lunch, (her treat, but I drove) by my 99 year old friend, Frances.

We were welcomed by the folks at the Belmont Senior Center and we all feasted on beef stew and biscuit, butternut squash, and apple crisp with whipped cream.

My mailman brought me some wonderful Birthday goodies from my very dear friend Ila. Just look at those bags of Civil War reproduction scraps, wheeee!!! Thank you, Ila! These were from Boline's in Illinois. Link.

And I confess that I had to purchase this Alice's Scrap Bag layer cake by Barbara Brackman. I got one of her charm packs, too, and because my order was over $25 before tax and shipping fees, I won a scratch ticket from the Missouri Star Quilt Company for a dollar off my next order.

Now what will I do with these lovelies? Hmmmm, must cogitate on that!

Happy Sewing!