I had to take a break from the floor cloths. Between the VOCs from the Sharpies and all the mold outside from the biblical rains, my asthma/allergies went a little crazy. So I'm working on some other things.

I got Mom's quilt loaded on the quilting frame and started quilting. This is a huge quilt and she made it for someone who works in her apartment building. It's a really pretty quilt. This is the second quilt that she has made with this pattern. The person who's receiving this had seen and loved the first one.

Quilting is going to be fast because I'm using a simple pantograph.

It's also time to start the Christmas postcards! I'm going to try to get one set done by this weekend so that I can then spend the weekend working on a new Paula Nadelstern sample quilt. These threads always inspire me! I use these in the bobbin or couch then with a narrow zigzag.

In my first prototype I used the threads in the bobbin and stitched from the back. I did a couple of versions of this prototype and I didn't like either one. I'm going back to the drawing board for this one.

But that one did give me an idea for the 3 December birthday cards that I need. I can't show the designs because 2 of the recipients read my blog. But I'm excited to have at least one thing done ahead of time!

My big mission this week was to get the binding done on Kim's quilt. Monday afternoon I discovered that the Downton Abbey movie was on HBO so I quickly finished my "work" for the day and sat down with my binding and the movie. Monday night I watched some Holiday baking contests on the Food Network and hit the binding again. I really wanted to finish it but my left hand was too annoyed.

Yesterday I got up and finished the binding right after breakfast. Aside from a label, the quilt is done! In a minute you will know why there are no photos, I was too tired. I'll get photos Thursday.

After I finished the binding I realized that it was too beautiful outside to be inside so I headed out to blow some leaves. I have a battery operated leaf blower so I do it in shifts.

After that I decided to get the power washer out and clean the filthy walkways. We've had so much rain this year that everything seems to have turned black....or green.

I finished both walkways, the front steps and the disgusting front pad of the garage. It seriously was green on black. It's north facing so it's in the shade all the time. I don't power wash often but it sure is rewarding with immediate gratification. 

Then I figured I wash my car. It's something that probably should be done once a year or so. It was due. 

Then I went all "good wife" and washed Chris' car! He came home from his 10 day hunting trip just as I was in the middle of it. It was even grosser than mine and that's saying something!

That was the end of me for the day. No Spirographs on floor cloths or crochet. The weather will turn cooler with more rain (ugh) today so I'm probably done with any major outdoor chores until I start mulching in February. We're going back to regular programming. Time to get the last 2 veterans quilts quilted!

Yesterday was my first time ever being an elections officer. I've been considering doing it for a few years but, with covid, I figured that they would have a lot of turnover and would need more people. It was time for me to finally do it. I'm glad I did!

Monday night I did get ne next pair of veterans quilts loaded and I thought this was the perfect quilt to have on the machine this week.

So, here are some thoughts/observations about working in the voting precinct. 

The day starts really early. I was up at 3:30 and had to be at the precinct at 5:00 AM. The equipment and materials are VERY well organized in my county. Based on the training that we had I was not at all surprised by that. We had 8 workers at our precinct, 4 of us were new and 2 of the experienced ones had only worked a primary prior to this election.

41% of our registered 1449 voters had voted early (assuming that all absentee ballots were returned and counted). That meant that we didn't expect, and didn't get long lines. We had a line when we opened but the rest of the day was just steady. By the end of the day we calculated that 83% of our registered voters voted! That's an amazing number.

Aside from a little obnoxious behavior from one of the political parties (coming into the precinct to look around unofficially and then leaving all their signs for us to clean up) everything was really smooth. We aren't in an "important" area so I wasn't surprised. The voters were ALL pleasant and friendly as we received so much gratitude for being there. It was amazing. I have never once thanked my precinct officers for being there and I feel bad about that.

Our precinct is relatively small and our precinct captain is incredibly organized so we were closed out and I was home an hour and a half after the polls closed. 5:00AM to 8:30PM is a really long day but it was worth every minute of it. I also got to meet 2 of my new neighbors!

We had a curbside voting option and I spent a few hours outside waiting for nothing. It was a beautiful day so I enjoyed some quiet time listening to my book, greeting voters and making a lot of progress on this crochet blanket.

Today is going to be a slow and quite day. Maybe some quilting, binding and ironing.

Can I tell you how excited I am to see my sewing supplies by the door? By the time this posts I'll be set up and sewing with my quilt buddies! I have probably missed our monthly sewing days more than anything.

Yesterday was mostly about errands and chores but I did get 3 more rows quilted on Kim's Garden. Only 2 rows left! I WILL finish this Sunday.

I hope you all had a great weekend because I sure did! We didn't do anything special. It was just beautiful weather and I got to do a little of everything, including stacking wood for the upcoming fire season. Here's a little rundown of everything else.

I had a couple of hours Friday to finish 2 more rows on Kim's Garden. Only 5 more to go. I can finish it this week if I'll just focus. I have a big quilt for Mom to quilt next and I'd like to get going on it.

I didn't spend much time sewing but I did get the next set of Summer Sunset blocks started.

Most of my time was spent finally getting started on my Spirograph floor cloths. I got both sides of all 4 cloths primed with gesso and I've painted this practice piece with 2 coats of leftover paint from a room in our house. I'll start doing some practice drawing next and will send Chris out this week to buy the paint I need for the kitchen floor cloths.

I also hung this painting that my friend painted for me for my birthday. It's the view from Acadia Mountain from one of our hikes last summer (2019) in Maine. The water is Somes Sound. I love it.

In the "big news" category I got the cape packed and ready to ship today! It was a lot more work than I expected because I eventually had to build a box. But it's safely packed with lots of acid free tissue paper and off go back home to New York. I've had some funny conversations with my brothers telling them of the new family discoveries. Today I need to write my new cousin a long email with info that I've discovered and send some photos that she can add to her family documentation. 

I'm very excited for this week because the county is finally letting us back in our meeting space for our sewing days! They will set it up so that we are 6 feet apart and we are limited to 15 people. They will check our temperatures when we arrive. We are all excited to sew together again. But last night I realized that I needed a project! I sewed all my veterans quilt kits on vacation so I'll do some planning this week and see what I can come up with.  It will be too much trouble to pack up Summer Sunset because I have it all set up here so I'm going to start yet another new project.
​I love a new project!

It's not for Vicki or Vacation. Sigh. Vacation is over.
We came home Saturday from one of our best vacations ever. When we go to Maine my allergies go away almost immediately and I don't take much medicine at all while I'm there. I've been home less than 48 hours and I'm already back on high Benedryl doses. But I'm lucky that I get to escape for a bit and it won't be much longer before the seasonal mold dies down here.

I didn't post after the 31st because my friends arrived in Maine to help me celebrate my birthday. It was great to have them there and I did meet my goal of hiking Cadillac Mountain on my 60th birthday. It was me, Chris and my friend's husband and we hiked the North Ridge Trail. Anne, Lora and Dale actually got up at 4:00 that morning to drive up and see the sunrise but, sadly, they were clouded in and didn't see anything. The same thing happened on the hike. We got to the top and had a great view of mist! I didn't care, I've seen the views from there before. I just wanted to complete the hike and I did.
Then I came home and took a nap.

Many of you probably know that my favorite bird is the vulture and "V is for...." is the name of this quilt that my friend, Anne, made for me. The vulture pattern is from Sally Trude.

I've had "Make a vulture quilt" on my wish list for a while but now it's magically done! I had actually been a little worried about my friend since COVID started because every time I talked to her she was working on some bags and making absolutely NO progress. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. She's usually so productive. Now I know that she's actually been really productive, she just couldn't tell me!

One of the coolest aspects of this quilt is the stamped border. She actually carved these stamps!

She even bought some vintage linens, dyed them and stamped them too. I can't wait to use the placemats.

You wouldn't believe how much vulture art I have around my house now. You might be wondering why I like the vulture so much. 
It all started when we first moved to this house on 10 acres. The whole idea of 10 acres was overwhelming to me at the time and nature kind of freaked me out. One day during the first year we were here a giant pregnant beaver died at the edge of the pond. It was disgusting and I nagged Chris to do something about it. He knows nature much better than me so he naturally ignored me and the beaver. Low and behold, 3 days later there's a wake of vultures cleaning up the mess for me and they cleaned up every speck of it. From then on I started paying a lot of attention to vultures because they are nature's perfect vacuum cleaner.

Fast forward about 10  years and we started having a serious raccoon problem that we needed to take care of. Over one weekend we had to dispatch a number of them. That time I kept an eye out for my friends and they put on quite a show for me. I've loved them ever since.

I like collecting vulture art because there isn't very much of it so I can't get too out of hand. I can't wait to sleep under my vulture quilt.

I'm glad to be home. The laundry is done and everything is put away and it will be nice to be back in my routine this week.

So we made it to beautiful Acadia Friday evening. This truly is my happy place. The weather is lovely with highs in the mid-70s.

My sewing space is all set up. We have a friend visiting through tomorrow so I haven't done a ton of sewing. If you are familiar with Acadia, we've hiked Norumbega, Flying Mountain/Valley Peak/St Sauveur. Chris and Dave hiked Beehive yesterday while I kayaked the lake. I don't do ladder trails. We're conditioning ourselves for Cadillac next Wednesday.

I was originally planning to make the block on the left but when I started seeing the first one together I decided it was too complex for vacation sewing. I'm now doing the one on the right. It's pretty mindless.

So far the only casualty of the trip are these glasses, my favorite glasses! They are not repairable but this tape should hold until my friend gets here with my spare pair this weekend.
​Oh, the crochet bkanket is almost done!

I don't feel like I got tons done this weekend but that doesn't mean it wasn't a good weekend. We had a family birthday party for Mom Saturday and it was the first time in a very long time that we had so many of us together at the same time. We don't have a large family but we do like each other's company and we don't have any drama so it's always nice to get together. We had all 4 of her children, their spouses and 3 of 4 of her grandchildren. We wouldn't expect to see the 4th grandchild so this little get together was 100% successful! We had it at my youngest brother's new house that's almost perfectly in the middle of the rest of us. They bought a house, sold a house and moved in March right in the beginning chaos of covid. My middle brother and his partner did the same in May. Both of them went really smoothly all things considered.

On Friday I did get the crosshatching and borders done on the flower quilt so I zipped it off and basted on 2 of my veterans quilts. I want to get these quilted this week so I can deliver a fresh stack of quilts to the VA contact by next week.

I had planned to start quilting them yesterday but I spent most of the day ironing fabric. 

​This week I'll focus on the 2 veterans quilts and maybe start cutting some more veterans quilt kits from all the patriotic fabric I bought a few weeks ago.

It was easy to get stuff done this weekend because it's entirely too hot and humid to be outside. The mold is up so my allergies are insane. I'm averaging one Benedryl every hour and a half. (No, it doesn't make me sleepy because I've been taking it daily for over 30 years. Nothing else works as well as the Benedryl.)
I also deleted a game off my phone that was wasting entirely too much of my time.

I'm making progress on the quilt crosshatching the background diamonds and doing the ruler work in the border blocks. I set a goal of doing a row a day and now I only have 3 rows left. After I finish this ruler work I'll take it off for a bit to quilt a couple of veterans quilts and then I'll put this back on to quilt around the floral blocks.

Limiting myself to one row a day  and quilting left-handed is keeping my left wrist happy so I'll stick with that mode.

I started making blocks for another veterans quilt. I did spend some time in EQ looking for my next big project but nothing is striking me yet so I'll keep going on veterans quilts. I do enjoy making them especially knowing that they are truly appreciated. Once I get this top put together I'll get busy making kits from all the patriotic fabrics that I bought a couple of weeks ago.

After 2 false starts I finally got going on this baby quilt. I love doing double crochet, it goes so fast! This one will be done in no time.

I also made a new and really cute postcard design but I can't share it until Mom received it for her birthday this week. We'll go to my brother's this weekend to celebrate with the whole family.

I don't have a lot to share today because yesterday was a busy dyeing day. I'm very grateful to my customers for keeping me so busy lately! Yesterday was a particularly long day but all the fabric is happily batching and waiting to be washed out this evening. I"m lucky to have my husband's abandoned sauna for batching so I get very consistent temperatures every week.

I'm slowly making progress on the quilt. I've finished 3 rows of 8 of the cross-hatching and border blocks. My left wrist has mostly healed itself but I'll continue to quilt with the ruler in my right hand for a while.
​After the Direct TV repair person comes today I'll be right back on this and, hopefully, get another row done.