It's beginning to look a lot like...Halloween??

They were predicting snow, but I really didn't expect to see this when I looked out my back door up this morning.  I'm hoping the sun will come out and do a lot of melting before I head up to Colorado.  Driving in snowy, slick roads is not my idea of a good time!

It is beautiful to look at, and we certainly need the moisture.  Hope some of it is making it over to Texas, where they need it even more.

Thanks Yetta!

Yetta sent me a bunch of tops besides the guitar quilt to quilt for her grandson.  This is the first one I finished, and there are several more that just need borders to grow them a little.  Thanks Yetta!

 I finished this one to deliver 11 quilts to Dr. Kaufman today.  It was a great day, all our errands fell into place in a timely fashion.  I found convenient parking spaces everywhere I went.  Some days are just like that...the stars align and everything works well.  It didn't end perfectly--we brought home our repaired TV and there was no power cord in the box!  Oh well, all in all everything else went without a hitch. 

...with a little help from my friends

Having quilty friends makes it much easier to get a lot of quilts finished.  Especially when one of those friends comes for a week and is a production quilter.  Thanks Pat for putting together these quilt tops!

Judy A. gave us the center Corvettes and Ellen (if memory serves, which it frequently doesn't anymore) gave us the backing.  Pat had made yards of bias binding from a diagonal print featuring signal lights some time ago.  This was a most appropriate use of it!

It's a great quilt for a boy.  It seems harder to put together "boy" quilts from our stash.


Cathy gave us some blocks, and Pat magically transformed them into this top using a Savers fabric from my stash that picked up the colors for a border.

I also had a perfect backing fabric, a woven plaid also from Savers that was wide enough not to have to be pieced.  Yay!

 Thanks again friends!  A lot of children are going to get some comforting quilts!

Space for a girl

Pat put one more top together from the space blocks she had along with some of my stash fabrics.  We thought this one would be more of a girl's quilt, since it had purple binding and a flowered backing.

 I'm hoping to finish a few more so I can deliver an even dozen to Dr. Kaufman on Wednesday. 

Cranking them out...

Pat picked up the space blocks as part of a kit--for a wall hanging.  She combined them to make three tops.  I had some space fabric as well to add to it.  

 We used a sheet from Savers that must be really high thread count, although we didn't discover a few holes in it until we were rolling it up on the longarm.  

Pat added a little applique of space fabric to cover the holes on the backing, but not without bleeding on it in the process.  In washing it out I noticed that the backing is such a tight weave that it holds water!  

Our stack of quilts is growing, and I'm going to deliver them next Wednesday so I'll be able to finish some more.  

I also quilted Pat's beautiful zen quilt.  It came together wonderfully, and the binding fabric was a batik that was a dream to use besides being beautiful.  It's waiting for something else to run a load in the washer.  The week is going by much too quickly.  Back to the sweatshop...the third space quilt is waiting for binding.

Another finish

Another quilt from Kathy E.'s blocks.  I don't have 30s in my stash except for one small piece of vintage blue with little white characters--a small piece and only 36" wide, so after I put together these blocks I was having a hard time adding anything to it to make it a little bigger and more rectangular.

Pat has a good eye for putting things together.  Works for me, and another top done for one of Dr. Kaufman's patients.  Thanks Kathy E!  I have a quilt to bind...back to the sweatshop.

A friend's quilt

A friend from AZ, Yetta, made this wonderful quilt for her grandson.  When I saw the picture of it on the quilting forum we frequent, I thought it would be a fun quilt to do.  She entrusted me to do the quilting.

 
 

 

  I'll be mailing it out to her today.  I hope she's happy with the results! 

Lemons, lemonade and such...

We recently stopped at Schwebach Farms in Moriarty on the way home and I bought a buttercup squash.  Had never tried it before, and it looked appropriately like fall with bumpy outer skin and witche's moles here and there.  I planned to make a squash and goat cheese filling for tortellini.

Well, the best laid plans.  After I roasted the squash and mixed it with the goat cheese, it was a bit too watery, and would just squeeze out of the tortellini as I tried to fold them in the appropriate shape.  I decided to abandon the squash and just stuff my torts with plain goat cheese.  We had them in a thin chicken broth with a few slivered vegetables, and it was yummy.

The next day I looked for some yeast bread recipes featuring squash and found this one.  I think this may be one of the most delicious yeast breads I've ever made!!  What a wonderful way to use up the squash, and I'm sure the bit of goat cheese that I had mixed with it didn't hurt the bread any.  I froze a couple of loaves to have when Pat is here.

 I may get squash to just use in breadmaking now!  Looking forward to a week of sewing (and eating) when Pat's here.

Another one finished

It's good to have quilting friends that give you blocks and pieces parts to make quilts for our cause!  Kathy E. was very generous with blocks from swaps she participated in on About.com quilting forum and wasn't going to use.  

I made this blue and white quilt from the sampler blocks.  I had the perfect backing in my stash.  I love it when I don't have to piece a backing.  This one just fit.

 Thanks Kathy, and I'll be using the other blocks soon in a quilt!