What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday week last week, and that the fun continues this week. Once Christmas arrived, things definitely slowed down here. It has been a welcome respite from all the hustle and bustle of the season. I’ve had time to slow down, work on a couple of ideas, enjoy the lights on the tree, and watch the birds. They have been busy this week eating all the seed they can stuff into their beaks. Here, the red bellied woodpecker shares the bounty with a bluebird and a nuthatch. Colder weather and several days of rain ...

It has been a hectic week, with frantic sewing to try to catch up on the projects I wanted for the Fiber Fair. The event was yesterday, and I’ll tell you more about that in the coming week. For now, I am taking a moment on a Sunday for relaxation, and marveling at our beautiful world with its fall color and wildlife. The tulip poplar tree in the front was showing brilliant color for a day or two, then the leaves began coming down in earnest.

It was gorgeous for about a week, then it was past peak. Same ...

Summer has arrived, and with it comes activity with our car clubs. This past week, the British car club held a drive up to the Blue Ridge Parkway with lunch at the Pisgah Inn. Stopping at an overlook on the way home, we couldn’t resist getting a photo of our MINI with the mountains in the distance.

The day started at a local grocery store parking lot where we gathered for the drive. It was good to catch up with friends not seen in a while.

Up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, we motored along. There are 8 tunnels ...

It has been a minute since we had a Sunday chat. October was so jam packed with projects. November is a time to relax and enjoy the season. Autumn color is hitting its peak this past week or so, and the color is glorious. We did a wonderful drive on our mountain roads with a car club, enjoyed some hot soup for a charity event, and watched the wildlife from our door. Get a cuppa, and settle in for a nice, long, catch-up chat.

Our local food bank, called Manna, serves the 12 county area of Western North Carolina, supporting ...

October was a good month for me and no-blog Mary.

Mary finished her quilt as well as adding some big stitch quilting to it.  I'm so glad the heat of the summer is over and Mary was able to resume her binding challenge with me.

It's been a fruitful month; lots going on and plenty accomplished on the home front. These peaches from our own trees were as delicious and sweet as they look. The deer thought so too. We managed to harvest a few more than are pictured here but, sadly, not many. Everything was looking great out in the orchard. We checked on the peaches daily and watched them grow and ripen to perfection. I was

It's been a fruitful month; lots going on and plenty accomplished on the home front. These peaches from our own trees were as delicious and sweet as they look. The deer thought so too. We managed to harvest a few more than are pictured here but, sadly, not many. Everything was looking great out in the orchard. We checked on the peaches daily and watched them grow and ripen to perfection. I was

The rain last weekend really did bring out the green in the countryside, in the grass and ground covers, bushes and trees. The range of green in spring is wonderful, an awakening of the land. Settle in with your favorite cuppa, and enjoy a long and picture heavy post. As the hostas are coming up, I’ve noticed the deer stopping by more often. This day there were three, this one was at the edge of my hosta bed.

The other two were in the meadow. The meadow grass is growing now, and the trees behind are starting to leaf ...

After a couple of weeks of appliqueing, my Dilly Flowers is a top!

So happy to have this done!  I've been busy frankenpiecing batting pieces for this top.  This is a lap size top, so pulling batting pieces for this is much easier than for a full size top.   My hubby asked why not use the roll of batting instead?  Smaller pieces just need to be used up first; otherwise, things will get out of control!  You all know how that is, don't you?  LOL

I just want to bring to your attention that the vine design is ...

One morning last week, I looked outside the kitchen patio door and saw something dark at the top of our hill.  Did someone throw out a Xmas tree or a garbage bag or was it a person?  What was it?

Zoomed in for a closer look.  Nope, still can't see what it is.  Lordy, it is big .... was it a bear?  No, wrong colour as the bears here are black and this is kind of ...

This UFO only needed two border blocks and it could have been done ages ago.  Oh well, it is done now and this top and another are with my favourite LAer, Kathy.

Even though the garden is winding down, we still have a bunch of tomatoes ripening daily. The vines are looking a bit ragged, with some dead leaves and branches, and I need to clean them up a bit. But the tomatoes themselves don’t seem to mind.

I still have several more clusters of grape tomatoes, ripening slowly. These are so sweet, and will turn fully red indoors, so I pluck them at this orange stage so the critters won’t eat them first.

Looking out the kitchen window as I made a cup of coffee this week, the deer ...

Once again, we’ve had a busy week with yet one more quick trip to Atlanta among appointments and planning a big event that was held yesterday. I’ll have more on that for you in a day or so. In the heat this week, my daylilies decided it was time to start their show. I got out early one morning before the heat hit to get a few photos. This peach one with the yellow throat is huge. I like the ruffled edges of the petals.

Nearby, a dark purple one is blooming.

I thought I had pulled up ...

It has been a full week of wildlife visitors, with lots of animals and birds stopping by. I give treats to some, and some I have to hold my breath not to scare away. There is a small herd of five female deer that live in the forest on our property and the adjoining properties. We don’t see them often, but this day My Sweet Babboo came in to tell me they were on the hill behind the house. We didn’t dare go out, as they would bound away, so I got the camera and took a photo ...

This is what I saw when the curtains were opened this morning.  Usually, my hubby has them open by the time I get downstairs but not this morning.  Why?  Surprise!

Where have the years gone?  One day I'm 20, then 50 and .... wham ..... 70!  Thank you to my dear family for arranging this.

On the veranda, look who is back! The wren couple have build another nest in a little metal bucket. I felt so bad for them when something got their eggs a couple of weeks ago. Maybe they will be able to raise a family this time. I hope their nest is high enough so no predators get at it. They still won’t use the birdhouse that My Sweet Babboo got for them. Look closely, those white spots are on the female wren as she is sitting on at least two eggs. I tried to get a good look when ...

Over the past few weeks, I’ve finished up all the Zoom contracts that I had for my Scrap Dancing program. On the last two, I mentioned that I would be doing a tutorial on Pin Weaving. I thought I could just link the Moda Bake Shop post, but their website update appears to have dropped older posts. So, I have pulled the photos from my original pattern, and this project will be coming this week. I’ll do a tutorial on pin weaving, then a second post will assemble this bag.

Out in the back, the rhododendrons are finally ...

November usually brings colorful trees with gold and rust, burgundy and rich browns. This year it is a little sparse, as two storms with high winds have brought down a lot of leaves before they could turn. I did get a photo of this one, in the process of changing to a lovely orangy gold.

The view in the valley prior to the storm showed some lovely changes in progress.

Pine siskins migrating south took over the bird feeder for a couple of days. There are 15 of them on the feeder in this photo, and more were hanging out ...

Sourdough fail - 1st attempt I spent most of the day in the kitchen yesterday working through the process that was supposed to yield two round loaves of sourdough bread. It was experiment; and, as I recall from high school Chemistry class, some experiments fail. This was one of those. Going back and reviewing all of the elements has led me to the conclusion that the starter isn't quite ripe