Catching Up ~ Little Quilts Big Quilts a Storm and A Crow

Good evening. I am back but limping along with a damaged photoshop program tonight. Frustration is mounting, Mounting , MOUNTING!

My internet and phones went out last Wednesday, with intermittent returns until it died entirely on Thursday or Friday. Besides the usual panic of no communication, there was the frustration of not being able to easily follow the election results. 

TV was off then returned--but I for one do not ever sit and watch TV. With current events unfolding, I want to  turn on my phone and see what is happening, at yes, 3 AM, 4 AM, noon and midnight. Landline phone, retained for emergency use was, of course, out of service. 

A repairman arrived late Sunday as the early darkness fell. I waited from 8 AM, no shower for me, no real walks for Mo, we were desperate. My friend came from the beach to help oversee the repair which in the end we were told was not due to the windstorm on Monday, but was due to old faulty poorly designed wiring. The entire system needed to be repaired. [In my defense---the provider did the wiring, after H Sandy. If poorly done it was their fault, not mine.] He opened very closet, moved very piece of furniture. Dust bunnies everywhere, i was mortified. And a bit of a mess was left behind. My fabric bins all set in wobbling towers, my project boxes strewn across the sewing room floor. Old wires and modem boxes left hanging.

 Life just sucks sometimes.

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Being all tense and worried about our nation's future is not conducive to properly calm and pleasant sewing.

 I fiddled with some labels...You know I'm not a fan of labels! Baby Pineapples was delivered to the family with only a tiny almost invisible label: for XXXX * 2020. Fused, not sewed, in case the mom wishes to remove it. I had the lovely quotations printed fabrics, Amelia Earhart, Walt Whitman, planned for the that quilt, but in the end, sanity prevailed.

 My friend L kindly embroidered some labels for me, inspired by labels being created on my Cheri Payne quilting group on FB.

This is Tiny Baskets' label. I may add my name in Sharpie pen.

 And Julierose put a commemorative Halloween Blue Moon, very elegant, on her equally elegant chic Starry-eyed Jack! Mine is less art, more cartoon. But a memory.

 

As a break after finishing the two big summer project quilts, I worked on this small funky quilt.

 

The main Watermelon quilt came to me not quite finished in a box of scraps from a swap. Again this is a Cheri Payne design, Made by my swap friend MA. I loved the little quilt and actually emailed her, thinking she included it by mistake! But no, she said, All yours, have fun with it. I hope she is okay with what I did.

 

The watermelons should seem summery., but MA's dark prim palette made me think of Fall. And crows!

 

I also wanted to try a popular new to me way of applique for primitive quilts: a quilt is pieced and quilted, washed and crumpled, maybe coffee dyed to age it. And when all that is done, the wool appliqué is added. Huh. Fun?

 

I used a paper sew thru template for the cable quilting. Prob should hand quilt but this is supposed to be fun, I reminded myself. Removing paper templates? =Not Fun.

MA's darling doll dress style fabric for binding, tiny calico flowers, precious scraps from the same swap.

 

Additional cornerstones from  a gift package from Penny in SA!

Here is Crow audition One. It's the crow and Flag from another Cheri Payne Group sew along, done this October. 

 

But Jan Patek's Starry Eyed Crow with Flag, choice number two, won out. The sitting crow, # 1, looked so sad, I thought.

We don't see many crows here at the beach. Only in the fall, near the tideline, a small crow that is locally called a fish crow. They are only here in the autumn, I don't know where they really live.

 

The Flag she holds will remind me always of this election week.

Sneak peek: Shirley's Christmas quilt is ready for binding!

This plaid, ordered last winter, awaited through months of covid slowdown.

 

And I hung A Year in the front corner of my living room, just for a few weeks. It's the only free wall I had. Visual clutter--- hidden by the open door. I do love this quilt so much

Sending love and care to everyone, please be safe---the virus is bigger than ever. What a nightmare our world, our lives have become. Pray for hope and better days ahead. Love you all! 

 

lizzy

gone to the beach........

 The windstorm destroyed the kindness/hope shell installation. 

Obliterated.

I put out my last two shells on Halloween Eve. Perhaps this is one of them?

Even the Par Duck gaggle is half buried.

Mr Mockingbird, looking very fluffy and handsome, singing away in the ugly locust tree. Returned from his nesting area in the dunes.

Autumn blue sky above. And a classic Autumn sunset sky.