Bay of Fundy...

We interrupt this regularly scheduled quilting blog to visit with a fellow Bay of Fundy-phile. I'm gonna post a few pictures if you guys don't mind. Nothing quilty. Well... I can't exactly promise that, can I? Here we go, Terri.

This is one of my favorite pictures that I took while in Maine. I can't say why, exactly... The quality is poor- the backlighting on the conservation officer makes the foreground grainy, the rain obscures the view out the lighthouse windows. Maybe I love it because it recalls the place so well. It was COLD. And as you can see, raining. And the wind was blowing so hard you could feel the gusts shake the lighthouse tower. I was completely enchanted. The conservation officer- I have no idea of his name, but it's a small place, bet we could find out... he kept trying to get out of my way so that I could get a good picture. I finally had to tell him that I wanted him in the picture. (I was probably as red as my hair! but my! doesn't he just look like a Mainer! He said he acts like one, too!) He keeps the lighthouse- the fresnel(3rd order?) is kept by the coast guard.

East Quoddy...

is out there... somewhere. Pretty bad when you can't find a light house in a storm! You might not be able to tell it, but it was raining buckets and the wind was blowing so strong, it nearly blew my toboggan right off my head! It did completely annihilate my friend Harriet's brand new umbrella. So I dashed out of the bus, down the path, through a grove of pine trees- which I am sure smelled lovely, but I was too busy trying to stay alive and keeping my camera from getting soaked to notice the smell of the fir trees- and snapped this one and only picture of a lovely lighthouse- (bought a book later, so I'd have a better picture) and ran back onto the bus- thoroughly soaked. It was crazy, man! East Quoddy is in Canada.

Um...might have got a little caught up in detail...

Here are a couple of the postcards that I made up after my trip to Maine. (Did I mention what a wonderful time I had?) So I came home and was all inspired to make postcards. I got these 2 done and ran out of umph. Really, the umph is still there, just the time that runs short. Bummer.

The top picture is of my favorite lighthouse- West Quoddy. It is on the Bay of Fundy and the weather there was incredible. You see why we need lighthouses! It is red striped so that it is easily seen in snow- a Canadian tradition. East Quoddy, in Canada, has a red cross painted on it's side. I did a lot of hunting for the right fabrics from my stash and fussy cutting. Amazing what a piece of fabric looks like when you cut it down to nothing! Or use the reverse side. I put a heat-fix swarovski crystal in as the lights and they do twinkle.

The bottom one is of Pemaquid- it sits on a point with the most incredible stone formations- they look like stripes of wood in the ground. This postcard is kinda tongue-in-cheek. When I got home from my big trip, I was showing the kids my pictures. Eva(8) and Bekah(6) asked, at almost the same time, "Why do they have lights in their elevators?" I was puzzled by what they meant and then it hits me- the lighthouses really do look like our grain elevators(silos!) I had a good giggle over that one and so I moved the stone up closer to the lighthouse so that it kinda looks like plowed furrows- if ya didn't know any better! I had a great time piddling with these and I plan on making a full set, but I'm thinking that they might not ever make it to the mail box.

The little torn strips of fabric are for a class I taught on postcards- they are overdyes from my stash that Sarah and I made for our birthdays. The class was a hit and I even had a couple kits left over that are gonna make it, someday, to my Mom. I have put the post card mess up- worse than scrapbooking- and I am working on getting quilts quilted. Wait a minute, I sound way too responsible. Let me fix that... I am also sewing on a paper peicing project. Fooling around when I should be working. There, that sounds more like the me I know!

Golden days of Autumn...

The sun is shining today. Ya gotta love that. I am trying to get caught up on chores after company has moved on. Hard to get back in the swing of things, when all I really want is a nap! Doing the Flylady thing by getting all the linens washed and replaced for the next shift. Sheets and towels are easy.

This little wallhanging was something I peiced last winter. Just got around to quilting and binding it. It's simple and seems to match my mood, lately. I have been really pushing to get all of other folks' holiday quilting done so that I might have some time to do some of my own... doesn't that sound optimistic? Hope I don't get good and sick of it, and then just take a week off!!

The guys went deer hunting last weekend. DS Jacob(14y) got his first deer- 2 does. I guess that part of the state is overrun with deer. He was thrilled and I am happy for the meat. Seems to be taking me longer than it should to get it all processed and in the freezer. I am going to have to beg the older boys to give me a hand- the little ones are doing their best, but there is only so much you can do with a butter knife- as DS Abe(4) will tell you. But they are happy workers and we are slowing getting through it all. Good enough!

spooky...

"Love is kinda crazy with a spooky little girl like you..."

Growing up, my Mom had an Andy Williams record... remember vinyl records? And I had a crush on him. He would sing "spooky" and I'd get all giggly. "First you'd say, "No... I've got some plans for tonight..." and then you'd stop... and say..."alright."" I loved that song! "Windy" and "My beautiful balloon" was also on that record. Whenever I'm in an elevator or a department store and hear one of those songs, it just makes me smile. This little wallhanging also makes me smile.

Everytime someone sees it, they say, "That's kinda spooky." And I tilt my head to the side and say, "Really?" Then they'll backtrack and say something like, "In a good kind a way." And then I smile. Funny thing about this little piece. I was doing some bleach resist for a friend. I did the usual and when I was running short of new ideas, I had only 2 peices of fabric left and decided to just make a couple things for me. John plopped his hands down on the one peice and said, "spray my hands." Sounded like a plan to me. So we did. It turned out cute so I sent it to my friend along with the others we made that day. Then, of course the girls had to get in on the fun. I only had one piece of fabric left so they'd have to share. Eva got there first so she placed her hand closest to me and then Bekah had to stretch her hand out across the fabric to get it in. I sprayed and we resisted and dunked and washed and dried... surprise!!! the girls' looks dimensional, because Bekah is 2 years younger and smaller- in the distance. Creating depth with bleach resist is just the coolest thing. And the way the bleach puddled in certain spaces... spooky. But they are my sweet girls' hands and so I guess I don't really see it that way. As Bob Ross would have said, "It's a happy little accident." That's maybe a little spooky! I was very hesitant to quilt it as the resist areas are a bit subtle and I didn't want to muddy it up too much, but I think it turned out fine. The borders I made by fan folding the fabric and then spraying the bleach solution on the folds- front and back. I was afraid that it might be too busy for the piece, but the monochromatic color keeps it kinda calm- still letting the hands sizzle a bit.

Plain Jane...

I love peicing. When I am sitting there in front of my little Singer 301, just matching up peices and feeding them through... that's when I rememeber why I like to quilt. Some people really like choosing fabrics or drafting patterns... and I enjoy all of that, too, but the sewing... ah man! I love that! I hadn't done any in quite some time- been busy traveling, trying to get ready for winter, laundry... always the laundry!... and then last night, I staged a little coup on that laundry and I sewed.

Dh's cashier, Jane, is retiring and this weekend is her last days in the store, so I threw together this little table runner. I already had a couple of the blocks from a Stack and Whack class I taught a couple years ago. So I sewed up a couple more, set them in a very traditional fabric- just something from the ole stash and voila! a table runner. Of course, then it had to be quilted and bound, but that only took an hour or so and I think it turned out anything but plain. Simple, yes, but not plain.

I have been quilting a green quilt for the past 3 weeks. It has been a bane to my quilting life, but I finally finished it last night so that I could get this little project done. It wasn't that I didn't like the quilt, it just wasn't going smoothly. I ripped and ripped and tried again. Finally, I just decided that it'd have to just suffice and I trudged on to the finish line. One of the problems with it was the YLI thread called teals. The color of gangrene. It just doesn't have the tensile strength of other YLI colors and it drives me to distraction with the constant breaking. Not that it broke all that much- but when you are working with a high contrast thread- every little start and stop shows! I finally decided to finish what I had started- the 4, yes 4!! outer borders and switched to a different variegated green thread for the body of the quilt. Went much more smoothly, but by then, I was good and sick of the project and wished I could have just taken it off the frame and come back to it next month. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way and once you are all pinned on and the sewing begins, you are pretty much committed. To the loony house! My longsuffering was at it's limit- stress suffering- and so I ad libbed all over that quilt- should have drawn some reference lines, but I was way past that point. Ah, well, all's well that ends well, but there will be no picture to haunt me of that one!

But see? I have a little success story of a table runner to motivate me to keep on trying! Chug chug chug!

Rockland...

Things have been just a tad rocky since I've been home. Nothing major, just trying to get back in the groove. Orchestrating events around 10 people is complicated when you do it every day, but when you take a week and a half off- and then plop yourself back in the middle of it... well, it's a tad confusing. Like trying to get your land legs back under you after being at sea! I can't find anything and I'm not sure what's on the agenda. So when I forget something, you'll just have to pardon me until I am back on track.

I had a great time and it was worth every confusing moment I've had since my return. This picture is of the Rockland Light. It is on a very long breakwater- nearly a mile. We stayed at a hotel on Rockport point that ran up to the breakwater, so we got to walk out there before dinner. It was a weird experience. You have to keep your head down and your eyes on the rocks as they are kinda uneven(nothing like Springpoint- I'll post a picture of that, soon.) So, you've got your head down and you're concentrating on not twisting an ankle... you walk for what seems a real long time, take a break and look up... the lighthouse seems further away than when you started! So you walk some more and still, no closer! Of course the house is just further away than it looks because it is such a straight stretch. But worth the walk, I think. It was a really lovely spot. Completely surrounded by water and I could just imagine how unsettling a bad storm could have been- but look at that gorgeous blue sky! A two mile walk before dinner sure whipped up my appetite and I had some of the best seafood ever. I only ate beef, once, the entire trip. And OK, every evening I had dessert- whatever was chocolate on the menu. (Except for the time I had blueberry pie!) I figured Aunt Dottie would want her money's worth, right?

We stayed at a different hotel, each night. That was always an adventure- to see a new area of Maine and test out a new bed. Didn't have an uncomfortable bed the entire time. We would have to get up early and were on the road by 8am, most mornings, so a bed of those rocks might have seemed pretty comfy. We would drive to several lighthouses each day- there are over 60 lighthouses in Maine. Most of the lighthouses are not open to the public, but they rolled out the red carpet and we got to climb a whole lot of them. That was my favorite part- the views were gorgeous, and it was just so cool to see what someone else saw- a couple hundred years ago, ya know? Our lunches were mostly boxed lunches prepared by the hotel where we stayed the previous night and we had a few very pleasant picnics. We had to eat on the bus, once, due to rain.

And Aunt Dottie was right, every lighthouse was different. I think the surroundings were the most varied. Some were on islands- I took a whole lot of boat rides. Some were on rocky points. Some were surrounded by balsam trees- oh, the smell was wonderful! Some were very remote and others were smack-dab in the middle of a subdivision. But they were all beautiful and had a lot of history in them.

I was with a small group of 13 people- and that included the bus driver and the tour guide. They were such fun. Two married couples(each married for 43 years!) and the guide and driver were guys, but the rest were gals and we all got along great! There wasn't a single stinker among them! In such a small group, one bad apple could have made the trip less than pleasant, but everyone was so sweet and just wonderful. Not a grumpy word said. I think everybody was just determined to have a great time. We could have sat at different tables at dinner, but we all liked each other so much, the tour guide just started reserving one big table. We had so many hilarious moments over dinner. I have all of their addresses and plan on making a some lighthouse postcards to send to them. I've already gathered up some nice seaside fabrics at work, yesterday. But first... I need clear a path- both physically and mentally. Now where did I put that clothes washer?