Winter is rapidly approaching in northern Michigan. We saw our first snowflakes tonight, our headlamps illuminating them as we walked the dogs in the dark after supper. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m not a fan of these “shorter” days. I don’t like how it looks like the middle of the night at 7 in the morning or how by 6-something-o’clock in the evening it’s pitch black outside. The dogs don’t seem to mind these “night hikes” through the neighborhood, but I do feel just a tiny bit of apprehension over whether or not we’re going to encounter some sort of scary night creature. Like a bear…as happened to one of our daughters during a run at dusk. Or a bobcat…as happened once before to us, which was quite an ordeal involving a can of bear spray that was discharged into a human’s eyes.
But that’s a story for another time!
This cooler weather has me reaching for afghans and quilts every evening and being thankful for my snuggly “little” dog who likes to curl up next to me on the couch and share his body heat.
This past Sunday, when our outdoor work session was put on hold due to endless drizzle, I spent several hours in the sewing room working on one of my unfinished quilts while Hubby caught up on work and we finished an audiobook we’d been listening to. (The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley) I can’t say that I wasn’t thrilled to be able to put off the hours and hours of raking that still need to be done, but I would love to be able to get the leaves taken care of before the temps drop so low that I freeze my fanny while raking. (Raking/leaf blowing is probably my absolute least favorite chore. I’m not kidding when I say it’s a ten-hour job. I enjoy the first hour. After that…it’s just drudgery! But it must be done because wet, moldy leaves are an allergy sufferer’s worst nightmare in the spring.)
The quilt, with two deviations from the pattern (I chose to leave off the extra border and use fewer blocks), comes from the October 2014 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting. It is called Pieceful Waters and uses paper-piecing to make Crossed Canoe blocks. My hope is to have it finished completely by the end of the month. For some strange reason, I seem to stall a bit when it comes to sewing backings and doing the quilting and binding. So…we’ll see. I’ve set a goal to finish one unfinished project this month, so this may be the one.
Several of the fabrics in this quilt were used in previous projects. There’s even some pink that I used in my second quilt–a baby quilt for our first baby over 20 years ago! The Wizard of Oz green in the second pic was used in a bed quilt I made for one of our daughters when she was a toddler. Our other daughter’s quilt had a blue Wizard of Oz fabric. I think that block is my absolute favorite in this quilt. The floral in the border triangles can be found in several other quilts in our home. I must have bought a ton of that! I’ve finally whittled my supply of that one down to just a few large rectangular scraps.
I’m pretty pleased to note that I didn’t purchase any new fabric for this quilt. Instead, I pulled everything from my stash!
Lazy Saturday Quilts 