Tomorrow September Arrives

Time just flies by---way too fast. My favorite time of year is about here. I love the autumn with the beautiful colors and the cooler days it brings. If I could choose just one month to have all the time, it would be October.

I started playing with some of my batiks today. This is what I am coming up with. Love the colors and will see how far I go with them. I sewed the circles to lightweight fusible interfacing so that the fusible side is on the outside after I cut the slit and turn it. That way, I can iron it to the background square. Doesn't seem as stiff as the lightweight fusible web and gives a finished edge for invisible machine applique or a decorative buttonhole stitch in pretty colors. I think I like it. (Click on picture to enlarge)

From my Needlepoint Days

Starting back in the early 70's when we lived in Newton, Kansas - the least favorite place the Santa Fe transferred us to - I took up needlepoint which I did for eleven years. I made lots and lots of pillows and pictures and even a couple of vests. One day I will get the vest out and take a picture of that. There are also still a couple of unfinished projects in the basement which will most likely stay that way - unfinished! I just sketched out on canvas a rough drawing from a picture in a magazine and then filled it in with lots of different stitches and colors. I do know that there should have been shading on the house. We will just call this folk art! For some reason, I really like this and it hangs in my living room. Again, I found the neat frame in an antique shop and we framed it ourselves. I did this in the late 1970's. The last cloud on the right reminds me of a little worm! Figure that's okay as you are supposed to see different things in clouds, right? (Click picture to enlarge)

Another Small Wallhanging

Just a little piece I did two or three years ago from a pattern I found in Quilting Arts magazine. It is raw edge fused applique - for non-quilters, you cut out all the pieces that have been backed with a "fusible web" and iron them on the background. The batik fabrics work really well in this method because they are so firmly woven. It is then machine quilted quite heavily. You could also do lots of decorative stitches, add beads, sparkle, etc. I was just beginning to get a little better at machine quilting. I am still not great at it but much more comfortable.

(Click picture to enlarge)

Some Treasured Needlework

My late husband and I always had multiple hobbies and tried many, many things. My daughter used to kid us and said we had the "hobby of the month". He always had an HO railroad layout - the one in Kansas City was huge and very cool. He was a railroader from the time he was 17 years old. He also loved to build model planes - tissue paper pinned and glued over a stick skeleton then painted. Even had one with a gas engine at one time. Then there was photography - he bought a lot of dark room equipment and cameras from a fellow he worked with and set up a dark room in our basement. That was lots of fun - he made our Christmas cards for several years. When he retired we took a folk art painting class together and he would cut out things for us to paint. I still have some of the cute stuff we did at Christmas time. Then there was the whirligig and windtoys that he made. Our backyard fence had a whirligig on each post. I kidded him and said that when a wind came up the whole backyard would take off. He made lots of them and we would go to craft fairs where he would sell them - not for the need of money but just for the joy of having someone want something he had made. He also took up another hobby - counted crossstitch. I was doing that one day and he said, "I think I could do that." So I found an easy pattern, the cloth and floss and showed hime how. Well, he turned out the most beautiful crossstitch - always on very small count cloth and complicated patterns. There were some by P. Buckley Moss that he loved to do. I will put one in this post. It was a picture of two pretty little quilters which I actually had started but gave up on it. He finished it beautifully and I found a wonderful antique frame in an antique shop in Lacon, Illinois, and we framed it. A treasure, for sure. Then there are a little boy and girl he did that are just so pretty. I took the pictures at an angle so the flash would not reflect. I think you can still see how lovely his work was. (Click pictures to enlarge)

Stained Glass Kaleidoscopes

Played around on Kaleidoscope Kreator with the photo of my beautiful stained glass. Here are two that I thought were really neat. (Click to enlarge)

Hanging in my Front Window

This beautiful stained glass quilt block is another birthday gift from my daughter and son and their spouses. It looks just beautiful hanging in my window and is the first thing I see when I look there. I love my little condo but the view of other brown houses and carports is not what you would call very scenic so this is a lovely addition to my window. It was made by an artist in a little town east of here. Thank you so much, my dear kids!!

A Little Something

This is a little wallhanging I put together and am not sure if I will take it further or not. It's hanging on the wall in the basement waiting for me to finish it. I love the batiks in it and think the colors are so very pretty. I may just quilt and bind it or maybe add borders or even maybe make it bigger. Of course, it's paper pieced and pretty easy to do. (Click picture to enlarge)