October has arrived - great weather and horrible, rainy days.

 The great weather days are perfect for doing some outside fall cleanup chores and tasks because you know you might not get another chance and the sunshine feels awesome.  The rainy days are not so great for me as I feel totally unmotivated to do some of my "inside" tasks such as defrosting the freezer.  When it was hot, summer weather, it was too warm to do that chore.  Today would be perfect but the gas fireplace is on and it feels more like getting comfy and reading? 

I had a real push in September to get all my 'survivor' quilts finished.  I had 9 sitting on hangers waiting to hear to hear if they would be needed locally for Orange Sunday at the Anglican church or, if a few might be needed, or none.  If they weren't needed, I was going to box the tops up and mail off to Ontario to Vanessa who runs and organizes the Quilts for Survivors program.  On the Tuesday afternoon I got a text saying that they would like quilts for Sunday Sept 24 where they would be blessed and smudged.  I managed to get 4 quilt tops ready with batting and backing and then got them layered, ready to go.  My quilting was simple: stitch in the ditch and diagonal lines.  

I did some serious stitching and managed to get eight of them quilted and bound by Friday evening.  Saturday, I loaded the last one on the B-line quilting frame (it was a little larger) and managed to quilt it in the morning and then stitched the binding on and they were picked up by 2pm.  WHEW!  

But the quilts are gone and hopefully heading to be wrapped around their recipients in the next week or so.  

A huge thank you to Shirley from my traditional guild.  She had given me some fabric the previous week that was perfect for backings.  I also had purchased a bolt of orange fabric for a great price so that was handy to use for backings as well.   These are the first 6 quilts all quilted and ready for binding.   

 

 And they are labelled and bound and finished.

Here are the nine of the finished quilt.  Photography wasn't the best as I was hurrying to get the pictures taken so that they would be ready for pickup and I threw them on the floor for each picture.

Once that was done, I did a major clean up of the disaster zone that was my working and sewing area.  

Another friend from the local guild was making some hug blocks for Quilts of Valour.  These are 9" finished blocks that are required to be made using Northcott "Oh Canada" fabrics and I have a variety of kits cut for these from a few years ago.  I made up six to send to the coordinator.  She puts together groups of 30 blocks that are sent to her from all the provinces and territories which are then made into quilts by volunteers and the blocks represent quilts across our vast country. 

Then, a nice break for an afternoon.  It was last day of being able to fish for "pinks" - a variety of salmon and this area is only 20 minute drive from our house but.... I had never been here before.  My husband didn't fish but he wanted to watch the fishermen in action and it was lovely down at the Fraser River.  We were on the south side of the river, just east of the Mission bridge and an place completely unknown to me. 

In order to motivate my guild to make hug blocks, I dug out a kit for the prairie flower and stitched it up. I will show it to the group on Facebook and maybe some of the new members might want to make a block when they see how simple and easy it is to cut and put together. 

After that, I decided to make a few of the wonky shoo fly blocks for the Modern quilt that I belong to.  That was fun and there were 3 different methods to choose from.  I chose the easiest one, of course, and had fun making these. 

My blocks for September, Patterns by Jen, were done.  Mustard yellow was the colour choice.  A simple block and was easy to piece two... I like to do two with the lights and darks reversed. 

My rainbow scrap challenge blocks, aqua, were finished and these are my plus blocks completed.

The scrappy strip blocks got made. 

I wanted to something a little different and looked at my list of  projects waiting or works in progress and thought that this table runner would be perfect for this time of year.  I dug out the bits I had already cut and started preparing the rest of what was needed.  This is where I am at this point and now, time for some tiny stitching and the embroidery.   I have the owl to assemble and fuse on but didn't want to try it last night... the pieces are tiny! 

Since it was the autumn equinox last week, it was time to put away summer and bring out fall decor.  The first job was to clean my copper kettle... a chore that is always worthwhile when the job is done. 

I keep my decorating simple since there are only two of us who will probably see it but, gives me a warm feeling when I walk into these rooms.  Of course, along with decorating, there is major cleaning happening, which is a good thing. Dust begone! 

My stairwell makes me happy because I am up and down the stairs all day long.  The new tablerunner will go in this space when it is finished. 

I will work on my tablerunner and then I have cut 4 kits of fabrics to make 3 yard quilts plus, my Heartstrings group chose jelly rolls for the project of the month.  There are also quilt tops on hangers that need to be finished and would love to see the space empty until I fill it up again with new tops.  

Happy fall y'all. Appreciate the sunny days but time to pull out some warmer sweaters and long pants.