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Here is the finished basket quilt. I love how cheery it is.
It even won a blue ribbon at the fair!
It is machine pieced, machine and hand appliqued, and machine quilted.
53 inches wide by 64 inches tall - a great size for a bed topper.
You can find it in the shop here.
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August 30, 1987. Mountain Lake, Virginia.
Borrowed 1958 wedding dress.
It is amazing that we still look JUST like this!
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"It was the kind of laughter that caught like brairs in her chest and felt very much like pain."
Lyddie, Katherine Paterson, 1991
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Today was the fair parade, a great way to end a week of community togetherness.
The local fair always marks the end of summer vacation for us.
We have started to feel a crispiness to the morning and evening air and the sun is setting a little earlier each night. School starts in another week and we know it is time to go through the dressers and cull the outgrown clothes, get a few needed school supplies, and squeeze in a few last play dates before settling back into the school year routine.
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We have a bumper crop of pears again this year. After eating, freezing, and canning three bushels of purchased peaches we now have lots of pears from our trees. Yesterday, we tried this Italian Pear Cake. It used quite a few pears and tasted pretty yummy.
We could possibly be getting lots of raspberries too but we haven't battled the pumpkin vines to find them all yet. The pumpkins have grown from their patch up and over all of the raspberry plants.
I am busy cooking and canning tomato sauce every couple of days and this weekend will be trying my hand at canning pears. The canned peaches turned out great so we thought we would try the pears.
Ahhh. This is August.
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It's fair week! I love our local fair. Really. I love almost everything about it.
I love that it is run by volunteers. I love the way it brings the whole community together. I love that it is right before school starts back up. I love that no matter which day you go you will see many of your friends. I love that you can go in the morning before the rides are working and just stroll around and watch the animals. I love that you can enter items for judging. I love that kids of any age can enter things. I love the friendly competition of the homemaker of the year.
We didn't enter anything from our garden this year. This is one of three tables of garden produce.
I didn't enter any canning this year either. There are more entries on the other side of this display.
I entered a bunch of quilts, knitting, and other needlework items. P entered some sewing and drawings. We did well with our entries and got a bunch of ribbons and prize money!
In a way the fair is a bit like New Years. We make resolutions that next year we will enter more things. We will have flowers and enter them. We will try entering baked goods. I will try for homemaker of the year. But usually we are scrambling the day before the entries are due and trying to remember anything that we have made and can submit.
Yesterday was opening day for the fair. The fair starts with a kid parade from downtown to the fair grounds. The kids wear costumes and decorate their bikes. P walked with M and his girlfriend this year.
After the parade reaches the fairgrounds there are kid activities in the arena. There is a trike pull where the kids ride bikes loaded with milk crates filled with gallon jugs of water. There are also races. P participated in the sack race but did not want to do the three legged race. The kids all get ribbons and tickets for the rides.
When the boys were little we would all ride the Ferris wheel before heading home. P had her sights set on the carousel and could not be convinced to ride the Ferris wheel.
She rode the carousel horses twice. The second time was after dark! On the way home she told me that the horse ride was the best ride she has EVER ridden.
It is the ONLY ride she has ridden.
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A friend recently returned from a trip to the thrift with a big sister to my little pyrex bowl that I picked up last winter.
I love it and use it all the time now. It is much more fun than a clear glass bowl.
Thanks for thinking of me, M!
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Time sure flies. It is hard for me to believe that M will be a senior in high school this year. We had a little senior portrait photo session this week. I think they turned out pretty good but I think I could do better. He had is wisdom teeth out yesterday so I'll have to wait a while to try again.
But really, how did this little squirt on the left
turn into this so fast?
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I've been missing the zinnias this year. P and I saved a huge bag of seeds from our flowers last year and planted a long row this spring. Not a single zinnia sprouted. It was very sad, so very sad. I think we must have had a hybrid variety last year. I'll have to look for a variety that we can save the seed from next year.
While we had all of the scraps out and in a big mess we pulled out some zinnia colored bits to make a zinnia quilt. Now we will be able to have a riot of pink, yellow, and orange, and red all year long.
The Zinnia Quilt will be the first of my Improv(E) your Butt challenge quilts. I have earned all of these fabric pieces since I joint Team "Quilter Butts". I am feeling pretty good about my walking progress. I missed a few days last week but have been back on track this week. I have met my goal!
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