Catching up

There has been a lot going on here, as usual! The second week after the wedding was wonderfully quiet but then we ramped back up into real life.

Rachel is going to Africa in January. She has been sponsoring a child for 2 1/2 years and has the opportunity to travel to see how the organization works, visit some of the centers to see how they operate and spend time with the children. The most exciting thing is she will get to spend the day with the child she's been sponsoring. She's been raising the money with various fundraisers and last week, we had a bake sale at church. Here is our table at home, all decked out with the bake sale wares. She had a few people offer to donate baked goods as well. Her "sale" (items are not priced, rather people donate what they want to give) went quite well, we only had two plates left when we came home.

The bake sale fell on the same day as opening day of football season. We had one of our snack days that day and I made several different substantial snacks that got put out throughout the afternoon and early evening. Here is a bowl of my potstickers, these are always a big hit and show up more and more at our house.

Lucas requested crab rangoon, so we fired up the deep fryer and had some of those, too.

My son-in-law called and asked if we could use some little bags of chips. He works as a mechanic at an amusement park and the season is just about over. Anything that will go out of date before the park reopens next spring is given to the employees...just another fun perk he's found out about in the months he's been there.

I'm enjoying my quilting very much these days. With the cooler weather settling in, I'm gearing up for my winter quilting. I have several things in the works right now, and my table shows it! In the upper right corner of the table you can see my stack of Carpenter's Wheel fabric pinned to triangle paper and waiting for a few minutes of sewing time.

While working on the Carpenter's Wheel quilt, I had and idea for another in a different color palette. The next one will have these dark prints in it, each coupled with a color from within the print. I'm hoping to start pulling the companion fabric tonight.

I need a bigger design board! This one is over full, holding the finished Carpenter's Wheel blocks and also a table topper made and sold to a friend. Looking at the blocks on the board gave me yet another idea for a Carpenter's Wheel quilt, so I may have 3 by the time I'm finished making these fun blocks.

Here is a closer view of the table topper.

It's a quiet day here today. Rachel took both Ruthie and Lucas to Milwaukee with her to visit her boyfriend. Lucas has been there before, but Ruthie has not. This is the first time she's been away from home all day without me, I'm anxious to hear how she did! She's been much more sociable lately, giving her Cubbie leader a hug and running up to Brian when he stopped by to say hi to him. Usually she just quietly slips away when someone comes here, but that is happening less and less.

Jonathan wanted to build a fire, so Lucas and Ruthie had to be out there, too. Jonathan is our yard maintenance guy, he loves it and has all kinds of ideas for the yard. He did do some work out there this year, trimming trees, planting and caring for the garden, taking down the swingset, and moving the woodpile at the side of the house to the back by the fence. He really wants to do some work with the swings and firepit, cutting out an area for them and putting sand in under the swings and also having the firepit on set in cement blocks. Mike gives him free reign for these projects as we can afford to do them.

And Ruthie, more and more grown up, flashing that sweet smile so very often. She seems to turn the head of everyone who sees her.

Hopefully posts to come will have a lot more quilting pictures on them!

Until then,

Happy Quilting!

Sue