The autumn equinox is now behind us and it’s time to let go of Summer 2024. Mine was wonderful. I have for you today some memories, quilt-y and otherwise!

Let’s start, appropriately with the “Summer Memories” quilt! It is past time to finish it up, but I still might be tempted to put it on my bed for Christmas– this thing is coming out lovely!

This project has a winding history and is loosely based on the Susan Ache quilt of the same name. It started out as a Jolly Bar of “Berry Basket,” a red, white, and blue collection by April Rosenthal. I made the units bigger than the book to maximize my Jolly Bar– so instead of petite beauties, my blocks are a well-endowed 18 inches. I only planned to make four or so for a table runner, but I liked them– who can say no to a basket block? So three more jolly bars later, I did finish all 16 of them, but as usual my enthusiasm languished at the idea of sewing extremely long rows together. I do think I deserve a prize for “Deepest Sew Sampler Box Rabbit Hole.”

Last week, realizing summer was over, I started assembling, and let me tell you– this thing is not the honking goose I thought it was becoming– it is perfect!

It’s a ton of pinning, so assembly is slow, but I’m not working on any other project till it’s done. At a whopping 100” x 100”, it won’t fit on my longarm, so I’m sending it out– then I’m just a binding away from a fabulous 2024 finish.

On to small town summer memories– I was looking at my photos and the last three months were action packed! We took the time this summer to go to some local fairs for the first time since moving here. The nearest town to us hosted “Kingfield Days.” They opened up the Carrabasset River for swimming, and we enjoyed a little parade, some street vendors, and surprise of all surprises, a quilt show! This is the main street which is quite cute any day of the year– we have an artisan shop, a Maine touristy shop, a restaurant, and even pizza!

All of the homes on the parade route were decked out with festive flags.

They all have that shabby chic, paint peeling, rustic look!

The streets were blocked off with vendors, food trucks, and a petting zoo… considering this town only has a couple of streets, I guess it’s not that hard to do. I want a donkey!

And there was even a quilt show! I honestly did not know about this before we decide to attend, and the patience of my family when waiting for me at this type of happy occurrence is phenomenal.

Of course, it came out that I was a quilter, and the members of the hosting guild were very adamant that I needed to join them!

They were so proud that on certain Saturdays of the month, the entire group gets together and sews the entire day…

I think they kind of saw my eyes glaze over, but I bet they didn’t guess why. One or two Saturdays a month? I sew ALL DAY, EVERY DAY!

Now that I have Quiltopia set up, it’s also going to be incredibly hard to drag me out of it, so I kindly thanked them and said their work was beautiful, and that I would consider it. Quilter’s are always such nice people.

We stepped out of the show, and a very strange thing happened… someone recognized us! This is the first time it has happened since we moved here– we must be home. It was the nice lady from the front desk of the propane company– lol.

Then, another first– we got called a bad name! The people on the floats of the parade were throwing water balloons at the crowd. Well, one of the houses wasn’t about to take this lying down and they were HOSING them back! Mr. SFO and I had to walk by the house, so we put our hands up as if to surrender and said, “Don’t shoot!” So the father of the kids at the house said to them, “Don’t hose the OLD PEOPLE!” That is the first time I have been referred to that way– oh, my goodness– I still haven’t recovered from the insult, and have taken quite a few good looks in the mirror to see if this is true!

Then Mr. SFO took me to a lovely lunch at our only restaurant in town. We’d never been there before, and they had a nice second floor deck overlooking the river swimming area. People were jumping off that stone pier away on the right of the photo, and also off a bridge. No one was stopping them. People were even kayaking under the bridge while others jumped down from it, into the water. Only in Maine, folks!

As we watched, I noticed these two girls, probably sisters, talking for a quite a long time on top of the pier. It became apparent the older one was trying to get the younger one to jump down. Trust me, just climbing up there was a big enough challenge. Back in the day, my own older brother would have definitely encouraged me to jump off and I would have followed him right in. There was no way a boy could do anything that I couldn’t! But first, he would have explained to me all the nuances of the landing strategy and I also knew he would have saved me if anything went wrong. ❤

Now, not only is that pier about 20 feet high, if you don’t quickly recover after hitting the water, you will immediately get swept over the dam and onto some very sharp rocks below. The little girl’s parents were no where to be seen. In the wink of an eye, the older girl jumped right in and swam away. Then the little one just sat on the edge of the pier. And sat, and sat, and sat. And stood up, and looked down, and sat on the edge of that pier, again and again.

No one else seemed to be aware of the impending disaster. This photo was a close up, so in the meantime, I was mentally calculating my own survival chances if I had to jump off the second story deck run across the lawn, jump in and save her. I figured if I could scream at the top of my lungs, someone below might have enough time to get there before she reached the dam.

Quite a few minutes went by, and I relaxed a bit– it occurred to me she wasn’t going to do it.

Then down she went.

And up she came, swimming away from the ledge, to join her friends.

I was so proud of her in that moment. I said to Mr. SFO– that is going to be the moment she looks back on in life, and realizes she has the strength and bravery to rise to a problem.

But I sure hope they don’t allow this next year!

Thanks for trying out my new blog! I leave it up to you, if it’s any easier to comment, or if you care to subscribe. Hopefully, it’s a new era for my little online diary here of Quilting Adventures and Life in Maine– there’s so much more happening, every day.

xox
Carol