I am having the summer of my life! A beautiful chapter has opened in a setting I never dreamed of, completely plot twisting the story of my life. It’s the dog days of July in the mountains of Maine, each followed by a lovely cool, breezy evening, one after the other. My entire immediate family has been together for most of a week. After the loss of my mom and every other “silent generation” family member over the past five years, we’re growing again! We are the grandparents now.

I just about had the Year On Sugar Meadow block complete when we found out my son, DIL, bonus grandson, and new granddaughter decided to come a day early. Let the fun begin! It is always non-stop when our son arrives– it was “Kingfield Festival Days,” weekend and no sooner had he learned one of the activities was a lawn tractor race, he was on Craigslist and procuring this beauty. We’re a competitive bunch. The Fast and Furious team here knew exactly how to override all the safety features to make it go as fast as possible– a blistering 20 mph. I privately wondered why they don’t just make them that fast so you get the lawn done sooner.

But it wasn’t until I saw them racing up and down our dusty driveway that I realized.

We. Are. Hillbillies.

Caroline and Evan had a booth at the fair selling their maple syrup and it was a great way to meet people, have a place to sit down from time to time, and have a front row seat for the parade.

The Carrabasset River in Kingfield was open for swimming just below the bridge that crosses into town. I have seen that rocky river frozen solid in winter, fly-fished in summer, and raging over its banks in spring time. Never did it occur to me you could jump off the bridge and swim there amongst the jagged rocks. It’s deep– who knew?

After winning first place in the lawn mower race, John and crew wasted no time in jumping. He said his feet did not even touch the bottom, although he went down about 15 feet. He also recovered from the jump before washing over the dam. He said it was terrifying. Then he did it again. (sigh.)

The girls enjoyed the paddleboats. Everything was free and nothing was illegal. How often can you say that?
Gotta love Maine.

The kids stayed well after dark, too– the townspeople lit up fires on rafts that were floating in the pond and had a street band. Mr. SFO and I quietly slipped back to our car, which happened to be parked right in front of the “Stitchers In The Snow” quilt show. I swear, I had nothing to do with that! But it was one last activity I wasn’t going to miss.

Going to those big international shows is exhausting– I swear your eyes get tired just trying to take all the beauty in, not to mention how tired your feet get! Don’t miss a local quilt show– every stitch is so heartfelt. Look at all the different flowers made all the different ways in this one– I love that little dandelion seed head– fourth column, fourth row down.

I’m starting to think I’m getting overexposed to the internet quilting– I know every new pattern, all the fabric collections, all the designers, etc, etc. The quilts at this show just looked really original to me.

I’ve been sticking within fabric collections for all of my quilts– you know it’s going to match, right? When was the last time I picked my own colors and patterns? I can’t even remember. These are just a couple of thoughts that went through my head as we browsed.

The smaller quilts were grouped by theme, such as Halloween, Christmas, or table runners. It must have been a lot of work to organize and set it up, just for one day. A true labor of love. I did not buy raffle tickets for the quilt they were showing, but I will if I see it at the Augusta show next week. ❤

I loved this little piece– I always quietly pick out my own “Best of Show.”

There were lots of large quilts, but not very much custom or free-motion quilting going on– it was mostly pantographs. Quilting the Quilt seems to be a Quilter’s #1 problem.

I really like that little loon in the lower right corner.

And one more I really liked…

Kingfield Days was our most action-packed day of the five we had together! All the activity had my baby a little fuss-budget most of the time, but Grandma was able to rock her to sleep a couple of times. Grandma understands what it feel like to be overstimulated– heehee.

To write all the fun things we did, all the nice food we grilled, and how I complete zonked out the minute my head hit the pillow at night, would take quite a few hours to read. It would also take more photos than I have of the visit. I think I was just right in the moment in a way I haven’t been for a long time.

Once they left, I threw myself into The Year on Sugar Meadow block for July and it’s my favorite so far as I predicted.

All. That. Blueness.

I otherwise spent today washing up all the beds, cleaning out the fridge, and resetting for the next round of company due tomorrow. I did say to Mr. SFO, I never realized what wonderful bed and breakfast hosts we would be, if we ever wanted to be that! Quilty-friends are now on the way…

Next week on the blog– the Maine Quilt Show report, then, immediately after that, I am heading down to my old quilt guild’s show, The Bayberry Quilters of Cape Cod. Even though it’s a smaller place than Maine, artists always pick nice places to live, Cape Cod is nice, there are a lot of artists, and it is always a wonderful show. My friend, Tere, is a featured artist, and I am going to take a picture of every quilt she has– she is amazing. She already won Best in Show two or three times, and you will see what she’s entering this time.

Pinch me, again! I am having the time of my life, this July.

xox
Carol