My two big summer events have now passed— I’m certainly hoping August lasts a long time and my upcoming surgery date does not arrive too quickly— there’s lots to do!

In Mid-July, we hosted my son-in-law’s family who drove up from South Carolina to meet their new grandson, the first in their family. The family name will continue— haha— if anyone out there still subscribes to notions of the patriarchy! Of course, he was a hit, namesake, or not.

One of the fun things about company is that you show them around the area. In this case, I also showed myself around! There’s a gorgeous lake just 15 minutes up the road with a beach— it was the first time I’ve been up there, because believe me when I say there’s nothing else that way. Those are the Bigelow Mountains— the Appalachian Trail goes through them.

The lake was created with a dam some time in the 50s, I believe. The town of Flagstaff was flooded— they first cut all the trees down and burned the houses, stores, and church. The beach we visited had all shapes and sizes of driftwood— I imagined these giant pieces looked like the bases of trees that had finally lost their grip on the muddy lake bottom and floated to the surface. There was also an old board I imagined was siding from a house or barn. The idea of it is all very eerie to me… come to think of it, I may never go there again!

Next up, was my niece’s wedding in Minneapolis. This is the first time my brothers and I were together, probably in 15 years. After my dad died so long ago, it was just kind of the three of us and my mom. Now, with weddings and births, there will be 25 of us at the end of the year— it’s such a nice thought.

We had a wonderful time. Minnesota had the most fantastic cornfields— they held as much enchantment for me as the Eiffel Tower would have, honestly, because I am always ready to be delighted. At one point, my son walked into one— whose personality do you think he inherited? Good thing he was only pretending, because he forgot to bring a flare and we would have never seen him again!

Mr. SFO met a former farmer at the hotel breakfast— everyone was ready to talk. He had passed his small farm of 6,000 acres down to his son. He told us that with GPS, you could lay a row of fertilizer in the spring and then plant your corn right on top of it a couple of weeks later. I had my phone put away most of the time, so not too many photos to share. But here’s my corn patch as a placeholder which was clearly not planted with GPS or treated with any type of spray.

We had time to go to a little nature center— Quarry Hill, which was extremely well curated and my three grandnephews and nieces and Harlow enjoyed it all. Kids love animals and the outdoors! Can I also give Harlow an A+ for her first flights and vacation— she is such a happy girl, and so easily distracted if ever she wants to complain about something.

Basic black for the wedding.

Now that I am back, it’s been a busy week— I didn’t expect to have a hectic life here in the boonies of Maine— but I have made friends! ❤️ I went on an adventure down to Portland for the day with one of them, and then all four of us were invited to a dinner party on another day. Maine people are generous and very genuine to a fault.

I did get a little sewing in. There are two things I really want to fully finish before my shoulder surgery. #1 is the ice cream wedding quilt, now late. I can really only stand and do this on the longarm for a couple of hours a day, and it’s a big quilt. So, of course I could have picked an easy overall meander, but I went with detailed ruler work and lots of swirls. It’s really coming out nice. My stitch in the ditch has improved, and my swirls are getting more and more smooth. Practice, practice! It’s a shame I have to take a two month break. That is not the way to improve skills, is it?

#2 is a baby quilt— my daughter found out when she did her baby announcement on Facebook months ago that a dear friend was also about to make an announcement! I was so happy for both of them to make the journey together. A little girl has now been born and had a bit of a rough entry into the world, with a week spent in the NICU. After some tough moments, all is well finally! This is the Frivol kit I had on my bucket list for this year and it is perfect, if a little large— it’s 55×55.

It looked very easy to make so I jumped in. Once the ice cream is off the longarm, this will go right on, and let’s hope I pick a quick overall meander— haha— or this will end up being a Christmas present!

I might be fooling myself that I’m going to be able to do a little one handed sewing, but I’m sure not going to be able to cut. I’m working on cutting up a few blocks of this and that to work on. The first one is the Outdoors quilt that I received a couple of weeks ago.

Mountain blocks 1, 2, and 3 will be ready to go– and hopefully more.

Then I want to cut the five Sweetland Stars, and some Night Flight bats that have been in progress since 2020. I love that quilt and I want to get serious about finishing. When will all this cutting take place with my busy social schedule? I have no idea.

Still no progress on the design boards I was making to organize all these cut pieces. That’s my old ratty board I purchased with the binding strips expectantly waiting to bind some new ones. I’m going with design Ziploc BAGS for now.

Cross stitch came along— I took Up on the Housetop with me on my Minnesota trip. I think my goal is to make this piece two times— rip, rip, rip. I started with the white star, and then moved up to the leaves and then the letters. Apparently I made a bad jump, for it became apparent to me I was stitching OH OH OH— it is embarrassing to let you know how long it was before I figured that out. So now that most of that is redone, you can see my red checkered corner is not meeting correctly. So I’m putting that away— maybe after finishing Charlie’s Christmas stocking I’ll pull it out for a couple weeks at the end of the year. It (should be) a quick stitch.

Now here is my Summer Sampler where I started in June of this year and where it is now. I’m quite pleased with the progress!

That beehive is an area of terrible confetti. Like— tie on, do two stitches, and tie off. I don’t like to save extra pieces of thread. This project already has 40 colors, so I don’t need 40 partial threads to organize. So whenever I do a couple stitches in the hive, I find somewhere else to use the rest of the strand. I am now stitching all over the place!

I have really enjoyed working on it this summer and will continue to Labor Day— cross stitch is one activity I do think I can do in a sling. I want to put it away in somewhat of an organized fashion— by that I mean, neatly finish the sections I have started and do all the backstitch on them. That way, Harlow, or someone at a garage sale in future years, will easily be able to pick it up and finish.

Finally, I got my report card for Carefree Highways. If you ever do enter a quilt show, make sure it’s one where you get feedback.

The checks at the bottom mean I was considered for a category ribbon which I won second, and also for Long Arm Quilting and Best Use of Embellishment. Although I struck out on all of those extra ribbons, it made me happy to at least be considered! Thank you again to all who worked so hard on the show, and to the dear person who wrote this all down while the judges were probably speaking very rapidly!

Speaking of ribbons, there have been two big customer finishes this summer— someone sent me a picture of a completed stitches of the sea, and another Carefree HIghways which won BEST IN SHOW at a county fair. I’m trying to get their permission to use the photos and if I do, I will post them to the blog next time.

I’m off to try to git ‘er done as much as possible in the next two weeks— happy stitching! The blog will continue while the shoulder mends– I can always buy stuff to write about, correct?

xox
Carol