Erica's Stitches

It's done.  The nine-patches have been squared up. I have a huge pile of scraps and I'm getting ready to assemble the blocks.

I have 20 old nine patch blocks. The dots are red blue and black. The blocks are nearly see-through and they are not very square. I purchased them at an antique store years ago.  Instead of them living in a drawer I want them to be used.  There is just the right number of blocks to make a lively border for my 30's quilt. I'm going to have to some work to make the usable but I think the result will be pretty.

I've been lucky enough to get out into the mountains some during the past few weeks just as the aspens reached the height of color. I was able to walk along the Colorado River kicking up dead cottonwood leaves. And hike in a rain of golden aspen leaves.  Living in a pine forest I don't get to rake and play in the leaves like I did growing up.  So, in a way, I was a kid again. I've been enjoying it because it will not last long.  Sure enough, I woke up this morning to snow.  Sigh.

I started buttonhole stitching in July and lamented that it would take me months to finish.  We'll it has.  I always have a thread ready to go so I can pick it up and stitch at a moments notice.  The moments just didn't come that frequently. I've finished all the dresden plate fans and saved the butterflies till last.  Two are now done. The best part is the antennae - they allow a little creativity.  All four will be different so I have two more styles to come up with. Once the button stitching is complete I can move on to the next part of this 30's style quilt.  The borders will use some more vintage blocks that are really wild. I'll show them once I start working on them.

It's that time of the year again. As night comes earlier and earlier and it gets colder and colder I start thinking about making Christmas ornaments. I have no plans yet.  But I've started collecting supplies.  I've found a surprising amount of red and green threads. Deciding what to stitch is part of the fun. 

I'm back to stitching on Colorado.  I'm filling in the edges.  I finished Arizona and started Utah and New Mexico.  It's going extremely slow.  One length of thread doesn't seem to fill much canvas. There are 7 states surrounding Colorado and they will each be a different color. I still haven't come up with a good lettering to spell out "Colorful Colorado".  But, at the rate I'm going it will take months to get that far.

I have used up every charm square in the house on my latest quilt top!  At least I hope there aren't any stragglers that I missed. That includes 2 different charm packs and half a dozen leftovers including a flannel square (in one of the corners), a 30's style square and one square that just doesn't quite belong with the rest. Both charm packs were traditional prints.  One was in darker colors and a formal style.  I never found the right project to use them in and never came up with any good ideas.  The second was lighter pastels and a whimsical style.  Every time I looked at it I was able to come up with a different plan that I wanted to start right away. Instead I combined them both.  I think the two styles go together in an uncoordinated way.  Or at least they don't clash too badly. My usual tactic is to come up with a design and use all the squares I can.  Which always leaves a few orphans.  This time I tried a n...