Houston International Quilt Festival

My quilts have been in the IQF shows in prior years, but this was my first trip to see the show.

My Jet Trails #10 was shown between quilts by Janet Steadman on the left and Pat Budge on the right.






Priscilla had two quilts on exhibit:  If Leaves Could Choose and If Leaves Were Blue.

The preview opening was on Halloween night, so Priscilla wore her special Halloween jacket.














My Whirlpool quilt was also in the exhibit, shown at the left of this group.














Pat Pauly's Mummy Bags/Canopic Jars is to the right of Lynda Faires Colorstrips #1.









Pat Pauly's Stacked Mummy Bags 3 is in the center of this group.

Quilter's Brunch

 Part of the weekend's festivities for the
opening of the Quilts=Art=Quilts exhibit at the Schweinfurth Art Center was the Sunday brunch at the Springside Inn.

Even with the approach of the Superstorm Sandy, several of the exhibiting quilters were able to attend.







Donna Lamb, director of the Schweinfurth Art Center, welcomed everyone.  She noted that this is the 32nd annual juried quilt exhibition at the Center.
















Terry Jarrard-Dimond, who was the prize juror for the exhibit, was our guest speaker.









And Genie Barnes, Executive Consultant for the Center, also spoke about the exhibit.  Genie has been involved with this exhibition since its inception.

Quilts=Art=Quilts

The opening reception for the 32nd annual juried quilt
exhibition (Quilts=Art=Quilts) was held at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, NY, on Saturday evening.

My Jet Trails #11 quilt is one of the 80 quilts on display through January 6, 2013.














This is one end of the table at our after-opening get-together:   Kate and Julie on the left, Terry, Pat, and Bev on the right.








 





On the left, Liz, me, and Priscilla,  On the right, Carol, Nancy, and Linda.

(Thanks to Anne for sending the pictures!)

Meeting day

 And most of the gang is at the studio to look at work in progress...   Anne, Nancy, Jeanne, and Priscilla are pictured.

Nancy's squares made with Asian fabrics are on the wall.












Bev showed us the piece she dye-painted and quilted in a recent class offered through Genesee Valley Quilt Club.


















Bev also has this piece in progress.











This is Priscilla's newest piece with dancing figures.











Jeanne recently hosted her 30th quilt retreat, where she challenged the participants to make jelly roll quilts.  This is one that she made.

Fall gardening chores

The pleasant days of October present the bitter-sweet jobs of fall gardening.  It is nice to tidy things up, but it's a long time til spring.

The hoops (used to hold netting over the plants) and the tomato cages are stacked next to the frost-tinged grapes ready for winter storage.











The perennial gardens are cut back after flowering.

This group is the wonderful blue thistles that will add their stalks to the fall burn pile.
















Several toads were disturbed in the process of weeding the tulip/daffodil beds.  They were not happy about the intrusion into their space.














Inspector Suki's idea of helping is to find a nearby shady spot and work on her own agenda.   Moistening her paw will be followed by clearning her ear and face.  She must have had a good Mom, as she works hard on her personal toilette!!

Quilts at PIQF

 Two of my quilts have been on display this weekend at the Pacific International Quilt Festival, held in Santa Clara, CA.

Many thanks to Tanya Brown for sending these pictures.


Blue Squares (64 x 64)








Doormats #1  (49 x 67)

End of the season

 It's that time of year --- time for our annual trip to the Adirondacks to shut things down for the year.

We collected the Jeep that was waiting for us at the local airport and drove it back for winter storage.













We also checked things inside and around the camp and made sure everything was tucked away for the winter.











This camp is just down the lake a bit from us.  The falling leaves have made it much more visible than during the summer.










It wasn't a sunny day, but the colors around the lake were still lovely.

Sewing days

 We've had a couple of sewing days recently.

Nancy and Priscilla are watching Pat arrange the blocks she made in a class taught by Anita Grossman Solomon.






Priscilla made this quilt from leftovers from other projects.  The lime green is great!













And she used more lime green on this quilt.

















Priscilla made this jacket out of mola-inspired fabric.  The molas on the wall next to the jacket are very high quality and are destined to be used in anothe project soon.

Still Harvesting

 We had a very dry summer in this part of the state.  Real farmers and us home-style variety struggled to add water in sufficient quantities to produce a crop.

The tomatoes here mark the end of our production.  We were able to put away several batches of canned beauties for winter use.

The ever-bearing red raspberries keep on coming, with a quart a day being the average yield.








The onions and carrots made us proud.  We haven't grown carrots in several years and will leave most of them in the ground for another month or two.















The butternut were the only winter squash variety to survive.  We don't have any ideas why the other varieties didn't follow suit --- the mysteries of germination and growth!
















Our only gourd planting this year was the large goose-neck variety shown here.  We picked several more that are a little smaller than this trio, and a generous appraisal would be "an okay year."













Profuse watering of our early and late string beans was very successful.  We will cover our late crop next week to avoid damage from our first frost and hope to extend our harvesting season.

Chandra's visit

 We had a lovely visit from my niece, Chandra, and her husband, Jeff.

They are currently living in northern California, after living in London for five or six years.




















We decided to ignore the rain and went to check out the canal locks in Palmyra, where there's a 16-foot drop in the water level.











It's a pretty area, where Mud Creek joins the Canal.










I went out to the garden to pick raspberries for our breakfast, and this is Suki's idea of  helping me!