I heart fall!

Oh my goodness, we suddenly lost our brief summer weather, and oh my goodness does it feel like fall. This may go totally against the "norm" of teacher perspective, but fall is absolutely my favorite season. Here's a glimpse of why...

Top 10 Reasons I Love Fall (in no particular order)

1. Crisp air and turning leaves
2. Wearing jeans, hooded sweatshirts, boots, and my favorite Ugg slippers
3. Apple trees & picking (haven't enjoyed this since my grandparents moved from their home 7 years ago, but luckily the home my parents just purchased here in town has one...YEAH for Josiah getting to begin the tradition of fall picking and applesauce making!)
4. Jim's annual fishing tournament on Long Lake and a weekend with our dear friends in Park Rapids
5. Making homemade pizza sauce and Jim's mom's freezer spaghetti
6. Prepping tons of veggies to stock the freezer from our CSA (WAY more fun with my new Food Saver)
7. The last few lawn mowings of the season
8. Snuggling under lots of blankets with my boys
9. Weaning out the yard work in favor of more inside hobbies (photobooking and sewing)
10. Lots of walks, soccer games, and time outside savoring the last weeks of non-frigid temps

Ahhh, yes...now off to snuggle with that quilt and attempt for the umpteenth time to establish a nightly reading time before bed. Might be time to splurge invest in a new cozy chair for our bedroom...

Strip Quilt, Part 2

So the fabric fiasco that I alluded to in my Strip Quilt, Part 1 post is here...and here's the story. I picked out a group of gorgeous fabrics that all went together at my favorite fabric shop (Modern Textiles), and stacked the bolts on the cutting table. From a side view they appeared beautiful and well-balanced, but after I began sewing the strips together there was one fabric in particular that seemed to stand out more than the others. Yikes! After some major heartache and debate, I decided to explore another option and begin removing that fabric from its many locations in my quilt. My sister and I headed to the local quilt shop, which was filled with many not-so-fun prints, and we managed to find a substitute. The fabric in question appears in the left and center photo, and is a white background with grey leaves. It was replaced by the light grey herringbone, which appears almost solid in the picture on the right.

Did I make the right decision? At the time I was totally convinced that the white with grey leaves stood out too much. I really wanted the bolder prints to stand out, and I think since the white background was so bright it caught my eye more than I had anticipated. The grey herringbone is very soft, more muted, and definitely blends unnoticed into the quilt allowing my favorites to take center stage undisputed. Ironically, now that I'm typing this post and looking back at the original mix of prints, I am finding myself liking the brightness that the one I removed brought to the overall appearance. Oh well...too late now to reconsider any decisions!

I'm now in the process of sewing the backside of my quilt. Below are the three cuts that I am totally head over heels in love with. They will be sewn together in three large rectangles running horizontally. The two patterns are from the first line of Cotton and Steel, and the solid is Moda. They are such a beautiful blend of neutral ivory, and even though they are much less bold than the front, I think they are just as beautiful. 

As much as I'd love to say that the final post on this project will be out soon, it's highly unlikely that I will complete the back, get it to and from the machine quilter, and finish binding anytime in the near future. The holidays with all their road tripping fun might just be the perfect time for the seeming miles of hand sewing required to wrap up this monster of a project.