back to sewing

The kids are back in school and I finally feel like things are back to normal around here.  It was a busy summer - a wonderful summer! 

 I made an appointment for Tuesday to long arm baste my Susan McCord vine quilt for handquilting.  On Monday afternoon I pulled it out and found I had left all the registration line basting in it.  Each of 13 panels has this line of machine basting running up the middle to mark the centre of the panel.  It's not easy to pull out as in many places applique stitches have caught it.  There was no way I wanted to pick this out after it was sandwiched so I had to cancel my appointment and have spent some time this week carefully ripping it out.  I have 3 panels left to go.  I do love having this project out again :0)

 We went camping the last week of August.  It was a cool, rainy week.  We spent only one night at Shunda lake.  I was able to spend a few minutes stitching in my favorite spot next to this old stump. 

 It was in the morning while the mist was rising.  The bald eagles were flying too and I enjoyed watching a young one awkwardly practice a tree top landing. 

 Earlier in August my daughter Kristy and I travelled to El Salvador with Samaritan's Purse to deliver shoebox gifts.  What a wonderful trip it was.  We saw quite a bit of El Salvador and it is a beautiful country.  But the most beautiful were the smiles of the children we met.  I gave the box I brought to this little sweetheart.  How did she know that I would want a picture of her with the pouch I made for her?

After the boxes were all distributed and opened, we had time to play with the children.  Someone had brought along huge bags filled with the long, thin balloons for making balloon animals.  I learned how to make them when I was a teenager and hadn't made any in years.  It was so fun to share the love of Jesus with these children.

So now I'm home from all my summer travels and I've dusted off my sewing machine and pulled on my thick, warm socks.  (there is snow on the ground while I type this)  I spent a couple afternoons putting together the rest of my Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt. 

I have a couple borders to add yet.  It's going to be a big quilt!  I'm excited to use the pieced parallelograms in the borders. It was much easier to assemble to top using solid sashing pieces and save the parallelograms for the border.
I hope you are enjoying some fall stitching.  Happy Quilting!!