pumpkin bumpkin

Pumpkin time!

Todd braved our pumpkin patch for this year's harvest.  Not me...after this recent chigger attack, I may never go into the weeds again! 

A quick spray to clean off the debris...

...and then a short trek to the house.

Besides covering the porch and front walkway...

I like to use pumpkins on our mantle.  Perfect and simple for Halloween and beyond!

Perfect for the dining room table, too...especially with flowers from the garden!

I put our Halloween decorations up, too, but really simplified this year.  Just bats...

...and skeleton hands!

This is a really busy/chaotic month for us, so simple is best.  

Weather changing...warm days but frosty mornings.

Leaves changing...

Mornings, the bright sun and the contrast to the white frost make the leaves seem even brighter!

It's the perfect weather for quilting. For now, I've decided not to finish the postage stamp quilt.

In the moment, I just wouldn't enjoy working on something so flawed.  I boxed it away in case I change my mind, or can figure out something else to do with the fabric.  

I'm also at odds with this quilt:  

photo courtesy of Midnight Quilt Show

I pieced it together from a quilt kit years ago, and I made a lot of mistakes.  Lots of cut-off star tips.  That's fine, but the quilt is gigantic.  Too big for me to quilt by myself, and expensive to send off for professional quilting.  I don't love it, so should I bother?  Should I just re-size it to make it more manageable to do at home?  We'll see.   

I picked up another unfinished quilt:  Confetti.  Examining it, I realized that I'd made another mistake:  instead of pairing together my perfectly-sized 2 1/2" squares to make the final blocks, I lined the squares up by the center slant, so that they would all line up nicely.  In the moment, I'd assumed that I could just cut down the final blocks to size, but they aren't meant to be squared up.  I decided to sew it together to see how it looked.  It only took a few hours.  

Eh...it's not for me.  Looking back through my scattered notes, I realized that I'd meant to lay out the colors like this:

The color changes are more gradual and natural, whereas my current quilt top feels blocky.  Given the choice to keep/quilt, pick out/resew, or try again, I've decided to just make another one.  I can give this one away, and I'd much rather spend my time working on something that I'll really enjoy.   Instead of reordering this fabric, I can actually use my scrap fabric stash to make something amazing.  Inspiration!!  

Looking forward to the happy fall days ahead.

Have a great week!

orange you glad...?

A few cuddles is just what this week has called for!

We took a walk, and it was nice to see the woods waking up after the long winter.

Some wildflowers are already up!  This is Cutleaf Toothwart, informally known as Crow's Toes.  It's an edible plant once known as 'pepper plant' due to its spicy taste. 

At home, daffodils are coming up everywhere.  I didn't get a chance to plant any bulbs last year, and I'm already thinking muscari, tulips, snow-in-summer, crocus for next year.  But the daffodils are nice!

Of course, I'm bringing them inside...especially the tiny ones!

I hate that I can't go to the local greenhouses for flowers this spring, but at least the grocery store had a few violas and pansies.  I potted some up on the front porch.

Last year, I planted several spring-blooming flowers - lilacs, lily of the valley, two hydrangeas, three peonies, and at least 25 columbines.  No blooms yet, but the established lilac bush on the property is leafing out nicely!

The horse farm that's catty-corner to our house has opened the fields up, and they're dotted with horses again.  Such a pleasant view!

A less-pleasant visitor to our front porch:  the dead vole.  Claudia is such a good hunter and brings us a "special treat" almost daily!

Did you notice the teeth?

Like a beaver, vole teeth are orange because of all of the gnawing they have to do.  That orange (iron!) enamel is much stronger than our white enamel, and tends to sharpen with use - perfect for their daily tasks.  Voles have made a ridiculous amount of tunnels in our yard, so Claudia is doing a great service!

When she's not working...

I guess cats have basically perfected the art of relaxation.

Bosewichte is a great help around the house once he's up from his nap...sort of!  You'd think that the growing pile of fabric in front of him would be an annoyance, but he's blissfully unaware.

This is a project that I'm dying to work on...the confetti quilt.

Unfortunately, I'm having terrible trouble with my right shoulder, an old sports injury that has been bothering me for 3+  years.  My body has compensated by utilizing the incorrect muscles for certain movements, which means that any cutting/weight bearing activity (that means YOU, rotary cutter) is off-limits right now.  It also means that I have to leave the house twice a week during a pandemic to go to physical therapy, which is scary.  But I'm determined to fix this problem once and for all.

Stay safe, everyone!