with gratitude

Love and thanks to each of you.
(and thanks to you, A A Milne)

November benediction

Jolie works her way deeper into our hearts each day. The "big girls" are learning that there's enough love for all of them.

almost missed this one hunting for my camera...

the sun shines for Rosie

For the first time in many days the sun overcame the dense cloud cover. The temperature is struggling to rise above freezing, but there is little wind.
Holding Rosie in my arms, her face in the sunlight, Jerome and I said goodbye this morning to our delightful hen. Dr. Jean, the vet who makes farm calls, helped her to slip away.
Yesterday, shortly after I called Dr. Jean to ask her to come out and see to Rosie, Jerome received a photo from a posting of his on Facebook page 5 years ago.

The photo is of Rosie, Phoebie, and Minerva. Such a coincidence that it should arrive to remind us of these 3 wonderful hens just as we had reconciled ourselves to letting Rosie go. They're now resting together beneath a stone cairn in the chicken yard.
Rest well together, my sweet girls.

finding color in the grey month

Living up to its reputation, November in SW Wisconsin has been grey and unpleasantly damp. Too cloudy to witness full moon rise, I did catch the sky just after sunset. Ah November, only you can produce what I've come to think of as the lowering of Mother Nature's stage curtain. Be watchful, it descends even as you draw breath.
And so it's time to reintroduce myself to one of my two round robin challenges. I first spoke of them here.
I've reached the 5th and final border with the red, tan, black quilt top : ribbon. So far it's been checkerboard, sawtooth, piano keys and square in a square.

Not only is this the most difficult round , as the rounds have moved out from the center block each has needed to be larger and has demanded deeper focus on careful piecing.

Thus said, I've fully enjoyed the process of drafting the pattern I've chosen and auditioning just the right color way. It's the actual construction that tests me on every level. The scope of the job is daunting.

Here are the first 3 border units assembled, 6 half square triangles to each unit.  There are 44 units plus 4 corners of 9 half square triangles each. I used triangle exchange papers from Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts to create the half square triangle units that would become the ribbon border. (It was Edyta who taught me how to accurately construct the 8 point star I used as the center of my second round robin. More on that later.)
While I piece I give thought to the quilting to come. I've done mostly quilting in the ditch and other straight line stitching using the built in dual feed. In my mind I'm thinking of naming the quilt something like walking around the block. But doesn't a ribbon border just beg for curves?

the family that plays together...

Well done A and M!

We had a great time. Thanks for indulging us.