Fall, leaves, pumpkins and quilts

Here it is fall already and we are happy for it. Today is a perfect football game day. The weather couldn't be more agreeable. I couldn't resist the beautiful mums for sale a a nearby store.

Tomorrow our church unloads a portion of a semi truck of pumpkins. They are grown on an Indian reservation and shipped here. We sell them and donate the money to American missions. This year I bought some Martha Stewart stick on faces so I don't have to cut open the pumpkins.
I just returned from New Jersey where I attended the American Quilt Study Group's annual seminar. It is one of the highlights of my year. The papers presented were wonderful and the tours were super! I always return pumped up. I roomed with Mary J-P as I have in the past couple of years. She is delightful and we get along well. There just isn't enough time to go and see all you wish you could. In one of the pictures you will see a darling quilt which I helped create for the AQSG endowment fund. I sent my block back to Xenia Cord who graciously put the quilts together. Many ladies participated by making blocks and sending them. The finished quilts were auctioned Sat. night and I purchased the one my block was in. I love to do challenges like this to help worthy causes. Had to include a couple of the beautiful antique quilts I saw in New Jersey which are just above.

To the right is the Endowment quilt.

January, 2011
How did it become another year so quickly? Well, while I was sleeping, I guess. Just a quick note on our Christmas his year. It was spent with my dear sister, Carol and her DH, Barrie in California. Carol and I haven't been together on Christmas for over 50 years. Can you believe it? When she left home in her late teens, she went to CA, got married and soon had 3 sons to raise. Neither of us got back or forth very often, between CA and Ohio (where we were both born and raised) because of our families and money constraints. So now that we are a bit older we felt it would be a lovely thing to do. Brian and I had a super time and although we didn't do lots of touristy things, we did lots of cooking and visiting . We also went to Los Osos, which is 3 hours to the south of Los Gotos, their primary residence. Los Osos is their small, cottage-style second home very close to the Pacific. That was so fun too!
Elva, my dear friend, and I are back to teaching the "girls" more quilting. It is so fun to watch them learn and become excited about creating. Last fall we had some wonderful quilting angels looking after us. Sheryl and Bob Smith from, Accent on Sewing, a nearby shop, generously donated a large amount of fabric to our class to be used in the girls' projects! You can' imagine how delighted we were! The prints are so pretty and the girls love the brightest ones for their choices. We thank Bob and Sheryl again from the bottom of our hears for making so many people happy! God bless them!
Before I went to CA I got a cute wall quilt or table topper done. I just love it, but wanted my sister to have it. She was delighted and used it right away. I have plans to make myself another but probably will never find as cute fabric but that's OK. New ones come out all the time, it seems.
One of my on line friends, whom I know in person as well as cyberly (is that a word?)is Jan from the Dakotas. She sent us on line instructions for a 10 minute table runner. I had to make one right away. Cute and double cute! Thanks, Jan.