sunshine adventurings

I made the most of each bit of Summer, so now as September winds down, I can recap the fun!

 In between work, work events & quilt making I got to have some summer adventures in places near & far.

The NEAR::
Snaps came to visit and we had a grand time exploring the area! Highlights included: southern IL wineries, Garden of the Gods & Cave in Rock park, some interesting back road-country driving, a ferry across the river, eating local at Pizza by the Pound,  the ins & outs of LBL back roads looking for old cemeteries.

Dad also came to visit and we filled our time with biking the greenway trail, making our own ice cream, outdoors-ing in Ft. Massac, visiting the TARDIS and the Superman festival.

The FAR::

This summer I got to spend a week or so visiting friends/family in NoVA - the longest I'd been back since moving. My days were packed so here are the highlights: planes, trains & automobiles, baseball at both Orioles & Nationals, a baptism & quilt gifting, Arlington Cemetery, a Titanic memorial, beating an Escape Room, turning FB friends to real-life friends, a cupcake tour in DC without the guide and more! Phew, are you tired just from reading all that? It was amazing!

the OTHER:: 
The hummingbirds have been just as frantic again this summer - constantly zipping around the deck, pool time and plenty of biking, Quilt Camp which means some of the best work weeks, many ice cream runs & walks, BBQ on the River festival, home visits with campfires & good times, a friends wedding, quilt projects that are really exciting. 
A spectacular summer and I'm finally starting to get in the mood for Fall!

Sun-catcher

Another finish from my Quarter 3 FAL ready to share with you today. I'm calling it Sun-Catcher because it looks different from every angle. This started as a teaching sample for my Junior Quilters club - working with Split 9 Patch blocks and value. After the first block I got hooked and had to make more!

I had some trouble with loopy FMQ in one section, which I think may be due to a batik-like backing. So for the rest of the quilting I kept it simple with a variety of straight lines using the walking foot. I matched the threads to each section of color using my trusty Aurifil box of threads.

Linking up at On the Windy Side for the Q3 finish and over at Finish it Friday as well. Then heading back to finishing more quilts! :)

a Yellow jersey finish

Happy to share with you my September finish for ALYOF - finishing this quilt with binding. This is also a project from my original Quarter 3 FAL list, so I'm linking to On the Windy Side for the finish and I'm linking up to Finish It Friday as well.

 The profile is stage 18 of the 2013 Tour, which was the 100 edition of the race. This stage started in the town of Gap and ended with the awe-inspiring mountain climb up Alpe-d'Huez. The stage winner was Matteo Trentin, and the overall race winner was Chris Froome.  He also won this year in a fantastic race!

It was nice to have this one quilted for the final stages of the Tour de France this year! I matched my binding to each of the background colors which was new for me and used solid grey for the remainder of the binding. The quilting is fairly simple, but since each of the background colors represent each of the major jerseys in the Tour, I wanted to have the quilting in each section reflect that.   

White for the best young riders: Quilted a modified TDF logo

Green for the sprint points: Quilted bike wheels sprinting for the finish line

Polka dots for the King of the Mountain: Quilted mountain peaks

Yellow for the overall race leader: Quilted in Eiffel Tower & Arc d'Triomphe as the race finishes in Paris

Hello September

One of the best parts of a holiday weekend is waking up & knowing you don't have to go into work! Celebrating includes getting outside, catching up on chores and of course, quilting! In the midst of all the fun I almost forgot to link up for the September ALYOF so here I am with hours to spare for the goal setting.

My goal is to finish my Tour de France quilt completely - which means putting on the binding. The plan is to match the binding to each background section and then use a grey around the profile/bottom of the quilt.

Linking up at Fiber of All Sorts  (#71) and then getting back to enjoying the holiday. Happy Labor Day!