A long weekend and a few finishes

The kids were home 4 days this past Columbus Day weekend. Just about all sewing came to a screaching halt, except that which I can do between 5:30 and 7am, and after bedtime. It does pay to be an early bird in my house! We spent Saturday doing the soccer and dance shuttles all morning, and a fair bit of puttering in the afternoon. The weather hit 80 or above all three days which is not common for Maine. I was able to get a good bit of my back garden replanted. It was pulled out completely this time last year in preparation for the house addition. Fortunately I was able to keep much of the plants in a holding bed that I have grown veggies in in past years.
On Sunday we made our annual trek out to the Lobster Shack. It's a local and kind of low end restaurant on the coast. You pay for the location not the fried seafood and burgers. It was a hot and gorgeous day. The kids usually cooperate for a few pictures that often go on the Christmas card, then we walk along the rocks. A nice outting. It's the kind of place that makes forgetting any issues and a strong desire to really want to sew easy.

Last weekend was the Quilting with Machines show in Ohio. I sent my Postcards from Venice to the show. Despite some reports that the show seemed small, the competition of quilts was of a high quality, as seen here. I am lucky to have received an honorable mention as well as a teachers ribbon. I'll find out when it arrives home which teacher gave it. This quilt is making its way to the Georgia Quilt Show now, with high hopes of doing well there in 2 weeks.

What else haveI been up to??? Still designing, still dreaming of a creative way to use red and orange hand-dyes. I actually like the design I am developing now. It's kind of art nouveou, but not really in those colors. Maybe I should just give up and go for the purples and make the design process simpler on my brain!

I finished a client's 2nd table runner in the wee hours of this weekend. The little red flower centers are not appliqued on. I prepared the circles for the client to enhance the look of the flowers.

...and a closeup look

And lastly, I have shirred some fabric that will become my daughter's newest dress. We picked it out for Christmas, despite it not being red or green. Those seem so cliched and not worn but a few times around the holidays. I just want to make her a pretty heirloom dress that can be worn year-round. I need to go buy yellow floss before I can go much further. It is a shade of green, and there is some red (only the piping details will be red), but it will have a yellow ruffled underskirt and sleeves to make it springlike. I should have bought the eyelet laces this weekend at Joann's on their sale...oh well!