FIRST MONDAY OF FALL!

     It is a beautiful fall morning as I sit here with my cup of hot spiced tea writing this post.  This is Week Three of Bonnie's one hour of needle and thread challenge.  Click here to go to Bonnie's blog post to check on the progress of others. 

     We didn't link last Monday because Bonnie was teaching in Indiana.  I got in 10.2 hours two weeks ago. This past week I hand stitched for 7.5 hours. 

     I had been working on my 30's fabric quilt called "Granny's Stars" from Love of Quilting magazine. I wanted to hand quilt my outer border during this challenge. I should be able to finish it today, then I can add my binding!! To see more of that quilt go to my last blog post. 

     This week I've also been working on a couple of other projects. The first one is my October calendar block.  I have one for myself and one for my daughter's calendar. I'm not finished with them yet. I did get the binding stitched down for one. I need to finish the binding on the second one, then I will do a little hand quilting around the pumpkin and will hand embroidery the stems on the pumpkins.

     Before I retired, I used to make an annual Christmas ornament that I gave out to co-workers and other friends. Now, I still make them and give them out at my grandchildren's schools to the school staff, cafeteria workers, art, music, computer and library teachers.  (Their regular teachers get the ornament plus a little something extra.)  I've already started the ornaments for this year. I've got 35 going in various stages.  I finished all the machine work, paper pieced. I did most of the paper piecing during Bonnie's QuiltCam time!  So now, I have lots of handwork to complete them.  I can't show the front of them until I am ready to give them away, so here's a sneak peek at the back of them.  Come back in December for the reveal!

     Thanks for visiting!  What a fun challenge!  One week to go!  One last note, thanks to Bonnie Hunter for cluing us in about the word verification on our comment section.  I didn't even know it was "ON" for my blog, but it is now turned off!!  

BBB