I made part 1 of Lori's (Humblequilts blog) Sajou SAL before heading east. Upon my return I discovered that my center block would end up on point. Was planning on this being a wall hanging, not a table topper, so I needed to tweak it so Abe would be on the square. This is what came of my first efforts in my sewing room in two weeks. It finishes about 13 inches square. Still trying to decide if I should trim down that outer border to tone it down a bit more.
This was not my first attempt with Sajou. Initially I had tried to stay as true as possible to Lori's instructions of using the setting triangles, but then I had to add another set to get Abe hanging straight.
There was a lot of dead space with those large triangles, and the fabrics overpowered the finish, IMHO.
The outer dark blue edge is what I had chosen for binding, and I did stick with that.
Our week in Massachusetts was for the purpose of our son and DIL's reception in her home stomping grounds. It was held at the Hancock Historic Shaker Village. It was colder than it looks!
The reception was in one of the barns at the village. It was cold in there, too.
We finally got warmed up during the dancing that went on for over 2 1/2 hours after the meal.
During the week we did some sightseeing, and looked for Fall color, which was elusive. Probably the best we saw was on a walk through a local cemetery. Most of the trees were still green wherever we went.
We visited the flower bridge, a covered bridge and the natural marble bridge,
Seems like we signed up for a bridge tour. :)
We really enjoyed the Norman Rockwell Museum.
I loved seeing this tender painting that includes a simple 9-patch.
In the museum entryway they have a large print of the painting of Christmas on Stockbridge's main street (Rockwell lived in Stockbridge). There are benches in front of the print, and we took some goofy photos there. It's a little blurry, but in this one 3 of my kids and I are replicating parts of Rockwell's "The Gossips".
It rained six out of the seven days we were there, but that didn't stop us. In the town of Lee we had a great lunch at the Starving Artist Cafe, and then got drenched visiting several of the little shops. Water was flowing down the street and my pant legs were wet halfway to my knees.
In the antique mall across from the cafe I picked up this little Hummel figurine called "For Mother". When I saw it I thought of the little basket quilt I wrote about in my previous post. I mentioned the song with the line "Dear Mother, all flowers remind me of you."
And when in New England, you must have seafood, right? Our son's in-laws were kind enough to have us over for a fresh lobster dinner, and hubby couldn't have been happier.
Enough of the travelogue. We had a great time, and met wonderful people, but it is good to be home. Next post I hope to have more of a quilty nature to share. I didn't take a single stitch during the entire trip, even though I took handwork with me. And it was days after our return before I did more in my sewing room than just walk in and look around with longing.
Until next time,
Janet O.
This was the view on my evening walk. It was dusk, and that is the moon in the sky.
I don't do many SALs anymore, but when Lori (humblequilts blog) starts one of her little doll quilt SALs, I have a hard time resisting. Well, actually, I don't even try to resist. But my downfall with SALs is that if I fall behind I tend to drop out. So when I learned that Lori was starting her SAL just before we cross the country for Massachusetts, I knew I had to scramble to get this stage completed before we left.
So here you have my version of step one of Sanjou.
I didn't set out to make a patriotic quilt, but the French General print I envisioned for the center had too large a design. As I kept digging through the stash to find something else, this print (which I think I got from Barb) was the first design that worked, so I ran with it. I kind of went overboard on the fussy-cutting.
In fact, Lori said we should find something like a striped print for a future step, but I think I may have already over-striped mine. We'll see what happens when that part comes.
This is the only other sewing since my last post.
This pinkeep kit was the little surprise that came when you preordered Pam Buda's new book. I just tweaked it a little.
You can see the pattern in the photo below. I fussy-cut some stars from a Barbara Brackman fabric that was in the pile of patriotic fabrics I was sorting through to make Sanjou.
At first I was just going to put one in the center, but then the corners starting begging for one, and I couldn't resist.
Love this new book. I am pretty strict with myself about purchasing new books, but I couldn't resist this one. It has a dozen sweet little projects, and each one is named for a classic work of literature.
I will be absent for a while, but will check back in when we return to our little mountain valley.
Until next time,
Janet O.
I'll leave you with some shots from around the farm. You can click to enlarge.
I've had fun observing these three Sandhill Sandhill Cranes that have been hanging around.
The reception was in one of the barns at the village. It was cold in there, too.
We visited the flower bridge, a covered bridge and the natural marble bridge, 
Seems like we signed up for a bridge tour. :) 
