October OMG Met

My goal for October was to get at least 1/4 of the center of my For the love of geese quilt assembled.  I'm happy to say that I got 5/8 of the center sewn.  It went from this:

To this:





As a reminder, this pattern is by Denise at For the love of geese and you can buy this pattern here. I recommend this pattern because it is not boring to sew, looks amazing, and goes together nicely.

My brain struggles with flipping the diagrams and relating them to the pieces, so it took me a while to get into the rhythm of assembly.  Quality time was spent with the seam ripper.  😬 I was really relieved when I realized that I had inadvertently switched the orientations and that my color layout really would work as planned!  I'm looking forward to getting the last few sewn and then moving on to piecing the borders.

I finished the secret project from last week.  Though it really tried my patience, it came out really cute.  I should be able to share it soon.


I finished binding my larger Water Drop quilt.  It's another gloomy day here in south central Indiana, so I will wait to get a better picture, but here's a teaser for now.


Someone in the house had a birthday last week and I spent literally all day making the foods they requested since due to current conditions we did not have access to some of the things I would normally purchase.  My husband helped me make Chicken Kiev from scratch.  It was good, but it would have been so much easier if we could have gotten the frozen, processed version.  I know, I know.  Sometimes we eat really heavily processed stuff and it is good.  

I made a German chocolate cake from a mix and had to do the frosting from scratch since we couldn't find any anywhere.  We also struggled to find sweetened coconut.  I thought I was going to have to sweeten some myself, but luckily we found some at the last minute.  Side note--I didn't realized that sweetened coconut is very much an American thing.  The homemade version of the frosting is definitely better than the canned stuff and is worth the effort.  I also made a small batch of chocolate buttercream.  Here's my final product.

We brought in and cleaned the hummingbird and oriole feeders since they are gone for the year.  I also saw a Junco, which are only here in the winter months. 😒  My husband filled the seed and suet feeders and we immediately had tons of birds.  Probably should have gotten to that chore a bit sooner.  I noticed we had a flock of small birds that I wasn't familiar with.  I got out the camera and started taking pictures to help me identify the birds.  I finally determined (and had verified by my dad's bird guru friend) that they were Pine Siskins.  According to my bird book, we are in their winter range, but I don't recall ever seeing them before, and certainly not in a large flock.  So that was cool.  I also took a lot of awkward nature photos!  LOL.  I will share one so you can see what they look like.  There's also a goldfinch on the feeder with them.

I met with one of my clients to pick up some quilts in the JoAnn parking lot yesterday and then went into JoAnn.  I have rarely been shopping since March.  I've been in a few places briefly where, although they have "Masks Required" signs, the employees are not wearing masks or only if they are near a shopper.  I have a massive problem with this and will not return to those places.  The JoAnn in town is nice because the few times I have been there--three times since March--every employee is wearing a mask at all times and 99.9 percent of the shoppers are too.  Plus, there haven't been many shoppers in the store at all--usually under five.  It helps if you go right after they open.

Anyway, I hadn't been shopping for anything besides groceries and household needs for so long and I went a bit crazy with buying completely frivolous things. I got a bunch of Harry Potter fabrics, some Dwight fabric, and this book of beautiful knit projects.  I wish I had the skill to make them.  I can only knit very basic things like rectangles or really beginner-level hats.  Good thing I picked up those quilts, because I think I already spent the profits! 😳  I did a lot of damage in 15 minutes, but I sure had fun.

I've been working on another of Charlene's quilts.  She has sure given me some beauties to work on recently.  Once I get the binding sewn down, this project will be complete and I will be on to the next one:  a custom job on a Fandango quilt.

Just a few more things before I go--my husband harvested my compost tomatoes.  They are about the size of cherry tomatoes.  I don't care for cherry tomatoes, so I know that's not what they grew from.  They don't look like Romas either, so maybe they were the "tomatoes on the vine" that the grocery store sells?

I got a newsletter from one of the guilds I belong to and I was totally surprised that one of my quilts from Show and Tell (via Zoom, you submit pictures ahead of time) was featured right under the header!  My name was attached to the picture, but I couldn't fit it all in the screenshot.
And finally, another sunset picture for you.  My son took this with my phone while we were on our nightly walk.


Linking with For the love of geese and My Quilt Infatuation.

7 comments

  1. How cool that tomatoes just magically appeared, growing in your compost like that! Your paper piecing is coming along beautifully and I can totally relate to the pent-up shopping energy. I haven't had a chance to do a leisurely browse-and-shop for quilting fabrics in months and months. I don't even remember the last time. Thank goodness for the stash, the Kona color cards, and the online retailers!

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  2. Your flying goose quilt is going to be amazing!

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  3. The flying geese quilt is coming along so beautifully! Oh my goodness, YES! Homemade is always better--and definitely German choc cake frosting! Yum!

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  4. That is absolutely amazing! Thanks for linking up with Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal and congrats on your finish!

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  5. Wow! SO MANY GEESE!!! It looks beautiful. Then I kept reading - you've got a ton of great stuff. :-) Love how Water Drop looks. The chocolate cake looks delicious. And that is a seriously popular feeder! We have only a few siskins - and the goldfinches don't like to share the feeder.

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  6. Your flying geese quilt is gorgeous!
    And the cake looks good ;)

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  7. Great post and I love German Chocolate cake, not so much the completely from scratch cake. My mil made one for me years ago from scratch and it was, well, very bland. Your version of For the love of geese is going to be stunning. Happy birthday. Your Water Drop quilt is beautiful. Thank you for linking up to Put your foot down.

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