Winter's coming and we're getting ready

if I had any doubt about fall being in full glory and winter on it's way, I'm reminded every day when I look out my office window at these two trees that are across the street from our house

beautiful color!

because that is true, we've been getting ready for winter too

last week we moved everything off of the deck and I put on a fresh coat of stain/sealer on the floor and the top of the railing all the way around

we thought we were going to have to buy the stuff to do this with, but found that the previous owner had left about half of a 5 gallon bucket here after that did this in the spring -- YEAH!

when we do the process next spring I'll have to pay for it, but that was a savings of about $65 and I'm happy to do that

this was a big accomplishment for last week too --- the van being parked in the garage!  

there are still a few items that we have yet to decide where they will go, and all 35 plus boxes of Christmas items are out there in the garage, but it's nice to put the vehicle inside

we turned the last of the garden's tomato harvest into 6 pint containers of pasta sauce that went into the freezer

we used some of it the night the DH created it, and it was really good stuff

I'm looking forward to the taste of summer in these containers during the winter months

this is the last big thing that needs to happen in my studio

the piece of soundproofing board that will be my design wall is all covered and ready to hang 

I used an old white cotton blanket right over the soundproofing board and a layer of white flannel over that -- oh look!  it's a quilt!!

we'll get this hung this week and the new secret project I'm working on can be worked on more extensively

right after we moved here I joined the local quilt guild

I love this group -- they are diverse and interesting and welcoming -- it's a wonderful thing

last weekend was their annual show and boutique at the local fair grounds and each of us was invited to enter 3 pieces in the show

these are the 3 that I entered

it was pretty exciting to see pieces from this series all hanging together!

even with all the around the house work, I still managed to get some art time

the edge beading of this piece is moving right along -- as I suspected, using the tiny size 15 beads is a lot more time consuming, but the edge is beautiful!  

this week I hope to get to the fringing

even though I don't have an updated photo of this piece, I can report that the quilting is complete and yesterday afternoon I cut the edges so I can put on the binding

running right up to the deadline on this, which makes me really nervous, but it is going to be amazing

and then there is this

the beginning of a brand new piece that I'm working on the design for

I've been fiddling with the idea in my head for a couple of months, and now that the  Tsalagi piece is close to finished, it's time to start putting it on paper

looking good so far