Many rows later..............

 I think I said this quilt will be 72" x 90" so the seams are long.  I finished sewing the 14 seams in one direction and sewed one in the other direction before I gave up last night.  Of course I want to finish it this month so I have 10 more 90" seams to sew today.

My son stopped by yesterday and got my computer with the dead screen hooked up to my Smart TV with an HDMI cable.  My computer screen appeared so now we know the computer is fine, just the screen is bad.  I spent a couple hours transferring files to the cloud service and now I can see them on my other computer.  I hooked the HDMI cable back to the TV so I could watch it while I was sewing.  I ordered a short HDMI cable and will hook the computer up to the small TV in my guest bedroom.  Then I can take my time getting any more files I need off of it.

Assembly............

 I had my last live broadcast for the current Colorwash 360 online class yesterday.  I started cleaning off my cabinet so I could start assembling this plaid quilt that I showed on my design wall a few weeks ago.

As promised yesterday here is the close up of my little 12" colorwash.  I think I'm going to change one of the red squares in the top row before I finish it.  It is bugging me.

12" colorwash sewn...........

 

Before and after tweaking but before sewing.  The lighting wasn't as good in the one on the right but I think you can see I changed pieces to get a smoother value transition.

Here they are in comparison to the 40" colorwash, left photo before tweaking and sewing, right photo after tweaking and sewing 12" colorwash.  I'll get a close up photo to post tomorrow.

It's blooming season now for the cactus.  Lots of buds and 2 blooms fully opened on this one and buds ready to pop on the pink and white ones.

Sidetracked again...........

 My little great-grandsons 2 states away need some more masks.  They are both in school, pre-school and first grade.  I don't know if they get to wear these fun ones to school but they will be a nice change for other times they need them.  I send matching ones of some of them and I put white elastic on one and black elastic on the other so they can tell which is theirs.

It was a chilly 38 degrees yesterday but they are talking about mid 60s a week from now.  I hope I can get some leaves raked this year.  There was too thick of a layer of leaves all winter on my flower beds because we had so much rain last year and then it turned cold.  

And 24 hours later...........

I knew there was snow in the forecast but didn't think it looked like we would get it....but we did.  It didn't stick around for long but it sure looks like an early winter again.

I wanted to play with my 1.5" batik squares that I cut from scraps.  I didn't know if there would be enough variety to do a colorwash that will finish at 12" square.  Today I will take out the pieces that aren't working well and cut some new ones to fill in.

 

Sewn together.............

I completed the sewing on my colorwash top.  It is about 40" square.  I rotated the photo all 4 ways but decided I like it best just like I designed it.

 My Viburnum bush is really pretty this year.  I think it has only turned completely into these beautiful colors a handful of times since I planted it in 1995.  Usually just one or 2 branches turn and then the leaves fall off.

I searched for how to get green tomatoes to turn red and this is what 2 of the sites showed.  A banana with just a little green on it in with the tomatoes to help them turn.  I picked all of the large ones but didn't bother with the ones smaller than a golf ball.  I have about 2 dozen so we'll see how many of them turn.

2/3 of seams sewn................

 I have sewn 13 cross seams, 6 to go so I am 2/3 of the way done.  I had a few sidetracks yesterday.

One of them was sewing 5 more masks.  Some had denim on one side and plaid flannel on the other, some had plaid flannel on one side and batik print on the other side.

Indoor garden season is starting.  I have buds on 8 plants.  This white one was my super bloomer last year.

Rows sewn in one direction..........

 I alternated between washing windows and sewing rows yesterday.  All rows sewn in one direction.  Now I have to turn on the iron.

We started out close to 70 degrees yesterday morning and were down in the 40s by afternoon.  It was predicted to go down to 30 by morning so I covered my tomato plants again.

Sewing started...........

I didn't change any more pieces in the colorwash and after my live session was done I started sewing.  I'm almost to the halfway point of sewing in one direction.

From Wednesday late afternoon and through the night into yesterday morning we got over 3" of rain.  We haven't had that much rain in one day for months.  More rain expected.

Today I am going to seriously work on washing the insides of my windows and hope to make it most of the way through the house.

Final.............

Just one photo of the colorwash today.  This is the FINAL layout.  I'm not going to even consider changing anything today.  Each change (8 yesterday morning) includes taking a photo, loading the photo into the computer, studying the photo, back to the design wall, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Yesterday afternoon I baked some Amish Friendship Bread.  A friend gave me some of the starter earlier in the summer and I froze 3 portions in September so I could pull it out and bake on a cool day.
  

The corners...........

I'm finally happy with the blue corner.

 The red/rust corner is better now too.

I was already pretty happy with the green and brown corner.

The camera isn't kind to the purple corner.  It is a combination of blue purples and red purples.

I did some changes in the center and was quite pleased until I see a photo of it.  I guess I'll have to look at it again this morning.

I did a little change where the orange meets the green too.

This is yesterday's photo for comparison.

I spent a couple hours yesterday also setting up my older computer to get ready for the next live session of my online class.  I downloaded Picasa 3 because that is what I use for my collages and it took a long time for it to scan my computer and load the photos.

I also washed the inside of a few windows, many more to go. Now that the outsides are clean on all of them I can see how dirty the insides are.

Tweaking all day again.......

I played with this all day yesterday again because my painter was back and I didn't want to start on something new.  I have the red corner looking a little better but now I don't like the blue or the purple corners so I'll have another day of tweaking.  Below is the photo from yesterday for comparison.  I will have some peace and quiet today with the workers gone so I can start concentrating again.

A very relaxing day.............

 I thought I had all of the pieces on the wall, that this was maybe my final layout and then I counted rows.  I never put the last row on the right side edge.  Back to the drawing board.........

Ok, 20th row added but it needs some changes in several areas.

I have softened a few areas now but still want to work on the bottom right corner.  I see a couple other pieces in the photo that weren't glaring problems when looking at it in person.  It's close and the best part is that it was the best therapy I could have to lose myself in this project for 5 hours yesterday.

Relaxing........

Another busy day yesterday,  I mailed some packages to my students and then watched my sister-in-law's graveside service on Zoom (her son was buried just last weekend, neither death was Covid related), and then the painting continued outside and storm windows were put on.  They worked all the way to 6 p.m. and have just about another half day of work to do.  They discovered a possible place where the mice came in last year and they will be back to fix that.  I have never had as many mice in my house as I had last year.

Last night was relaxation time.  I brought up trays of squares and continued working on the colorwash I started as a backdrop behind me when I do my live broadcasts.  I have a long way to go on this one.  I can see an area I want to move now that  I see it in a photo.

An old photo...............

 Yesterday was an extremely busy day but nothing to report.  I grabbed these photos from 2010 in my nature file.  Not too different from what is going on now in the neighbor's yard.  A friend up the street feeds the squirrels so I don't see as many in my backyard.  They definitely clean up under the bird feeders though.

The guys doing the trim painting on my house are doing a terrific job.  There was lots of scraping and sanding to do and lots of caulk needed.  I have 7 of the old fashioned storms and screens on my house so one guy worked on that and the other was cleaning up the windows, scraping the paint off the panes and then washing the windows yesterday.

All was well until..............

The 4th live broadcast went well and I usually watch part of the recording to check the quality of the video and audio.  I decided I needed to straighten the screen and when I moved it the whole monitor screen turned white and there was no sound.  I thought I would try turning it off and then back on and that would fix it.  Now I can hear it running but the screen is black...........  It's lucky that I own more than one laptop so I can hopefully just switch to another and be up and running again.  I just hope I can recover a few things off the hard drive or get the screen issue fixed.

Still working........

 I'm still working on the second batch of African colorwash kits for my Colorwash 360 students so I have nothing new to show.  I'm so happy to have a large class and am having fun doing critiques on their progress.  

Today is the 4th live broadcast so I'm prepping for that and answering any questions my painter has while he is painting the house trim.  The second window A/C unit came out yesterday and it will reside in the garage until next summer.  This will be the first winter in a long time that I will have every storm window on my house.

More fall quilts.............

This double 4 patch which I named Chocolate and Caramel is from 2010 and lives in TX now.  I really had fun making it.

This one using my Stack and Slash pattern hangs on the back of a metal bench in my living room.

I made this one in 2013 of the softest flannels I have ever worked with.  This one lives in Nebraska.

This is another cozy flannel quilt made from the Stack and Slash pattern.  I'm not sure who has this one because I made 2 the same year and I get mixed up who got which one.

You may have guessed I'm at the busiest part of my online Colorwash 360 class right now plus my painter was here all day.  No sewing at my house yesterday.

Weird fabric..........

 I pulled this batik fabric out yesterday and was surprised when I opened it up.  It looks like it is a test fabric where they were trying out different designs, from Hibiscus to maple leaves to body outlines.

I was surprised when I looked out to the backyard and saw a new Purple Coneflower blooming.  We got a little rain yesterday so my painter didn't come.  I expect to see him today.

I got a glare from the window but this is the color in the backyard during the rain.  My Maple tree is turning red this year and it has only had yellow leaves in the past in the fall.  I need to go out there and take a good look at it today.  The Redbud tree at the far left is still mostly green and the one on the right the pretty yellow and orange.

More of nature's beauty..........

 Even the Milkweed plants turned color this year.  I think they were more of a brown the last few years when they died.

I don't know why I didn't notice my south neighbor's tree and bush before.  His Burning Bush is a different variety than mine and wasn't affected by whatever killed most of my bush a couple years ago.

This photo was taken as it was starting to get dark and the color was just brilliant.

The painter is going to come today or tomorrow to start painting my window trim and doors.  I was back out digging out tree roots and cutting down some more vegetation.  I have one tiny spot yet to do and forgot about it until it was dark.

The Penstemon leaves turned several colors this year.  I remember them doing this one other year.

Here is a closer look, such variety.

More fall color......inside and out........

I don't remember my Redbud tree leaves turning orange before.  Usually they just start turning yellow and we get rain and wind and they all drop.  This year it is dry and they are starting to fall off but the ones on the trees are really pretty.

Here is a quilt block I made in 2017 that matches the photo.

This is my backyard neighbor's front yard tree.  I can barely see it from my house because of all of my Redbud trees so I walked over in her yard to take this photo.

This is one of my favorite fall color quilts that I have made.  The pattern is in one of Kaffe Fassett's books but I used different fabrics than the inspiration quilt.  I finished this top in June 2018 and it is still waiting to be quilted.