The Best Made Plans

Okay. So I was all gung ho to get the last sashing and borders attached to Danuta's Garden and be ready to call it a quilt when suddenly the plan changed. Anne will be visiting the Madonna House Gift Shop next weekend and can drop items off for me, so I switched gears and went into table topper mode.

First I finished the four Halloween Lite lozenge toppers.

Then I added a narrow gold border to two and a wider black border and quilted those two with a soft gold thread. I'll work on the others two later for the Holly Bazaar.

I just love using my Hera marker to get me started with the machine quilting. I scribe a few widely spaced lines and then use the guide on my machine to fill in between those lines as densely as I like. The marker avoids having to worry about marking and getting marks out after the fact. Love it!

And then I pulled out the long HST runner and quilted it. I didn't straddle the centre seam the way I had intended to so I ended up having to use a variety of row widths, but I think it works. I found enough red gingham bias binding hanging on my design wall and hiding under a pile on the ironing board (there's just a foot left over) so I used it and backed it with a big, bold red and white gingham.

So today it's job one to get all three of these bindings sewn down. It's another beautiful day in our last long weekend of the summer so I think I'll head to the deck to enjoy some hand sewing.

It hasn't all been table toppers though. Peaches are in season and last night we had a BBQ to celebrate the last of summer, so I modified one of my favourite summer recipes - Ina Garten's Fruit Crostata - and made one with just peaches, a sprinkling of slivered almonds and a touch of almond flavouring.

OMG - deee-lish!!!

If it's a long weekend where you are, enjoy it to the fullest. And, if it isn't, well, it's still a weekend, so enjoy that too!....M