OK…no pictures today (sob, I’m sorry!).  It has been, as usual, chaos, and more chaos than usual!   I am happy to report, however, there are lots of pictures and things to share….I just need to find a few extra hours in the day to process and re-size the photos, then write and blog!

The biggest interrupted by life was going to the International Quilt Festival in Houston, where I demo’d, met friends, ate Mexican (HEAVENLY!), met new friends, had fun, spent some money on fabric and paints, tried a new product that I think is gonna be awesome, and generally got exhausted and happy.

Then there are the teenager and kid and aging mom things that tend to interrupt life.  And filling out insurance claims.  And selling our house (going like a dream) and buying our new house (not so much…I’ll dish AFTER the closing is done and we own the house, but it has been unnecessarily difficult because of one person…more in maybe February or March on that one).  It looks like, at long last, that all WILL come off without a hitch (I’m an optimist), and in late January we’ll be moving to a new house about 4 miles away (same school district).

Then, on the way home from Houston, I was too tired for the level of attention required by the book I had.  So while changing planes in Dallas (which by the way is like a big city shopping mall with airplane gates added!) I went into the Barnes and Noble (complete with Starbucks) and bought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.   Ooops.  That means I have been DEVOURING that book and the two sequels.  I am halfway through the last book, and will surface when done LOL!
Thanks for checking in, and I promise good pictures and fun stuff SOON, Cheers, Sarah

Yes, I am a calendar girl!!!!! Can you believe it?  I STILL, even though the quilt is home, I have the ribbon (now a year old), and saw the quilt with the ribbon in Houston this time last year, cannot believe that *I* really won a ribbon, and then of the 110 or so winning quilts was one of 13 selected to be in this calendar:

Robbi Eklow's eye-cathing gears quilt is on the cover

The inside cover tells a bit about each quilt:

Inside the front cover, a bit about the 13 quilts

And, drum roll please, here is Fields of Gold, a.k.a. Miss September.  I like how they brought the quilt down over the staples onto the lower page, rather than reduce the size to fit on the top half:

Fields of Gold

I swear, if someone had told me when we left Friday Harbor 6 years ago that I’d have a book, be a Houston award winner, and be in this calendar, I wouldn’t have believed a word of it…absolutely astonishing!  It just goes to prove that if you work hard, are really passionate about something, and are willing to devote the time and effort it takes to do something, you CAN!

After the breathtaking walk that Paul and I took (see the pics here), the twelve middle school teams (at least I think it was 12 teams) began to arrive.   Each school was allowed to select its seven best boys and seven best girls for the “varsity” race of about 2.2 miles over the hilliest (and therefore slowest) course in the region; the rest of the teams were invited to be in the fun run, a bit more than a mile, after the main races.  Since not each team had enough students to field a full seven in the varsity race, the field for each (boys and girls) was in the upper 50 range.

Coach Morse (aka the 6th grade social studies teacher!) talks to our very large team

The girls ran first....about halfway down the photo you can see a long line of girls.....far in the lead, as usual, was Camden-Rockport's Jacquie

Each team lined up in the tent, then was announced and ran past the spectators, up a small hill to the starting line; that's Eli in the middle

And they're OFF and running! Talk about a thundering herd of boys!

And away they go!

The pack of about 56 boys soon draws out into a long line headed down the to lagoon, peninsula, up the hill, up another hill, around past the start for another loop and repeat on the hills....

Look at that sunlight! What a place to race! The gray line shows the boys spread out on the trail

Heading into the woods and out to the little peninsula

On the right, our fastest runner is Ben W. Tho small, he is unbelievably fast, and has won most of his races this season!

Eli is on the left, with hair spray painted red--go Schooners!, heading out for his second loop around the course

Ben sprints up the final hill (GASP!)

This photo shows how steep that hill is. Eli is the one in red, and he actually OVERTOOK the boy in burgundy and black (one of the fastest kids in the region) on this hill! Alas, in the last 30 yards, the boy ahead in this photo overtook Eli just at the finish line!

Headed to the finish line! Eli had his fastest race of the season, on the toughest course, had his his highest finish amongst his team for this year (second only to Ben--there have been other team members who have been faster than Eli up to this race) and actually outran one or two of the kids who were thought to be Ben's stiffest competition!

Eli and Ben after the race. Ben and his twin Kyle have been Eli's best friends since we arrived in first grade. It has been so heartwarming to see them grow, mature, come into themselves as 7th graders turning into young men. Ben finished second (a boy from Belfast I think won) and Eli finished 5th!!!!!

The Camden-Rockport Girls team wins the Championship!

Eli gets a ribbon for 5th place (out of a varsity field of about 56+ boys!)

Ben W. receives his second place trophy (and I think he set a personal best time too!)

The Camden-Rockport boys win! the championship

What an incredible season!  The C-R team had such depth that many of the kids who didn’t make it into the top 7 for the varsity race were actually faster than kids from other schools who led their teams!   Even the slowest of the kids finished all the races, with love and support and encouragement from their teammates!  Mr. Morse, one of the awesome-est teachers ever, was just as outstanding as a coach.  He researched on his own time issues the kids were having to figure out what they needed…in Eli’s case, his side cramps indicated he needed to hydrate in the mornings on the day of a race.  How amazing is that, for Mr. Morse to do that for ALL of the kids?  It goes to show why they dominated and what makes Mr. Morse so wonderful as both teacher and coach.  And it was a good race all around for the Great Salt Bay course, with the winning boy (from Belfast I think) and winning girl (Jacquie from Camden) setting course records…WOW!

BOTH the boys and the girls were not only the Champions, but they both had undefeated seasons–every meet they were in, they won! And in addition to being outstanding athletes, their sportsmanship and grace were tops.  Well done to everyone:  kids, coaches, bus drivers, parents…what a season–one that will definitely go down in the school record books!

There has been so much going on, that these photos were taken about a month ago.  But Maine in autumn is so beautiful, and the kids did SO well in cross country, that they deserve a blogpost or two even if it is late!  Paul and I (at my nagging) went for a country drive the morning of the championship meet.

A typical crossroads in rural Maine. Don't blink, you'll miss it.

Rabbit Path Road (dirt). I am not kidding. That's the real name.

Sometimes the trees open up and you get a vista like this one, to the west, with the russet blueberry barrens in the mid-ground

Another byway

And one of the funniest signs I've seen ever. Yes, Mainers DO have a sense of humor!

Across from Cows**t Corner, the typical deteriorating Maine barn (still in use)

We arrived at the Great Salt Bay preserve, where the meet was being held, early, so decided to go for a walk….How glorious can the world be?????

Breathtakingly, achingly beautiful--this former farm is now the Great Salt Bay preserve. Maine is wonderful in protecting its beauty; there are nature preserves everywhere!

As you can tell, a front of crisp and wet air was about to arrive

Looking across the lagoon

From the far side of the lagoon looking back to the old farmhouse and parking

LOOK at those clouds....time to pull out Charlotte Ziebarth's book on digital photo manipulation for art quilters and play with this photo!

Part of the Cross Country race trail, mown for safety (no mole-holes!)

About 3/4 of the way around the loop we walked, looking at the march and old farmstead

Tho not the best year for color, there are still spots of brilliance

Be still my beating heart....autumn is my favorite season!

Next post I’ll actually talk about the race!

This blogpost continues my work on a quilt inspired by Kathy Schmidt’s Cell Block Blues pattern from her bestselling Rule-Breaking Quilts book.  (Check here for my book review.) At first I thought all my blocks (and I had no idea how many I would make or how large this quilt might be) would have bright hand-dyeds (all made by me!) as the stems and veins.  As the quilt took shape, though, I decided a bit of subtle would be a good think and make a good transition to the outer edges of the quilt which, in my mind, would be the remaining squares and rectangles from the original ten fat quarters of batik.

Another set of blocks, adding some blues to the bright mix

At this point, the design wall was getting crowded, so I removed the other “stuff” so I could spread out my blocks into what might become the final quilt.  It is fairly unusual for me not to have a final image inside my head before I begin, so I was enjoying working this way for a change.  It definitely won’t become my “new favorite” way, but I sure had fun with this one.  You’ll notice in the photo above that there are blobs of white-white fabric and dark-dark, and it got tricky getting the direction of the stems correct and preventing same-fabric from touching the same-fabric in another block! In this case, contrast is good.

The quilt grew and grew; finally, I decided I had enough blocks.

By this point, I had as many blocks as I thought I needed.  My design wall is 6 feet wide at the widest point, and I had just about reached that size, which I decided was plenty large.  As the blocks went up, I scattered the colors and the direction of the blocks as if they were swirling upwards in an autumn gust.  The bright colors are clustered in the center with the blue-vein blocks on the edges.  Now it was time to fill in the pieces.  To my dismay, I didn’t take in-process photos until after the whole thing was sewn together.

Filling it in to become a rectangle

The top is now about 40×60 inches.  This is what is left of the initial ten fat quarters, with a 6×12 inch ruler for scale:

what's left out of 2 1/2 yards of fabric (ten fat quarters)

Not much!   Seven of the ten original fabrics are pictured here.  The rest is totally used!  The white one on the right and the dark blue on the left were purchased for value-range (i.e. light-light and dark-dark) and were essential, but they really grab your eye almost too much so I stuck to the medium-dark to medium to medium-light fabrics for most of the work.

When I went to the Batiks by Design website it appeared some of the fabrics I used were sold out, so I called the store and thankfully they still had some of them, so my outer border and binding will not have to feature prints not used in the center.  I’m so glad they were willing to custom cut some pieces for me to match what I already had. Here’s to good quilty service…thanks ladies!  I’m planning on a narrow inner border of the bright colors all the way around the top shown above (probably a finished 3/8 or 1/2″ wide multicolored strip), with a wider (3-5 inches?) of squares and rectangles of the blues, with a slightly darker blue batik for the binding.  What do you think?  Suggestions?  I’m thinking maybe some of those larger rectangles on the outer edge need to get sliced up with some of the medium-value pieces set into them.  Maybe with some angles? Let me know what you think!