Today you get three of the blocks that are already made (I still need to make one for Elm Street School—no takers for that particular challenge!): the Oak Leaf, the Maple Leaf and Merryspring’s gazebo. Maine’s tourist season extends from mid-to-late June (peak Black Fly season!) through autumn leaves or “Leaf Peeper” season, which actually brings more hordes of turistas than summer!

Beth Guisely and Polly Schuessler made the Maple and Oak leaves, respectively, from my drawings….these blocks are emblematic of our glorious autumns. They did a wonderful job.

And Barb Melchisky is a pro at applique. She took on the challenging Gazebo at Merryspring, a local land trust and garden / plant / native habitat center. Tucked onto 66 acres that cross from Camden into Rockport, it is described on their website as “privately owned park.” It has several beautiful walks through woods and meadows where you can see native flora (and sometimes fauna).

For this morning’s Chapter Banner installment, scroll down. For those who have read it and are curious about the beast….

Several readers have asked what kind of dog Yeti is. He is a Tibetan Mastiff. They believe these “big dogs” (Do Kyi in Nepal) came out of the Himalayas with Alexander the Great and became the foundation stock that led to the Saint Bernard, Bernese Mountain Dogs, Great Pyrenees and Newfoundlands… The TMs are considered an “ancient” breed, and only go into heat once a year, having a litter in early spring (so weaned when summer approaches). For a giant breed, they live fairly long: 11-14 years!

TMs have a double coat (downy plus guard hairs), of hair, not fur, so for folks with allergies they are supposedly better. Also means he doesn’t shed much at all, though when he “blows coat” at the onset of summer, they entire neighborhood ends up fluffy with tufts of dog fur. When I groom him, just one side, I end up with a pile of fluff as big as he is (after two or three hours of combing). Last year one of our neighbors was out for a walk and saw tufts of fur and thought someone had nailed a small mammal…until she came past us as we waited for the school bus with Eli and saw us engaged in the annual “pluck the dog” ritual!

He is a great big couch potato… at our old house our uphill neighbor said she once saw and eagle dive-bomb him to see if he was roadkill because it had been so long since he moved! These dogs were bred to guard the villages of Nepal at night, so they sleep all day, wake up, bark (Yes, Yeti, it’s a car with its lights on, thank you…STOP now!), sleep more, bark some, sleep more. Consequently, they eat less than a German Shepherd or Lab. Yeti is sweet as can be, but gosh is he stooooopid! Dumb as a dirtclod is the common phrase around here LOL!

Tibetans come in a variety of colors…but all are large! Yeti is what is known as a cream-sable, but they come all black (like a Newf), black and tan, red (like an Irish setter’s color), or cream-sable. As they mature that lion-like ruff around their necks becomes heavier, as does the “shawl” which goes over their shoulder and (varying from animal to animal) can run all the way down to their feathery plume of a tail. And his feet are HUGE.

Here are some links to:

The Tibetan Mastiff Club of America
The American Tibetan Mastiff Club
and here’s a link to a picture there when Yeti was a wee pup….only the size of an end table then!
The American Kennel Association page on TMs
Drakyi TMs (a top breeder—Yeti is the grandson of Drakyi’s Simba)

Yeti is now 152 pounds, drops his chin to rest it on the dining room table, takes up half a sofa to sleep, and (at our old house) when he stands on his hind legs with front paws on the top railing, looks me pretty much in the eye. I’m 5’6″!

Our next two blocks for the quilt (these are, by the way, about 6 1/2 inch blocks) are the Loon and Lupine.

Polly Schuessler made the loon from one of my patterns (I adapted the Loon-y About Maine pattern’s 4 inch loon block), using fussy cuts from a loon print fabric…perfect! I just love the baby on the back!

Another amazing artist is Betty Johnson. Betty’s daughter Karen is my age, and I just LOVE to see what she has brought to share at our monthly meetings. She has an unerring eye for design, color and composition. I have told her in complete honesty that she definitely has the best eye among all of us in Coastal Quilters, including me, Roxanne, Jan and everyone. She did the beautiful embroidery for the lupine block– I gave her a sketch and said “do whatever!” I’m so glad she did. I’m going to take another photo in hopes of getting better color than this first one….it’s just a beautiful block filled with french knots that are just the right thing:

The lupines grow wild across the state, mostly the blues, but every once in a while you’ll come across a swath with the pinks.

How can it be Wednesday already!??!!!! Sorry I haven’t uploaded the next Coastal Quilters entry yet…. if you scroll through this message, it is just underneath with new pics of more blocks.

In the meantime, Widgeon has taught Yeti how to play! And Yeti, it appears, has taught Widgeon how to take naps (not that Pigwidgeon needed a lot of help there). You might wonder what furry thing Widgeon is sleeping on here:

The answer would be….. YETI!

Here are some more obnoxiously cute photos of pug and behemoth sleeping and playing…. you can tell when they’ve been at it when Pigwidgeon comes for attention, you reach down and pet him, and he’s soggy….eeeewwwww! Cute, but ick!

Maine is home to many outdoor enthusiasts, as the phrase goes. OK. People here like to have fun, and for many of them that involves getting outside and enjoying our beautiful state. Kayaking on both lakes and coast is common, and everywhere you see kayaks for sale or rent along the coast and on the inland lakes.

Leigh Smith is a devoted member of Coastal Quilters and works hard when she isn’t commuting to work in the Boston area (she’s a nurse). But she is a beginning quilter…I’d say she did a phenomenal job! I gave her a basic pattern for a kayak, but she did research at our local sporting goods store, Maine Sports (on Hwy.l 1 in Rockport–also good for raiding the fly fishing department for goodies to stick on art quilts!) to get the details right. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the handles at the ends (jewelry findings from Wal-Mart!) and the hatch cap (or whatever they call that round screw-cap thing-y…we have kayaks but I haven’t a clue) which is really a button detailed with a sharpie with a paddle logo!

And Janet Knapp made this quirky lobster using one of my patterns. I had omitted the legs, and her first comment was “where are the legs?!” So she chain stitched them in–perfect! I love his tentacles/feelers, too. And as you can tell from the bright red, he’s already been boiled … where’s the butter?