What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Tuesday is Mardi Gras, and this year I managed to remember it far enough in advance to change my header to Mardi Gras. I have some fun ideas for you today, for your home, and my plans for this year. Let’s start by setting a festive table. Pull out everything you can find around the house in purple, gold and green and mix them up to create a carnival table. This table for two from a couple of years ago could be for breakfast, as we have a Mardi Gras party to attend this year for dinner.

This party ...

Last weekend, I took down and packed away all the autumn decor and got the Christmas things out. The house has been transformed into a red and green wonderland, with my Santa Claus collection, Christmas dishes, festive wall hangings and holiday table runners. It makes a pleasurable day to piddle around unpacking treasured keepsakes and fun thrift store finds, remembering the people and places they came from, and placing them here and there, while watching Christmas movies. Every year, things go in different spots. This little guy is my favorite of the Santa collection, he is so whimsical dancing with ...

So much to catch up on today! Get comfortable and enjoy a long and picture heavy post. Cooler weather is supposed to come in this week, and I am hoping for more seasonal temperatures, but where has the month gone?! It is turkey time around here, the wild kind. These guys have nothing to worry about from us this week, though. They know me, and come running when I step out to scatter some sunflower seeds for them.

It is always a delight to see the wildlife.

A predicted freeze last week prompted me to pull the more tender perennials ...

Glorious color adorns our driveway with the fall season reaching its peak. The reds and golds are brilliant even in this early dawn view. Fog settles into the valley sometimes, and I love that. This photo was taken two weeks ago, as the colors hit their peaks.

When the sun came up over the east mountain, the driveway was awash in autumn color. But we are in a drought, and this scene didn’t last long as the leaves fell quickly. Some of the trees in our view still have beautiful color.

A couple of days ago, this photo shows ...

When I saw the fabulous turkey prints in the Benartex Harvest Festival line, my mind immediately went to fussy cutting the turkeys. I knew I wanted a project to showcase those turkeys, along with the feather prints. Placemats for the Autumn table that would work all the way to Thanksgiving seemed like a good plan.

I began with my 6-1/2-inch square ruler to figure out which turkeys I could get in their entirety with the half-yard of fabric I had.

I made a gaggle of flying geese from the dark feather print so I could set the turkeys on ...

It is officially fall! I hope it cools off more soon, as I am really ready to pull out my fall sweaters and woolly socks. I am searching the forest for changing leaves, and waiting to hear the geese flying south overhead, honking as they go. I am ready for chilly mornings, crisp and sweet like the apples grown in our county orchards. I am ready for pumpkins, and the colors of autumn. It is time to get out the fall decorations, and put out some rust and gold. I started with the table, choosing a golden ceramic pumpkin as ...

Once again this week, I have several things to chat about. Spring is warming up and it puts us in the mood to get outside, change things around inside, and do a little digging in the dirt. Warmer weather also means our car clubs are getting out on our mountain roads for some driving. The MINI club was first up this month with a drive. The red one on the left is ours.

The day started out partly cloudy but warm. Of course, we put the top down, then started out going north from our meeting spot to a road ...

Autumn decor gets more full with each passing month, and November brings out the turkeys to add to the fall leaves and pumpkins. I change out a few things for a Thanksgiving theme this month. I brought out the pilgrim figures I’ve had for many years now, a remembrance of my mother as they were hers. They are precious to me, and this year I put them with the mini quilt and a small turkey. My turkey candles go in a clear glass holders with harvest candle rings.

In the kitchen, my maple leaf runners are on the tables ...

It has been a whirlwind this past 10 days, as we traveled up to Ohio to be a part of my brother-in-law’s wedding. His bride is such a lovely woman, and we already adore her. She was absolutely radiant, in a gorgeous blue lace floor length gown. Honestly, I have never seen my husband’s brother look happier in all the years I’ve known him. He has found a rare and wonderful love that was so special to witness. Their wedding was a joyous occasion, and we were honored to be a part of it. On the way ...

I decided to find something else to hang there and this was close to me as I had recently finished it.

Yes, if you follow my blog you just saw it.

The size of this one is perfect and I love how it looks with my crocks of yarn.

I discovered marketplace and found it there. It is solid, like new and VERY heavy.

This is what it looks like in our living room.

I started decorating around the house, earlier this month, by hanging the "Stitch Pink Christmas" (my version made up in traditional Christmas fabrics) quilt out on the porch. I finished the quilting on this one in January, it's the first time it's been hung! I love it! From there on it was full speed ahead with the decorations, inside and out. I got the Christmas dishes placed in the kitchen

I started decorating around the house, earlier this month, by hanging the "Stitch Pink Christmas" (my version made up in traditional Christmas fabrics) quilt out on the porch. I finished the quilting on this one in January, it's the first time it's been hung! I love it! From there on it was full speed ahead with the decorations, inside and out. I got the Christmas dishes placed in the kitchen

Hello and Happy Summer! I hope you are all doing well since my last check in. Life has been very busy here with the kids, sports, friends, the end of school and trying to meet all of my work deadlines. I thought I would pop in quick to tell you about a couple of those work related things.

First of all, my Snowed In collection with Riley Blake Designs is hitting stores now! It was such a fun line to create and I’m really excited to have a holiday/winter line out again. It feels like it’s been ...

Seems like it has been a crazy busy week. How can this be when it is mostly spent at home? A lot is due to just having a bit of warmer weather, and getting a bit of cabin fever to dig in the dirt. We went on a drive to map out a route for a MINI club drive and had a delicious barbeque lunch in Dillsboro. My Sweet Babboo brought me a surprise this week. He thought I needed some fresh flowers for the kitchen and table. He chose this lovely bouquet of alstroemeria in a mostly green color ...

I’m back to finish the preview of my newest book, Trendy Table 3. In case you missed it, you can find the first part of the preview here.

First up, the Summertime Picnic Runner.

This runner finishes at 17″ x 44″. The center of the runner uses 5″ squares and the watermelon is made with fat eighths. The watermelon wedges do require the use of an included template, my Triangler ruler or this ruler by Creative Grids.

The featured fabric is my Shades of Summer collection from Riley Blake Designs that came out last summer. You can pick up ...

Here it is, the last day of November. The family's been and gone, the turkey's been eaten and all of my Thanksgiving decor has been stashed away until next year. I have swapped out the dishes for my Winter plates in the kitchen and tomorrow, December the first, the true Christmas decorating will begin  here at Chez Goodneedle. I have watched Christmas go up a lot earlier this year, in our

Here it is, the last day of November. The family's been and gone, the turkey's been eaten and all of my Thanksgiving decor has been stashed away until next year. I have swapped out the dishes for my Winter plates in the kitchen and tomorrow, December the first, the true Christmas decorating will begin  here at Chez Goodneedle. I have watched Christmas go up a lot earlier this year, in our

I’ve been doing autumn theme quilts since my early days of quilting.  The second quilt I ever did was a huge, oversized king with tossed leaves on a beige background.  One of the three borders has uneven numbers of flying geese on each side.  It was only the second quilt I had entered into competition and I won my first ribbon with it.  I called it Autumn Breeze.

It is quilted with a swirly design pantograph (by someone else) that gives the feeling of wind.  It won an honorable mention for design.  And with that, I was hooked on ...