Clear skies and sunshine?

     Okay, so Jackie has been going on and on about all of the sunshine and clear skies that we have had for the last couple of weeks.  And sure, we had hurricane force winds in the valley on Friday and some places are still without power two days later, and today's forcast was for more sunshine and strong breezes.  Well, very little breeze, no sunshine, and SNOW!  It's only September 26 and while it may be Alaska, we typically don't get snow until the middle of October on average. 
     At least it only lasted for about an hour and while there was a smidgen of a white glaze on the grass, it all melted off rather quickly and just left us shaking our heads. 
     We have begun winterizing outside, well at least Bert has, by taking all the bonsai down from the railings and covering them with straw and several other sensitive plants, but we still have yet to trim back the Antique Rose and Clematis yet.  Maybe we need to get moving on things.
     In the meantime, here are four more completed blocks of the Baltimore quilt.  Only one to go, which is a bit slow since there are over 50 berries to sew on and their stems embroider.
     I've got a few other projects in various states of construction and I'll be home alone in October for about 10 days so I am lining up a few more projects.  Don't know how much progress I will make though since I have so many things on tap for work.
     Oh well, until then . . .

Birds, Berries and Crowns

     As is usual with the Labor Day weekend, there seems to be a lot of labor going on but this year it didn't seem to involve the manual type like working on the house or yard or anything like that.  

     Friday was a day off for the kids at school and we had another rip-rousing day of meetings. Little preparation from the leaders that be as usual but a whole list of extra stuff that we were/are expected to determine and create that day and in the days to come. It is going to be a very interesting year I am sure and we are only three weeks in. 

     Saturday was a day to catch up and get things done around the house on the inside.  Most exciting things like pay bills, clean the desk, do the laundry and the like. 

     Sunday we slept in later than planned and the day seemed very short.  Before we knew it the afternoon had zipped by and we were running around getting ready for Coronation.  Sadly, while it was good to see friends and a former student received a scholarship, this years event was not in our opinion up to the caliber of events in the past and our choice for Empress did not win in the balloting.  We ended up leaving early due to being tired, we had been at the event for four hours already and their was still one act to go.  I must be getting old since I can't stay out that late anymore. 

  We picked more raspberries this week so after a week with a raspberry pie I made a raspberry crumble for dessert for tonight's supper.  Really scrumptious.  The strawberries are long gone and it doesn't look our apples will do anything this year again. 

     Through the whole weekend though I have managed to insert some sewing here and there.  I had converted a photo into a stitching program for my embroidery machine but it just really didn't turn out.  It wasn't the most optimum photo to begin with so I am not totally disappointed, but I will have to work the program more to get better results in the future.  I've also continued to work on finishing up the nine blocks in the baltimore album quilt.  The designs are a bit more stylized but I really like Susan McKelvey's type of work and plan on making more of the patterns in her book.  I actually started these last summer while traveling and continued this summer while traveling.  I'm just about ready to stitch them all together into one.  Only small hand embroidery details left on the last five.  Hope you enjoy looking at these four.

     Well, off to other tasks at hand as the new work week beckons.