COVER FOR JOURNAL

 I took my sewing machine in for a service yesterday.  When I got home I started making the cover for my Fall Journal 2026. I found some Sari ribbon I liked to use as a closure.  I'm not sure I should have pressed it, but I wanted it to be under the circle where I'm embroidering the title and info for the journal.  Maybe I can scrunch it back up.

 I got it almost done.

Then today, I finished it, for now.  I'm thinking I will wrap the ribbon around and it will continue onto the back cover.  Not sure how to do that, but the fun part is figuring it out.  I'm also thinking I'd like them to be hard covers.  Hmmm...

FINISH NUMBER 22

 I made bias binding yesterday and this morning I sewed it onto the Turquoise SLABs quilt.

It is done!

It is 69" by 86"

And there's a party on the back:

FINISH NUMBER 21

 I made some bias binding from the same fabric as the borders and sewed it on this morning.

It's done!  This is Finish #21 for the year.

It is "Surprise It's Betty"  52" x 63".

QUILTED SURPRISE

 Yesterday I spent the majority of the day sewing the blocks of 'Surprise It's Betty' together with sashing and then adding borders to each side.  The name for this quilt comes partially from the two charm packs called Surprise!  and the pattern they were sewn into call Betty.  The pattern is from this book:

Then this morning, I got Erik the longarm set up to quilt it with a pantograph, an allover meander.  It took the majority of the day, but I finished it up just before dinner time.  It's quilted.

ONIONS

 Here is another page for this year's Fall Journal.  These are some onions from the garden.

FINISH IT FRIDAY BUSY

 I got a lot done today.  

First, we went for a walk at Lincoln Park.  It was a beautiful morning.  The Fall colors are spectacular right now - and it smells like Fall.

Then, after breakfast, Jelly and I went up to the studio where Erik and I finished the quilting on the Turquoise Slabs quilt and took it off the machine.

And, while Erik was doing the actual quilting, I worked on my Fall Journal.  Here is my Marigold page.  it is about 6" by 5".

And then, I made the last five blocks needed for the twenty needed to complete the quilt for the Quilting Mayhem's UFO Challenge 2026. It is being made using two of the same Charm Packs and some of my solid fabrics. It's going to be down to the wire to get this one done before next Friday.

TURQUOISE SLABS

 I've been working on using up the fabrics in my overflowing Turquoise Scrap Bucket.  I've been making SLABS ala Cheryl Arkinson.  I made a bunch of them and put them up on the design wall thinking I'd just sew them together using fill-in pieces.  That method involves a lot of partial seams and takes a lot of figuring and it's time-consuming.  So, after a bit I abandoned that idea and started making bigger chunks and then sewed them together.  That way there was a lot less partial seams.

So, the top is done.  It's 69" by 86".