Kabetogama, Minnesota

Good Minnesota morning to you, my friends, and Happy September! We got on the road early yesterday morning for a drive of nearly 350 miles. What remained of our drive through North Dakota looked like all the roads we traveled there...wide open and flat. It was our first time traveling to that part of the state, and we were pleasantly surprised at the beauty we found there.

We traveled around 50 miles when we crossed the Red River...yes, of the Red River Valley...

and hellllllloooooo Minnesota!

As we made our way in a north-easterly direction, it didn't look much different until we started seeing more trees.

We passed by Itasca State Park, where one can find the headwaters of the Mississippi River. We'd visited there before, and so we passed it by this time. If you want to read more about it, though, you can read this old blog post from our visit in 2014. You can also see where we met up with a giant Paul Bunyon and his ox Babe in Bemidji. We drove around the perimeter of Bemidji yesterday, but never ventured any closer to the lake.

We were traveling mostly straight, two-lane roads during yesterday's travel, but here in the Land of a Thousand Lakes, we saw a lot more water. On our previous trip, a native Minnesotan claimed it was really the Land of a Hundred Thousand Lakes.

We passed by a lot of farmland, but not very many barns.

But there were plenty more lakes.

We've noticed that the trees get scrubbier and shorter as we get farther north. We're heading toward International Falls, where the weatherman often reports the coldest temperature in the nation.

When we crossed over the Little Fork River, we were getting close to our final destination in Kabetogama.

We aren't camped within Voyageurs National Park, but it seems the park is all around us.

We're right beside Kabetogama Lake. When we were set up, we took a little stroll down to the lakeshore. There were some beautiful flowers growing there. These are Cosmos.

They were humming with bees.

There were some pretty daylilies there too.

To the right of the flowers, the pet station gave us a chuckle.

Turning directly around, there was a small dock with boats that were available for rental.

Since we're taking the Grand Tour of Voyageurs National Park tomorrow, we probably won't rent a boat here. The Kabetogama Visitor's Center is just around the bend in the image below.

We've taken the same tour before, and we loved it so much, we decided to come back and do it again. Our shadow selves are excited about it too.

You can read my post about our last tour right here. On that trip, we took off from the International Falls Visitor Center, and this time, we will leave from a different place.

Now that Smitty got a taste for walking outside at our last stop, he was chomping at the bit to get outside again here. Although there were strange noises and Mans running around, he was very brave and got in a good half hour walk. Also, the grass here in Meownnesota is flavorful and delicious.

We have three nights here in Kabetogama (two now), and our boat tour is not until tomorrow. Today, we don't have anything planned. We'll probably head over to the national park just to get our bearings and learn if there are some hiking trails. You and I will both find out together what's in the works for the day. I can assure you, laundry will be on the list. It's been five days since I've been able to run our washer. Since it takes only small loads, there's a lot of catching up to do.

I have a couple more things to tell you today. You might remember when I participated in a "Collaborative Embroidery Project," at the request of Sam Hunter of Hunter Design Studio. Participants were sent an email with the following instructions:

Cut a piece of solid-colored cotton fabric to 6'' x 6''

Mark off a half-inch border all around with easy-to-remove tape, like blue painter's tape (I need this for seam allowance) leaving a 5'' x 5'' window in the middle.

Mark your name along the bottom of the fabric window in stitch or permanent pen on the FRONT. This will indicate which way is up and credit you visibly as a contributor.

 

Follow these stitching instructions:

This is the part where you get to do it *your* way. Don't consult with anyone about it!

Choose a thread that contrasts with your fabric

Using the thread, stitch a line on the fabric

Choose another color of thread

Stitch a second line that crosses the first

The reveal for the quilt blocks is today. Below is my contribution. 

She received 220 submissions that have now been sewn into a quilt. Reveal for the whole quilt will be in November. I'll admit I'm very excited to see it. You can see more block submissions at this #myriadinterpretationsoflanguage hashtag.

Oh yes, and one more thing. You might remember when I took this photo...

on one of our visits to Picacho Peak State Park near Tucson, Arizona. Mike and I follow a newsletter entitled RVTravel. Recently they started a twice-weekly photo contest where readers are invited to submit photos for a chance to win. I was notified a few days ago that my photo was a winner, and that I'd won a $50 Amazon gift card. Not bad! I was supposed to respond within 24 hours...which I've done...but so far haven't heard anything more from them. It's been nearly 48 hours now, so I'm hopeful they'll follow through and get back to me about the gift card soon. 

All right...time for breakfast and to get on with whatever the day holds. There will be laundry. And there will probably be cat walking. And there will be dispensing of kitty treats. And there will be kitty petting. And there will be slow-stitching. (I'm close to finishing my current quilt block.) Other than that...the sky's the limit.

Bag Ladies are In the Bag

The bag ladies are not intoxicated...just to be clear. But they are finished. I had the most faithful assistants working with me to bring this to a close.

Sadie...I need you! I've been working on this quilt binding for hours, and I need some relief.

Okay, Smitty. Just let me know when you want me to take over. I'll be right here.

We're almost finished, Sadie. I'll just rest my nose right here. Pawssibly, I can hold on to the end.

When I'd turned the last corner and finished it off, I laid it down for it's "four corners" picture...um...excuse me...would you mine just...

Okay, there we go. Did I mention Smitty helped finish this off?

And there we go. A happy and colorful quilt.

As mentioned previously, I've been rehoming some of my quilts and lightening my load. While I was stitching around the binding, I was considering what to do with this one. It's going to go to a friend who was diagnosed with a rather aggressive cancer earlier this year. (Yeah...2020 has been a major bummer of a year.) She's been undergoing treatment, and it looks like she's going to be okay. Nevertheless, she's had trouble regulating her body temperature, and so I decided to pass along this quilt to her. It'll be a great snuggle quilt for someone trying to keep warm.

Moving on, I was in a mood to switch out my fall runners, toppers, and wall-hanging for the more Octobery stuff. This little table topper is called Pumpkin Patch. The pattern was from the September, 2016, issue of Quilter's World.

This next little wall-hanging was the result of an all-day class I took with Meg Hawkey of Crabapple Hill Studios when she visited a local quilt shop. The embroidered pumpkin pie design was hers, and then I borrowed two more pumpkins from the table topper above to make this little quilt. I really like this little space on the wall between my kitchen and dining room. Originally, I didn't set out to have it be a quilt-swapping area, but it has worked out that way.

And, check out those bullion stitches. Those were my first successful ones. Meg sat by my side and taught me how to make them. The trick is not wrapping the floss around the needle too tightly.

And, finally, this little runner on our breakfast bar. This little quilt is called "Cornflowers," and the pattern was one I picked up from a "clearance" box at a San Diego quilt shop. It was from Sticks and Broomstraws. The flowers and the prairie point borders are made to look like candy corn. Rarely do I make the same quilt twice, but I think this would be cute done in spring colors with flowers made in different colors. Maybe some day I'll do it, but it was a pain top-stitching around all those petals and leaves, so maybe not. 

Okay, so then I went back to my slow-stitching. I filled in as much as I could on the latest plate for Pieces of the Past.

Today I'll start on this next section. I couldn't quite fit the whole thing in the hoop, which activates my OCD something awful.

While I was working on that, Mike brought in the mail. Lo and behold, there was a mug rug from my "ghost" partner in the Teal Mini Swap. Sheesh. Now who woulda' thought? So, thank you, partner. I take back all the bad thoughts I had about you. Why didn't you respond to my many messages??? Whatever. I love all the colors in this.

When describing my likes and dislikes for the swap, I always just say I'm a born cat lover. She included a fat quarter of this cute fabric. Are these cats wearing pajamas, or are they children wearing cat pajamas? I'm kind of going with the cats wearing pajamas because of the whiskers. Very cute.

Also in the mail was a bag of 50 tongue depressors I ordered. I saw this on Pinterest...or somewhere...I can't remember. It's ribbon wrapped around tongue depressors. I thought this would be a good idea for left over quilt binding.

So, I had quite a bit of leftover quilt binding, and I spent some time wrapping all of it around the tongue depressors. I used bent pins and old sewing machine needles from my "sharps" container to fasten the ends. I had in mind to use a large jar like the one above, but I had so many they were packed in too tightly, and I couldn't really see them. Instead, I used one of those plastic bags I save from sheet sets. And there they are...all tidy now.

I spent so much time on that, I barely had any time left to work on the New Mexico Kitchen block. I only had time to add the bowl of batter there on the right.

I'll have more time to work on it today, and I really do expect to get all of the fusing finished. If I'm really speedy, I should be able to get a start on the top-stitching.

So that was kind of a full day. I even squeezed in some housekeeping. Today there's nothing on the calendar. It's going to be an NBS day (Nothing But Sewing). I love Saturday, don't you?

Lots of Sewing

With rain falling for most of the day, it was very nearly sewing all day long. I was brave and did a little housework too. It allowed me to sew without guilt. The morning's slow stitching had me getting a start on the next plate for Pieces of the Past. 

It's a small piece, and so I expect it won't take long to finish it. When I was ready, I did my housekeeping chore, and then rewarded myself with some slow stitching around the binding for the Bag Ladies. I've turned the second corner now.

And time flies, doesn't it, because it was time to collect the mail then. I found my Teal Mini Swap mug rug there along with several fat quarters and fat eighths of fabric. My swap partner completely ghosted me this year. I tried half a dozen times in different ways to contact her. Then, disgusted, I went ahead and made her mug rug and mailed it off. I mention my disgust because I didn't even bother to take a picture of the mug rug I made. It was a mug rug with teal "plus" blocks on a blue crab fabric background. (She lives in North Carolina, and I made use of the blue crab fabric I bought while we were traveling there.)

So, I mailed that off about a month ago, and never heard word one from her. It was kind of a disappointing swap experience. The thing is...in a swap, it's the relationship that comes from it that makes it fun for me. The swap is only secondary. So...anyway...(picks self up, dusts self off), Beth, who organizes this whole thing, also sets up an army of "angels" for just this sort of occurrence. My angel, Nancy, sent me all this cool stuff, and that's my mug rug there at the bottom. The teal spoon was the fabric used in this year's swap. Thank you, Nancy. It was a very fun package to open, and it went a long way toward salving my wounds of disappointment.

Also, I received a fabulous package from Nanette, who decided to unload a bunch of Cynthia England patterns and a Cynthia England book. Someone told Nanette I might be interested in this stuff, and whoa! I forget who told her, but thank you. And thank you, Nanette. If you're unfamiliar with Cynthia England's work, I highly recommend doing a Google search for her name. You can find her gallery right here. If you do a YouTube search, you'll find some video tutorials about her technique. I was lucky enough to see this fabulous quilt when I attended the Northwest Quilting Expo in 2018.

As for yesterday's mail, what a treasure trove this was!

Also included was this pattern and the fabric kit to go along with it.

Well...I'm going to have fun with all of that. Those will make great take-along projects when we head south this winter.

So back in the sewing room, I finished up the three "blanks" for Jenny's Flower Garden. I ended up with a lot of oranges and dark purples for these blocks. Oh well...they'll be spaced randomly throughout the quilt, and so it probably doesn't matter there wasn't more variation.

With those done, I had another row complete. I've laid all the blocks out to show the design of this triple Irish chain. When all the rows are complete, it will be set 7 blocks by 7 blocks.

And with that finished, I was also able to get on with the next block for the Shop Hop 2.0 quilt. This time, I'm using a fabric I picked up at It's Sew Moab from our last trip to Moab, Utah. Mike and I love Moab, and we've visited many times. Our last trip was to ride ATV's. I couldn't find a fabric specific to ATV's, but this Jeep fabric seemed like a good choice. I drive a Jeep, after all.

But on a visit in 2006, Mike and I rented a Jeep and drove Schaffer Canyon Road in nearby Canyonlands National Park. It was great fun. Here, Mike was surveying the view.

Along the way, we passed this immense natural bridge. It was about 5 feet wide and many hundreds of feet above the canyon floor. It was possible to walk across. Ordinarily, this sort of thing would be too scary for me. The width of the bridge was enough that I felt safe venturing out and boldly lying down for this next shot. At least lying down, I wasn't afraid of falling.

Okay, so enough reminiscing...let's get on with this block. A few of you have asked how I do the lettering, and so I'm just about to tell you. I first print it out on a regular sheet of paper. In this case, I'm using a 22 point font called "Banschrift SemiBold." It's a good idea to write down where this file is stored on your computer so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel with every block. I just reopen the old file and put in a new name each time. The font stays consistent.

Then, it's traced out on a large piece of fabric a little wider than what I'll need for the finished block. Also, you need to leave enough room for your embroidery hoop...unless you're one of those hoopless people. Definitely, I am not among you. This one was short, and so it stitched up pretty quick. I'm just using two strands of black floss and a simple backstitch.

Another way to avoid reinventing the wheel with each block is to take a photo of the first one indicating how to trim. In this case, I've lined up the 1-1/2 inch line on my ruler with the bottom of the lettering. 

Trim the top there, and then measure for the bottom and sides, and you have your block's "name plate."

The strips were mostly all cut from the last block I made, and so this one went together pretty quickly.

These are the four blocks I have for this quilt so far.

You can find the tutorial for the photo quilt block right here. The camera quilt block tutorial can be found right here. I like how this is turning out. The photo quilt blocks are especially cute for this quilt. I'm not sure yet how many blocks I'll make before I'm ready to sew it into a flimsy, but the camera block will be right in the middle.

Okay, so for today's sewing, I'll get started on the next block for New Mexico Kitchen. I'll be making the Blue Corn Bread block. Here's the picture from the pattern cover.

These take a while to make, and so I don't expect to finish it today, but I'll get a good start on it.

So there was lots of sewing yesterday, and not a cat in sight. It's hard to get good help these days.