AUTUMN FINALLY ARRIVES IN TEXAS

These 2 pictures were taken on my walk this morning!  Not all trees are turning colors, but these are 2 of the prettiest.  Lots of trees are still green and lots are turning yellow.

It's been about a week since I last posted, but I've been busy.  I am trying to finish quilting this quilt.  I have half of the black setting triangles left as well as the border.  I'm hoping to get it finished by the weekend.

I saw this cute penguin on Pinterest and thought it would be so cute as an ornament for Abigail, so I got started right away.  I am all finished with the stitching, except for the snowflake on the right.  I ran out of white thread!  I thought sure that I had more, but no.  Now, I need to figure out what ornaments to make for the other GKs.  I could make another penguin with boy colors for Eli or Jonah - I'll think about that.

Saturday I have a special outing that I'll tell you about next week.  

OCTOBER FMQ CHALLENGE AND MOUNTAIN TRAIL

SewCalGal has been hosting a Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) challenge all year, so I am submitting October's entries.  Teri Lucas is the quilting expert for this month and she gave a lesson with lots of ideas.  You can find out more about Teri and the challenge by clicking on the SewCalGal link.

My first practice piece was done on muslin with wool batting.  I used a few different threads:  the dark red was Essential Pro Turkey Red 70/3 that I got from Connecting Threads;  the yellow is Isacord 40; the variegated orange/green/yellow is Signature size 40 cotton; and variegated blue is Gutermann 100% cotton 50.  I used Essential Pro in the bobbin.

For my second and final piece, I used some shiny grey fabric (don't know what it is - some kind of satin?) and the yellow Isacord thread.  I like the way the yellow shows up on the grey and I really enjoyed quilting the nautilus shells and the pebbles - it was fun!  Thanks for all the pointers, Teri!

Next, I just finished my QAL from Lori:  Mountain Trail reproduction quilt.  At first, I was thinking about hand quilting it (very briefly), but then I thought that I would like to have feathers in the rows and hand quilting them would take a lot of time (which I don't have), so I machine quilted it yesterday with feathers in the rows and in the 2 borders, I quilted a Swirl Scroll from Angela Walters book, Free -Motion Quilting.  I also used that border in a table runner that I made and found that it is quite easy.

close-up of quilted feathers

close-up of swirl scroll border

View of fabric and quilting on back.  The fabric is Jo Morton fabric that I had left from my Jo's Little Women class last year.

It's hanging in my front hall above my desk.

Do any of you have this pattern or know where to get it?  Barb is looking for it and can't find it anywhere.  If you know where to get it, please contact Barb through her blog.

Some of my storage shelves came down in my guest room, so that bed is piled with linens, fabrics, items I have bought for gifts, etc. etc.  What a mess!  Hopefully, DH can get it fixed soon.  He is at the hardware store right now.  

WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

All the names were put into the chicken shaped wire egg basket.
An impartial party drew out the winning ticket (DH)! Martha (no blog) is the lucky winner. Please send me your snail mail address so I can send you your prize!
In the mean time, I am working on machine quilting the Polka Dot Girls quilt. I'm doing it by free motion and I don't know if I'm going to like it or not. I'm not much of an expert at this, but I guess this is part of the learning process, so here goes!
Thanks to everyone who entered the contest! I am amazed at all the comments I got and I do appreciate them all!