MAINE LIGHTHOUSES

I had to post about the lighthouses that we visited yesterday.  The day was perfect and it was fun see some lighthouses and take pictures of them.

Portland Head Lighthouse, Portland, Maine

Seacoast as viewed from the Portland Head Lighthouse

Remains of shipwreck.

It looks like rocks, but it's wood from a shipwreck.

Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse

We walked over these rocks to get to the lighthouse.

View of the rocks from the Spring Point Ledge lighthouse.

We got to have a tour of the Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse.  I can't imagine living in the lighthouse and only going to shore occasionally.  The rock ledge wasn't there when the lighthouse was first built in 1897 and there were 2 men who "manned" the lighthouse for $540 salary per year.  They could row ashore for supplies, but didn't do it very often.  Very interesting history.

HOW I CAME UP WITH THE NAME OF MY BLOG

Karen at My Colonial Home has issued a challenge that you will find if you click here.  I like to read her blog and see her decorations.  She makes beautiful wool applique pieces.

OK, so to explain how I came up with the name of my blog, I have to go back to before I started my blog in November, 2007.  A few years prior to that, DH and I decided to start selling items at a local craft mall, so we had to come up with a business name.  I'm not very good at thinking up names, so I started browsing through some of my quilting books and I came upon a log cabin quilt.  I liked the log cabin block and I liked the name.  To make it more old fashioned sounding we named our business "Log Cabin Mercantile."

When I decided to start a blog, I wanted to continue using the Log Cabin part of the name and be the Log Cabin Quilter.  So I signed up with blogger under that name, but then learned that there was another quilter using that name, so I had to change my name.  I wanted Log Cabin to still be in the name, so I finally came up with Country Log Cabin as the name of my blog.  I will be reaching my 5th anniversary in November, so maybe I will have some kind of giveaway.

In the mean time, why don't you go over to Karen's blog and check out the challenge.  Maybe you should enter it as well.  Even if you don't enter, it would be fun to know how you came up with your blog's name.

CAMPING IN MAINE

We arrived in Maine a few days ago and we're camping near Phippsburg where the weather has been gorgeous all week

View of campground from our camper

We haven't seen a moose yet, but we've seen chipmunks!  They play on the stone wall next to our camper.

Stone walls abound in New England

Pond in the campground that I enjoy walking to.

Working on hand piecing outside the camper.

The Atlantic Coastline on Bailey Island.

Fishing village on Bailey Island.

Another view of the bay on Bailey Island.

I have also been working on some projects inside the camper using my sewing machine - nothing to show yet.  We have been away from home a month now and will probably head home in a couple weeks.  Our last week will be spent in Massachusetts.

IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL!

In 2008 I met my first blogger friend and here is the post I wrote telling about it.  Jewell hasn't been blogging for quite a while, but unbeknownst  (is that a word?) to me she was reading my blog.  Yesterday she read my blog post about going to Keepsake Quilting and sent me an email yesterday.  She said that she and her DH were traveling and planned to go to Keepsake Quilting today.  She left me her phone number, so I called her.

We decided to meet again, so this is actually the 3rd time I've met her (or it might be the 4th because DH said that he had met them once before as well).

We went to have a bite to eat and had a wonderful visit.  Both DHs were truck drivers, so they had a good time telling each other their experiences on the road.  I guess truckers are almost as bad as quilters when they get together!  Hee Hee!

What a coincidence that she was in the same area and happened to read my blog!  This is what makes blogging so much fun (and addictive)!!  It was great to see you again, Jewell!   I hope you get your blog going again soon.

BTW the temps have been quite chilly here at night.  It is 42 right now and yesterday morning it was 40 when I got up!  Today we are heading for Maine!

KEEPSAKE QUILTING

It was a beautiful day yesterday when we drove over to Keepsake Quilting, which is about 30 minutes away from our campground, Beaver Hollow.  It is a very impressive store, full of wonderful bolts of fabric and patterns.  I could have spent lots of money there, but I restrained myself.

The have an "outlet" section with lower prices and I did purchase some charm packs there, but of the bolts, there were only 2 that I could find of reproduction fabrics, one of which I already had at home and the other one didn't appeal to me.

Here are the fabrics that I did find.  The black with orange leaves is  Jo Morton FQ and that is all I could find of that.  I love that fabric and had never seen it before!  The black & white stripe is also Jo Morton.  The one on the left is a FQ of Heritage Prints for Benartex (I don't know if you can tell, but the little flowers and dots are kind of a darkish maroon or brownish) and the off white with little circle things is Moda.  The last black is Marcus, design 1114, which I got to use in my "Over the River & Through the Woods" quilt.  I need blacks, browns and beiges or off whites for it. I didn't see anything else that I wanted to spend money on.

However, I am happy with my purchases.  I am hoping to find some other quilt shops along the way, however, so I can't spend all my pennies in one place.

FYI, the temperature got down to 45 last night and is 65 this afternoon!  Love it!  I've been working on my log cabin blocks today and just taking it easy.

LOVELY ESTATE

On Friday we went to the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vermont. It is the only national park in the whole state.  The mansion was built in 1805-1807 and we were able to take a guided tour, but couldn't take any pictures inside.

The history of the families was very interesting and ended with Mary and Lawrence Rockefeller (son of John D. Rockefeller) who donated the mansion and grounds to be a national park in 1999.

What a beautiful view from the front porch!

The garden is being maintained by the park service and expenses for upkeep are covered by a grant from the Rockefellers.

It is definitely worth seeing if you ever get to Vermont!

I forgot to add the following photo earlier that was taken by the Stone House in the Manassas National Battlefield Park in Manassas, VA.  We went here on August 31.  This is where the two battles of Bull Run was fought during the Civil War and this stone house served as a place to take the wounded.  I'm standing by the fence in case you did't notice.

There are so many historic sites in the east and during this 150 commemoration of the Civil War, it is hard to put into words the feelings we have just seeing a film of it.  I can't imagine how the women left behind must have felt and the men going through the horror of it all.  We have so much to be thankful now, even though we do have problems.  Just think what they had to endure then.

NO QUILT SHOPS YET!!

We just arrived in New Hampshire, after leaving New York on Tuesday and spending Wednesday through this morning in Vermont.  It is really beautiful up here and the weather is getting cooler each day.

Some of our adventures included visiting a sheep farm and eating sheep's milk yogurt (pretty good);

Seeing lots of painted moose statutes - I'm hoping to see a real moose in New Hampshire or Maine;

Even a painted moose inside a store!

Also numerous covered bridges.

But so far, I haven't found any quilt shops!  However, we are close to Keepsake Quilting, so plan to go there tomorrow!  Can't wait!  I'm making a list and hoping I can find some bargains there.

SPECIAL MEETING IN NEW JERSEY

When I knew we were going to be going nearby Philadelphia, I emailed "Liri" to see if there was any chance that she could meet me at one of the toll road stops.  It took some planning, but we did it!  It was wonderful to meet Liri - she was waiting for us and as soon as we pulled in, she knew it was us - nobody else had a red truck pulling a white 5th wheel!

Me and Liri

I had asked her to bring some of her quilts, etc. to show me and she brought some of her wonderful quilts, blocks (WIPs) and a basket full of her lovely stitcheries.  She has posted about lots of these before and her work is more gorgeous in person than in a picture.  The embroidered train blocks that she will be making into quilts for her grandsons are rated AAA+ in workmanship and will be perfect "boy" quilts.

I showed her around our camper so she could see my "Gone to TX" quilt and some of the projects that I work on in the camper and truck.  I forgot to show her the baby hats (below) that I'm knitting and my stitchery project - below that.

I started on the Crab Apple Hill pattern for the "Over the River and Through the Woods" wall hanging.  I prepared two of the embroidery sections to work on during this trip and so far I am working on the phrase portion.  Obviously, it hasn't been pressed yet.

After meeting Liri, we continued north to visit my cousin, who I haven't seen in about 25 years.  All her kids and grandkids are here too, so we have been able to meet the ones we hadn't ever met yet and are having a wonderful visit.  

MORE FLORIDA TRIP PICTURES

Our whole family gathered for our anniversary and that included our 3 sons and their wives, plus 5 grandchildren.  Here are a couple more pictures of our time together.

Our oldest grandson building a sand castle with Abby's help.

Johnson Beach, Florida

Our cake - Yum Yum!!

Butterfly Cottage where we all stayed.

Jonah stayed overnight in the camper with us at Ft. Toulouse Park in Alabama.

Eli picking up stones.

It's always hard to leave the grandkids, but we continue on our anniversary trip heading for the northeast and looking for cooler weather!

ALL BECAUSE TWO PEOPLE FELL IN LOVE

It doesn't seem possible, but 50 years ago, on August 18, 1962, two very young kids got married.  DH's mother had to sign for him because back then in Illinois, the man had to be 21 years old and he was only 20.  As a 19 year old bride, no one had to sign for me.

Fifty years, three sons, three DILs and 5 grandchildren later.  Yikes!  I guess it has been 50 years!  How can it be?  Yet when we look in the mirror, we can see it's true.

This past weekend, we got together with our sons, DILs and grandchildren in Florida to celebrate and had a wonderful time.  We went to the beach, ate food, cooked, played and just enjoyed all of us being together for the first time in several years.  Grandchildren met each other for the first time and had so much fun together

Little did we know when we first got married that we would live long enough to celebrate 50 years.  Little did we know that we would go through good times and sad times, but our love would carry us through.

We will continue to celebrate by taking a trip to the New England States in our camper and I'll post pictures as we travel, so be sure to check back.

Here's a picture of our two youngest grandchildren.  Abby and Eli met for the first time this weekend.  More pictures will follow when we get them loaded into the computer.

Eli (1 1/2) & Abby (3 1/2)

THIS AND THAT

Here is a better picture of the table runner that I posted about yesterday.  It's 44" x 16 1/2" which is longer than I usually make them.

I just finished hand quilting this doll quilt, which I will give to Abby sometime in the future.  She already has a doll quilt, but this one is made from leftover fabrics from a quilt I made for her Mommy & Daddy.

Recently, I started sewing leftover triangles together and decided to make pinwheels from them.  I plan to make a donation quilt with lots of pinwheels.

Here are some more in process.  Some of the pinwheels are smaller, so I plan to add white fabric around them to bring them up to 4" finished squares.  I don't know what I will use for the alternating blocks yet. I will find something in my stash, I'm sure.  It's kind of a challenge to make something from scraps.  I really like the way the pinwheels look - they are just randomly placed on my "design door" so it won't stay that way.

Happy quilting!

AUGUST FMQ CHALLENGE

SewCalGal hosts the FMQ (free motion quilting) each month of the year and I decided to get the August quilting finished early.  The tutorial was done by Wendy Sheppard, who is an outstanding quilter and designer.  She has had her designs published in lots of quilting magazines.  The design she taught is called "Jester's Hat."  I should have practiced more before taking a picture of it, but this will have to do for this month.   I will definitely try to utilize this in a quilt - after I have perfected it!

Another small project is this table runner made out of civil war reproduction fabrics.

I have been keeping busy, but nothing else that I can share for now.  Hope you are keeping cool.  It's been over 100 for at least a week here,

APQ BLOCK SWAP TOP PUT TOGETHER!

In 2010, a group of ladies who had started blogging on the American Patchwork & Quilting Magazine's web site (allpeoplequilt.com), decided to join together for a block swap.  We ended up with 13 participants and each month we sent 2 blocks to 2 different people.  Finally, I have gotten my blocks put together.  I don't know if I will put a border on it or not, but at least the top is done!   Am I the last one to get mine put together?   It was a lot of fun to participate in and most of us are still following each others' blogs.  

DH & I went to the Texas Civil War Museum in Fort Worth this week.  I just took a few pictures.

Log Cabin quilt - it had embroidery stitches along each seam - made in the 1840s.

Some civil war era clothes.

What a pretty blouse!

Look at the antique sewing machine.

That was a horrible time in our nation's history.  It's hard to even imagine what the people went through during that time.  I participated in the civil war block series last year and now I have another quilt top to put together!  I hope to get to that before the end of the year.  

Thanks for visiting!  And thanks for so many comments - I'm sorry that I haven't replied to all of them.