It's Fall!

 Technically, it't not Fall until the 21st, but if it looks like Fall, and feels like Fall, it's Fall.

Our typical weather pattern for this time of year is cool temps and rain.  That's exactly what we've been getting.  I keep waiting for the night time temps to get down to freezing, but so far I've been surprised.  We  were watching the night time temps so we can play the game of keeping the tomatoes out in the garden for as long as we can, but since we are gonna be in Fairbanks this weekend, we decided we better bring them all in before we leave.  So they have three more days to stay on the vine.

With the colder than usual summer we had, I really thought we wouldn't have any tomatoes this year, but we do have a few clusters like this.  They are still green as can be, but that's okay cuz we can ripen them in the house.  I'm just glad we're getting some at all.

We already uprooted all of our carrots, got about 2/3 of them all washed and put in the freezer.  The rest I am going to keep out and use for snacking on - they are so good.  We got a TON of carrots this year!  Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but .......... we got a lot of carrots.

Also, I was surprised to see a couple of these pumpkins trying to grow.  They are pretty small yet, but if I can get them to ripen I can still use them.

Look at these really weird mushrooms.  They are growing out of our gravel!  So weird.

I tried planting sunflowers in my beds this year and I am surprised some of them actually made it, especially after I neglected them really bad.  I initially planted them in cups and then planted the cups in my garden beds - that way I wouldn't mistake them for weeds.  But they kept growing and I never did take the time to replant them outside of the cups.  Some of them died, but some of them made it and grew really tall.

Every time it rains we get a puddle in our driveway.  This puddle had a big collection of worms in it.  I was wondering why the birds didn't come and use it as a birdbath and get their breakfast all at the same time.  I guess they only like them if they're freshly pulled out of the dirt.

So I finally finished PW's kitty quilt!

It was fun and easy, but as with every project, it's always a good feeling to have it done!  I'm thinking I might want to make another one like it just because they are fun and easy to make.  I had fun experimenting with the different colors and facial expressions.

It's hard to tell in the picture, but the back of the quilt is "cuddle fabric".  It's really soft (and very ex$pen$ive).  I had a hard time keeping Peeka off of it.  Working with cuddle fabric was something new for me, so I was nervous to use it.  I thought I would have major problems with it jamming up my machine with fuzzies and bunching up and puckering, but surprisingly, the back side looks a lot better than the front.  I ended up with a lot of puckering on the front of the quilt, which annoys me to no end, but I don't know how to avoid that on my machine.  Even with a "walking foot" I still have puckering problems. Anyway, PW was very happy with it and she was surprised when I gave it to her because we were meeting Stephanie at a coffee shop for breakfast, and I brought it with me there to give it to her.  That is probably why she might look slightly embarrassed in the photo.

I had some leftover flannel fabrics so I decided to use them to make some table runners.  Or they are also big enough to use as a bed runner.  I have enough flannel left to make two runners like this one, plus two extra blocks which will just end up being just single blocks that can be used as a table topper or maybe a pillow or whatever.   I'm just trying to use up the rest of the flannel.

So for now I am going to work on some smaller projects like these and that'll give me time to choose my fabrics for my next big project, which will be for ME.  I want to make a Fall/Halloween quilt for my bed.  I already have the pattern picked out - I just gotta figure out how much fabric I need and which ones I want.  Yay!  I love picking out fabrics!!!  I have to see what I have in my stash first though, and go from there.

Well, that's all for now.

Enjoy your Fall weather!