Sunday, October 21, 2012

Fall on the Blue Ridge

The other day, hubby and I decided to take a day trip to one of our favorite places along the Blue Ridge Parkway - Little Switzerland.  This charming place is only open from April through October.  We always try to get there in the fall when the leaves are beautiful.  They also have a wonderful restaurant for lunch and dinner.
 It's charming inside with stone fireplaces and big comfy chairs, places to do puzzles or an old fashioned game of checkers.
 Walking down the road, you come upon little chalets that are rented out seasonally.
 I love this old wooden fences in need of repair.
This was my favorite - an old, rusted bicycle built for two, chained to the side of a small outbuilding.  How I would love that for my yard in my garden somewhere.
 No outing would be complete without a picture of lichen or trees.
 Driving along the parkway was breathtaking.
 And the views were spectacular!
 Along the parkway, are some wonderful old stone tunnels.  We lucked out with no traffic so we could stop to take a picture.
 This was one the prettiest trees at peak.
 And Craggy Gardens where everything does look "craggy" I love the shapes of the branches and will make this into a silkscreen.
 Along with this pretty skyline of trees.
I'm leaving tomorrow morning for upstate New York for my college sorority reunion. Yes, another reunion in New York. Sue, the gal who did the HS reunion last weekend, passed on these nice words - we always think in terms of looking and moving forward; but this evening is the time to look back and relive happy times.  They were happy times for me and I'm looking forward to seeing old friends again.
Have a great week, will have lots of nice pictures to post when I get home.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

A Quilt for Habitat for Humanity

    When a president of a quilt guild's term of office is over, members usually do something as a thank-you; often it's a quilt block in the presidents favorite color, theme or block itself.  Sara Hill, most recent president,  has been president of our guild before, received blocks before and decided this time to request house blocks - her reason - to make them into a house quilt to donate the to Habitat for Humanity local headquarters in Asheville, NC.  
     Many blocks came in and Sara wasted no time in putting together this wonderful quilt.  
 Each block is unique, colorful and wonderful to see up close and personal.
 The variety of fabrics, shapes and configurations of houses are fun.
 I think Sara asked that they be colorful, and yes they are!
 What a great tribute to such a wonderful organization.
I think there will be a plaque next to the quilt stating that blocks were made by members for Sara and Sara put it together for Habitat for Humanity.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Alzheimer's Initiative - Dragonfly

  Wow, this month is flying, I can't believe it's been a week since I've posted.  This is my favorite time of year, love to savor the moments and beautiful weather.  I've been busy visiting my daughter in Atlanta and getting behind on my "catch up" - projects I planned to finish, but getting to see my new little granddaughter is the best.  
     I did complete another small piece for the Alzheimer's Initiative called Dragonfly.  I used all my hand dyed fabrics and also one print - mostly leftovers from another project.
 I used Lana thread (blend of wool and acrylic) and did the machine buttonhole stitch found on the Bernina machine. I totally love this stitch and find myself using it more and more for machine applique.
 I also did some beading around the edge using 2 sizes of seed beads. Mary Stori calls this stitch "dots" and one she developed.  It's a lot of fun to do and adds a nice finish. I used a screen of a  Dragonfly to make the image in the corner.

I'll be heading off to NY tomorrow for my high school reunion - know it will be a lot of fun! Have a wonderful weekend enjoying the beautiful fall colors.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Color Palettes

For a long time I've been working with photos, either using the photo itself or duplicating it someway in fabric.  For years, I would go to a home improvement store, bringing the photo with me in hopes of matching colors with paint chips.  It worked pretty well, but time consuming and often some colors were overlooked.  The photo below has lots of greens in it and what looks like a gray and rust.
 And my love for old buildings and rocks has lots of different grays, greens, tans etc, hard to decipher.
 I found this wonderful tool online. The site has you select a photo from your files and upload it.  Within a few minutes all the colors featured in the photo appear on your screen
and in different value palettes. I've had so much fun with this site and it's also been a tremendous time saver. Go to the Color Palette Generator and start uploading your photos, you'll be hooked.  You can see the sample below (which they allow you to print out) of colors and the picture that was uploaded.
Have fun!