Happy Fall, Y'all!

We have definitely turned the corner into autumn. The leaves are starting to turn and fall, and there's a quality to the air that wasn't there two weeks ago. Can't deny it. I can't believe that I'm saying this, but there wasn't quite enough summer! I usually am more than ready for fall, but not this year.

This little quilt isn't technically a fall quilt, but I always display it at this time of year, because the colors say "fall" to me. I saw a quilt with this pattern in a magazine many, many years ago, and I liked it so much I decided to draft it out for myself, since the magazine had no information on the name of the pattern or anything. It turns out that this was a Country Threads pattern, and they're one of my all-time favorite quilt designers.

The colors don't seem to be true in these photos. In person, all those fabrics really are shades of orange! I decided to put a little bunny on to help convey that these are carrots. My kids kept calling them "rocket ships". (If you turn it upside down, it does kind of look like that.)

I call this little quilt "Bentley Bunny's Carrot Patch". We got to "bunny-sit" one night for a bunny named Bentley that belonged to a friend of my daughter, just so that I could meet the bunny. I had never been up close and personal with a rabbit. It was a lot of fun, even though it scared the cats. Bentley wanted to play with the cats, because that's what he did at home. The cats had no idea what this animal was! They didn't run and hide, but they weren't exactly friendly either!

I've had a chance to get some sewing in lately, and I've gotten 3 quilt backs constructed and now have 3 quilts ready to send to the quilter! Yay!! I love finishes! Now on to the rest of the projects on my list.

I've got some links to share. I've been roaming around blog-land and finding all kinds of little tidbits.

Check out Lazy Gal Tonya's Priority Hope Challenge. She wants us to make a very small quilt featuring the word HOPE or the image of a bird for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, specifically the Priority Quilt auction. Deadline for this challenge is 20 November 2008.

Here's a game that my DD told me about. It's a free game on Shockwave called Magic Pen. It's a lot of fun and it makes you think! It's not another shoot-em-up - it's physics and logic. It gets pretty challenging after the first few levels. DH and I spent about 2 hours playing with it the first time we tried it! It's a lot of fun!

In case you haven't seen this, here's a tutorial on the Disappearing Nine-Patch that Helen on Quilts & ATCs blog is sharing. This is a fun little project to try on a small quilt. There's been lots of them around the blogosphere.

And when you've tried that, here's further adventures on the Disappearing Nine Patch from Ingrid at happy2bstitchin blog. She's got some intriguing ideas of what more can be done.

Laurraine at Patchwork Pottery has a tutorial on fabric labels. A very useful trick!

Pink Penguin has a tutorial on a wonderful little fabric basket. Also lots and lots of these being made. Ayumill has links to many of these baskets, so you can see what everyone is doing with this great tutorial. I'm gonna be making one of these someday!

Here's a tutorial on using those luscious Bali fabric Pops from Rachel of 2nd Ave Studio. Love this quilt!

I guess that's about enough for one posting! Well, how about one more for the road? I don't know how many of you will be interested in this, as it's not quilt related, but here's a source for free piano sheet music. You can find music for any level of playing ability, from barely-know-how-to-read-music up to level 4, which is pretty advanced. Best of all, you can also hear a midi of the song. The music is in "pdf" form and easy to read and to print. I've gotten lots of good music from this site. A great free resource!