Surviving Hilary and an Earthquake, and Quilting

SO, we are being deluged by Hurricane Hilary the now Tropical Storm,  a first for California in over 100 years.. After meeting our son and grandsons at the park and watching our daughter in law play soccer this morning (she's playing goalie), it began to rain as we left, and has been raining ever since, pretty steadily. I spent most of the morning thereafter in the sewing room getting a quilt top sandwiched.  I was still in the sewing room when we had a 5.1 earthquake strike Ojai, 20+ miles away.  It was quite a ride during the quake and for many aftershocks thereafter.  Fortunately there was no significant damage to relate. 

I picked up my Fair entries early in the week an gathered up all the ribbons.  There were judge's comments on the back of each tag, and pretty much each one indicated more quilting was recommended.  I suppose I'll have to use that as my guide to win a blue ribbon again at the Fair! I did get awarded 4 second place, a third, and two honorable mentions.  

Quite a pile to bring home.  I'll cash my $7.00 prize check sometime, as the cashier was long closed by the time I went to the Fairgrounds after work.

Grandson Hunter's quilt saw some action on Saturday while hubby Grant was away. I got all the blocks assembled.  

They are quite busy and it seemed wise to suggest a narrow sashing to Hunter's mommy.  He chose a dark green, from my suggestions.  I'll need to purchase that at the fabric store. 

Sunset last night was amazing.  I caught the sliver moon in another pic. 

Slow Sunday Stitching--A Floral Finish in Sight

Slow Sunday Stitching--see more handstitching lovelies on Kathy's Quilts blog. 

I am pleased to report all the main cross stitching is finished on the DMC kit I have been working on/off for what seems like months.  From the kit, you can see there is a lot of outline stitching and surface embellishment to do as well.

Here's where it was 1/15/2023:

And as of today: 

There was a break of a couple of hours before this pic, when I was ONE strand short of finishing the blue blobs at the top of design.  It is that brighter aqua, an unusual shade, and there was nothing in the several boxes and bags of my floss stash that was even close.  I tried substituting another shade, but it looked odd--so off to Michael's I went. 

We've been having a lot of storms in SoCalif so I brought my umbrella.  Coming out of the store, the cloudy sky was spectacularly dark to the northwest.

Opposite view brought a piece of a rainbow. 

I followed the rainbow all the way home. 

Slow Sunday Stitching--October 24

 Slow Sunday Stitching is nearly over, but I did actually do some stitching. See more stitching on Kathy's Quilts Blog. 

A few more stitches were put into this DMC $5 kit project.  I started it on the plane coming back from Sewtopia, but it hasn't come out of the needlework bag since then. 

The kit included the hoop, floss, pattern and needle.  I colored in the pattern sheet myself (not shown) since there were a lot of colors.  I think this will make a cute pillow. 

We got our carpets cleaned and that meant another day I could put off starting grandson Hunter's Hedwig costume.  He wore his brother's Star Wars costume from last year for the school parade.  I have no idea how many trick or treaters we will have this year---last year it was about 4 kids and Grant passed out the candy with long tongs, while wearing his mask.  The neighborhood has lots of houses decorated but I have just gotten out my Halloween box. 

This big dark cloudbank certainly gave a spooky look to the sky the other day!