Fall is always busy for us at the Shop. This is when we kick it into gear making kits, designing patterns and making all sorts of preparations for our annual shop hop, Quilters’ Quest. This is always a fun event. Our theme this year is “movies” and we selected “Around the World in Eighty Days” as our movie, so, of course, I had to design a quilt for our shop with the world somehow involved. I showed you bits and pieces of it in progress, but now it is complete, including the quilting.

This quilt is foundation pieced and went together quicker than you can imagine. We call it Third Rock. It was made with the Quest Cuts, 6-inch squares that each shop will have available throughout the Quest. These are free with a $30 or more purchase, or can be bought for $4.00.  Each of the shops has made a quilt using the squares. As you travel during the shop hop, collect the free pattern for each shops’ quilt…10 new quilt patterns in all!

I used more than half of the 80 squares in Third Rock and then used the rest for another easy-to-make quilt that would be perfect for a little girl.  We are still adding the borders but will share this quilt with you soon.

To update you on our Hurricane Harvey Quilts, we sent off our first batch of quilts to benefit the victims, more than 25 in all, and we still have more coming in. It was fun working with and meeting people who participated.

Chris, from North Carolina, even dropped by on her way to New York and brought four finished quilts to add to our ever-growing pile.

We used fabrics from our scrap bin to make some of the quilts. Here are two with the identical fabrics except for the dark and light sashing strips. It was fun to see how different they looked with just that one change.

On a different note, do you recognize this vegetable?

I’m still getting this vegetable, sweet and hot peppers, lettuce, tomatoes and raspberries from my garden. The winter onions are just popping up and I should have fall cabbage soon.

So, what is this vegetable?

I peel it, slice it raw, add some fresh mandarin orange pieces and lime juice and it makes a fabulous, refreshing salad. A few pecans are also good tossed in if you like. I grew this last year for the first time and will now always have it as part of my garden.

Do you have a guess?  Why it’s jicama!

Happy Quilting!

Jinny