Quilt Progress and More

First the progress with Southwestern Sunrise, Sunset.

 Actually, I meant to post last week while it was still in strips, but just did not manage to do that--which meant I had no post to link to the blogs of some favorite friends.

It was very windy when I took the quilt outside to be photographed--so you can see where the wind was pulling against the pins.  I should qualify that "very windy".  It was what much of the U.S.A. would call very windy.  For where we live, it was a typical autumn afternoon wind.

 For some reason a lone sunflower had grown and bloomed by this building and then fell to the ground from its own weight.  I tried to get the pretty head in the photograph, but it was just too sunny for me to tell if I had it in the pictures, and I missed it. Leaves are rapidly flying off trees around here. 

It's a bit sad that photographs can't capture the true colors in these fabrics--and the angle of the sun didn't help either.  However,  I can see that the quilt has good movement, and I'm eager to get the border pieced and applied so that I can get to my favorite part, the quilting.

And, pictures from shortly before last Saturday's Homecoming Parade...

Yes, skies were that blue.  And yes, the pictures were taken from the non-crowd side of the float--no idea why they did that!
Where I grew up, we built our floats of chicken wire shapes stuffed with tissues.  You can tell we live where it's windy and have to use bales of hay and straw because light stuff will get caught in the winds and blow away!!

This is this year's officer team--I'd say the one young man who is on the team is enjoying himself!  FFA has three advisors, but only one made it into the picture.
It was so cold that a friend and I watched the parade while cuddling in coats and quilts.

I have no pictures of the homecoming dance attendees, and Sweet Teen forgot to ask anyone to take their picture.  The couple was accompanied by two friends who have moved on to other schools--and they had to jump through a few hoops in order to be able to take them along.  Very different from when I was in high school and we invited past classes to the homecoming game and the homecoming dances.  (Kind of sad that they no longer do that. Or, maybe they do that in other parts of the country but just not here.)

This week Sweet Teen and two classmates are competing at the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis and will be joined by most of those pictured as well as other members of our local chapter.  It will seem strangely quiet around my home--but I'll have plenty to wear me out during the day since it's also the week of parent teacher conferences at my school, which will means I'll return home even later than usual each day.

When I get a chance, I'll link to Judy's What's on the Design Wall and Connie's Freemotion by the River.

Happy quiltmaking....