Kayaking in Dungeness Bay

On September 19, Dave and I went up to Dungeness Bay, near Sequim, to go kayaking.  I had  bought a Groupon special -- 4 hours of kayak rental for $25.  I was determined to go out to the point of the spit to the Dungeness Lighthouse.  It took over 2½ hours to get there.  After spending a few minutes at the lighthouse, we realized that we had only 1 hour to get back.  We paddled like crazy to get back.  My arms burned so badly from the hard constant paddling.  We got back a half hour late, but the owner didn't charge extra b/c he had no one else renting kayaks anyway.

Modern Quilt challenge

Modern Quilt Guild challenged readers to make a modern quilt.  It had to be improvised (no pattern or directions).

Here were my objectives in creating this quilt:

1.  Improvise.  Although I have pieced several quilts that I consider modern, I have always used patterns or directions to create them.  I wanted to work outside that comfort zone this time.

2.  Use only fabric scraps that I already had.  I didn't want to buy any new fabric or delve into my stash that I had earmarked for other quilts.  Conserve; repurpose; recycle.

For this challenge I used scraps of Michael Miller's Magnolia Lane fabric.  The scraps that I had were small; not large enough that if all sewn together would cover an area of 45 x 45.  So I chose to use natural colored muslin with the colored pieces of fabric.  The muslin was a light, neutral color that I needed to make the pieces of the Magnolia Lane fabric stand out.  Plus I already had it so I wouldn't have to buy anything additional.  I also used the muslin as my quilt backing.

When I got to binding the quilt, I had barely enough scraps left.  I pieced together all I had that were at least 2½ inches wide.