Oh My Goodness!

It is hot here! Normally the Western Washington area is known for the clouds, cool temperatures and rain but right now it is just plain hot! Yesterday was around 93 and today it is supposed to be hotter. This heat is causing many refrigerators to decide to give up the ghost which means our appliance repair business is hopping. Because of that, I am going to be on the road with my husband for the next few days so we can help as many people as we can and maybe still get home at a decent time. That, in turn, means that I will not be getting much sewing done!

Over the weekend I did finish all the blocks for a round robin I am in with my sister. I had six here to work on and they are all done! They were the last six I had to work on. Three of them are now complete and ready for our reveal, the other three are on their way to Montana. Pictures of these will have to wait for the big reveal when we all hope to get together at my sister's house in Idaho.

Now I need to get to the blocks for the Quilt Block Exchange. I got my first two for July in the mail yesterday. This first one is a bonus block from my daughter, Chelsea. We bought the green fabric at a rummage sale together (a scrap for 10 cents!). This little blocks is only about 3 7/8" unfinished. This one is my July block from Chelsea. It will be 4.5" finished.
Last, but definitely not least is this beauty from Isaacsmama. It will be 12" finished.
Mine for July need to be in the mail by the end of the week. EEEEK! For August I am signed up for the anything goes blocks and also for the New York Beauty group.

The best laid plans...

I had good intentions for getting going on the sewing room but Wednesday evening my husband and I picked up a sod cutter (SC) for me to use on Thursday when the weather was expected to be cool. You see, we are expecting temps in the 90s for the next few days and I won't be outside then! Anyway, I used the SC to start creating a 6' X 64' (approximately) bed along a fence for rhodies and lilacs and maybe some other things. I have been wanting this bed for quite some time as I have many lilac starts I want out of another bed. Our neighbor who lives in what was my parents' house dug up two rhodies and a rose bush on Tuesday and gave them to me so I had a good reason to get going on it so I could get those in the ground. I also used the SC to cut a swath around our fenced garden space so help keep the weeds down in the garden.

Once I had the cutting done I pulled back the sod for about 10' and dug two holes, added compost and peat moss and planted the two rhodies. Then I added compost and peat moss to the top of the rest of the 10' and covered it with some mulch I created from the cherry tree we whacked back last weekend. The good news was that it did stay cool but that was also the bad news because I just kept working and I was so tired after the whole project! As you can see in the picture not only is the fence unattractive so is the stuff on the other side of it. The rhodies seem to be doing well in spite of being out of the ground for a couple of days. I will just need to keep them watered.

Yesterday I was still so sore it was hard to be too motivated to get much done but I did get started in the sewing room. I got the fabric all prewashed and did the ironing and tidied up all the leftovers from recent projects.

Today I was outside for a few hours again. I got two more rose bushes from the neighbor and found new homes for them in my yard. This involved digging up an old climbing rose bush that wasn't in a good place. SInce I have several other pieces of that same rose elsewhere I have no bad feelings about digging it up and dumping it! I do plan to at least get all the fabric pressed yet today so it is ready to work with tomorrow because tomorrow I will be staying in all day!

Time to clean the sewing room

Here is that quilt top all done!
I finished it up yesterday afternoon after several hours outside shredding/chipping up branches from the pruning we did over the weekend. Had it done in time to take over to craft night for show and tell along with this little block...
This is what I will be doing with all the little leftover HSTs from this quilt and it's big sister. It is called Lady of the Lake and since I have 1200 HSTs and each blocks uses 20 of those, I will end up with 60 5.75" blocks for a little quilt. I did this block in a hurry and not well so I will have to take it apart some but I wanted a sample to put away with the HSTs until I get to that project.

This morning I plan to get all my fabric from last week prewashed and put away or set aside for some projects I need to get finished with soon.

Half the Blocks

I have been working on these blocks most of this past week. There is a lot of prep work to do before you get to the fun part of putting the blocks together. I hope to work on the other 40 blocks starting today and get the top put together this week. I think it is going to turn out pretty well. Part of doing the prep work has involved creating lots of little HST leftovers and while I was trimming and pressing I came up with a plan for using all of them. I have decided to make a Lady of the Lake quilt. The one downside is that I have used up a lot of my reds so I needed some more. Luckily, my niece and I decided to do a road trip down to Portland on Friday and I got 4 more.


I think I have about 9 or 10 different reds and several greens I can use for the center HSTs for those blocks. I would like to get all the pieces cut out so I can put all the fabric away and get it off my sewing table but I will probably hold off on sewing the blocks until my quilt retreat this fall.

On the road trip I also got these black and white fabrics. I have several projects that I need these for but I am really low on them. The white on white has little crabs on it - too cute!

I also have a couple of projects that require fall fabrics and my choices in the area were pretty slim also so I fleshed that out a bit with these.

I got these three for the strips between the denim pieces is some quilts I will be working on in the next month or so. These are all for some special people in my life.

And finally, I don't have a picture of my last two purchases because, while they are exciting, they aren't so exciting to look at: about 8 yards of navy Kona for my Cathedral Window Quilt project and a roll of 120" Warm & Natural so I can get some quilts finished.

We are back home and missing those two little ones! We had a good time. Hubby helped SIL get the window in and then wired 8 lights out on their deck and got to go to 20 or more garage sales! We both found some treasures as did our daughter. Our grandson enjoys going to all the sales though he didn't get much and the granddaughter managed to take about an hour nap in the car so it went pretty well!

Before I left this pretty block arrived from raesha. It is for the June Quilt Block Exchange. I need to get busy on my July blocks! This month I will be making 6!
Yesterday I got this top together. It is made from 120 spool blocks that were made by myself and 5 others. It will go to a charity but so far we haven't decided which one.
This is the extent of handwork I got done while I was away. These two little quilts will be for the bazaar in the fall. This one is made from blocks that someone gave me. I just trimmed them all to the same size and put them together.
This one started as 4 strips of squares. I just had to do a little ripping and resewing to get them in the right order for this pattern.Like the other two I made recently these are just backed with flannel and have no batting so they will be better for use as doll blankets.

Last night I finished the cutting for the twin quilt I am making that is similar to this quilt. The twin will have red stars and the stripes will be green and white.

Today I need to take the car to the dealer to get a part replaced and I need to pick raspberries. After that I hope to get some sewing done!

Mail Day

I haven't gotten much more accomplished other than finishing the SFRR3 quilt but I did get three packages to the post office yesterday.

The SFRR3 quilt is on its way to its new home somewhere in the world. I can't post a picture of it until it is finished but I can show these pictures since this little quilt has made it home. Here is what I received:At this point it was only 13.5" square and it had 401 individual pieces of fabric in it! I knew it needed a simple border so here is what I gave ita simple mitered frame. You can see it finished here.

I also sent off the two little 5.5" blocks to John for June Baggie Bingo and I sent my second set of 20 color blocks for the Four Seasons Summer Color Block Swap.

Tuesday evening was craft night as usual and I brought my last 12 spool blocks so we were able to get them up on the design wall and now they are on a stack on my ironing board waiting for me to come home and put them together. Then Sally and Nadine are in charge of quilting it and Linnea will do the binding. I think Rebecca is in charge of figuring out what charity it will go to. We are starting to think about what pattern to use for the next group quilt.

Yesterday afternoon hubby and I loaded up the car and headed east to our daughter's home. Today we celebrate our granddaughter's first birthday and hopefully the guys can get their basement window replaced - it has been broken since last fall and right now there is now window - just plywood. Saturday is their town's garage sale day so hubby is looking forward to that - hope he isn't disappointed!

I haven't gotten anything done that I have pictures of but I have been getting things done. I am getting close to being done with all my magazines. I have pulled out 2-3" of pages. I found some good ideas for patterns for using up some fabrics I have had for a while and want to get used up including a bag of batik scraps from a garage sale.

Yesterday I finally got the SFRR3 flimsy that I need to finish off out of its bag and got it basted, machine quilted and the binding on. I still have some hand quilting and the hand sewing on the binding but that shouldn't take long once I get those magazines done!

Oh Wait! I did make something that I have pictures of:
These are the two 5.5" blocks I will be sending to John for June Baggie Bingo over on Flickr. I guess I was in a yellow and green mood, whatever that means!

I have also been doing some work on our property in the mornings when it is cooler and while I still have some energy. The strawberries are slowing down but the raspberries have started. I also did some cleaning out in one of our more jungle-like areas in the yard! In the midst of some of that I got a bee sting on the back of my leg yesterday.

Two Doll Quilts Done

These are the first two doll quilts finished. The first was made from some of my broken dishes blocks I have been accumulating from leftover half-square triangles from other projects. In this case, mostly the spool blocks I have put together for the group quilt. This little quilt is about 20.5" square. I started to add another border but it would have been too big.

The second quilt is made from some leftover HST a friend gave me at my last quilt retreat. She was making a quilt for a grandchild that had flying geese blocks so she gave me the leftovers. She even gave me a few scraps of coordinating fabric so I was able to get a border around it.

I had a great time at my daughter and son-in-law's home. The grandkids are so much fun. Little Clara's personality is really starting to develop and Layden was so happy to see me and the strawberries I brought along. He wanted to come home with me but he has swimming lessons to go to so it just doesn't work out right now. I think I have Papa convinced we need to go back over in another week or so for a visit so he can see the little ones also. It is a bonus that we get to see our son at the same time since he is living with his sister for the summer.

Last Friday my daughter and I drove up to Coeur d' Alene with the kids for some shopping and to meet my sister and niece at the quilt show. It was a nice show and we got to see a couple of friends that are usually at our twice yearly quilt retreats. Clara had a good time wandering the quilt show and charming everyone she met. Layden's attitude improved once we bribed him with an ice cream cone after the show.

At the show, my sister transferred two boxes of quilt magazines from her car to mine. She went through all her magazines and tore out things she was interested in and was giving them to Chelsea to go through also. That inspired me to come home and go through my magazines and take out what I am interested in. I am about halfway through and I have only saved about a one inch pile of patterns and pictures so far! The goal is to have two empty shelves in my closet so I can get at least some of the stuff up off the floor!