July has been a busy month.
Some rain and quilting crept into my summer gardening schedule.
I had a daytime, 3-day retreat at my local quilt shop with my Material Girls group. Several of us really enjoy this type of retreat where we can go home in the evenings and sleep in our own beds but leave all our stuff in the classroom of the quilt shop for the three or four days of our retreat.
I very often start a retreat by finishing a project...most often adding borders. For this retreat I wanted to work on one new project so before the retreat I finished up two UFOs claiming space on my sewing table. I did mention there was rain...no sun to call me outside.
"I Believe In," probably looks very familiar to you if you have been quilting for the last 15 years. I started this in 2013 while we were living in Paris. It's a design from Nancy Halvorsen and she re-released one of her previous Christmas fabric lines in May.
I used the fusible web method for the applique and machine stitched the edges with a blanket stitch in black thread.
When I was sewing the blocks together I realized I had missed blanket stitching around the inner edge of an "a."
So glad I caught that!
My next finish is so much more eye catching in person. I named it, "Blue Alaska," and it will be for my grandson. The first grandchild has several quilts from me but my other grandkids haven't gotten any! My quilting priority is to fix that dismal fact.
This was a very fun project that is a, 3-Yard quilt from the design team, Fabric Café. They have several books with eight quilt designs made with one-yard of three different fabrics. This pattern is, "Enchanting," from the book, "The Magic of 3-Yard Quilts." It's a good book with several other designs I would like to make.
With two more tops added to the the "To Be Quilted," pile it was time to start a brand new project! I bought this kit from Shabby Fabrics a couple of years ago which features a digitally printed panel, Dragonfly Dreams.
It was a challenging design with lots of points to match. But I stayed on task and only had the last border to add which I quickly did at home. This is destined for one of my granddaughters.
Every New Year I start a dimensional kit from Bucilla from my extensive stash. This year it was Santa's Ark. It was super challenging making the ark.
As always...the kits are always so much prettier when done than the kit photo.
My four-year-old granddaughter kept me on task...always checking on my progress when she came to our house.
After finishing that enormous project I picked a quick project. A set of Christmas Cookie ornaments. All the tops are done...just have to add the backing pieces.
I'm still loving my cross stitch projects. I think it took me a couple of weeks to finish Liberty Sam. As usual...the final finishing is probably the hardest part and I haven't tackled that step. There is a companion piece, "Lady Liberty," I have kitted up and ready to stitch so I will probably wait to finish the two together.
Back to the Noah's Ark theme...I have two more sets of animals done for a cross stitch ornament series.
The llamas.
I just love how the designer has a "fabric design" look to her animals.
A plaid hippo. So cute!
I was blessed with my fourth grandchild just a couple of days ago, Hannah Jane. This is my son Zack's third daughter. I love it so much that he has three girls!
Zack is a fighter pilot in the Air Force and when I was newly married to my fighter pilot husband there was an article in a science magazine that addressed a statistic that fighter pilots had more daughters than sons and it was believed the pulling of Gs affected the sperm to create this outcome. We had two boys...didn't happen in our case. And I did have a few little girl dresses smocked in anticipation of having girls. Some friends in the squadron got those dresses for their daughters.
I had a very brief but big critter visit a couple of weeks ago. I was sewing in my basement studio when I got a text from a neighbor two doors away...grizzly headed my way. I looked up from my sewing machine and there he was...walking quickly through my back yard. Both my dogs were napping in the studio so I quietly opened my basement door...with iPhone in hand and managed to get a photo!!!
The black fencing is the dog run off my sewing room door. The dogs woke up pretty quickly...barking like crazy from the smell but bear had already disappeared into the woods. The neighbor on my backside is new and sits on 22 acres. I need to get their phone number one of these days.
