Busy Summer...Just As I Like It

 I hardly know where to start. 

Summer months are always intense with little time to sleep.

June was a month spent mostly outside. There was a garden to plant, annual flowers to pot up and perennial beds to tend. I love it all.

There were a few rainy days so I did get a finished quilt! 

Sparklers on the 4th

As a bonus...you can see my viola and pansy tubs. 

This was my third quilt using my digital quilt design program on my Amara 20. It was a major leap in my ability to program a design and successfully execute it on my quilt top. 

The digital design is a freebie through Quilts of Valor, "Star Spangled Banner." I used a King Tut variegated thread, "Home of the Brave." The digital pattern is from Wildflower Quilting

The quilt pattern is a design from the duo, Me and My Sister Designs, " Slice of Cake, Slice 2." It is a layer cake design. Definitely beginner friendly. This would be so cute done in bright floral colors...also as light tones of blues and purples on a dark background like snowflakes...no more talk of snow.

I was so inspired by our country's 250th birthday. I remember the 200th birthday in 1976. There was a full year of commemoration. Special bicentennial design of the quarter. NBC had little historical segments...just a few minutes at the top of the hour...just a few memories of the year in celebration.

For three years I focused on patriotic cross stitch designs and I had a sweet little display this year. 

I devoted a couple of weeks to creating finished pieces from my stitching...lots of painting...I had no idea how long it would take me to paint all the pieces.

My oldest stitched piece was a Lori Holt design, "Stitchy Stars." I laced the piece using matboard as a the base and glued some mini pompom trim around the edge. It was then glued a the white board.

My next finishes were completed last year...what a relief they were already finished.

I detailed my finishing July 2025. Lizzie Kate designs, Liberty Sam and  Lady Liberty.

I next opted for some simpler, little designs. Stitching with the Housewives has many adorable patriotic designs and I hope to stitch some more. This is a series of roundabouts.

I used sticky board circles from the Fat Quarter shop to mount these little finishes. There is a layer of quilt batting behind the aida fabric.  I trimmed the stitched pieces and did a basting stitch to cinch up around the circle. Then glued the pompom trim.

I had several wooden pieces to use for mounting the circles.

I found simple stands on Etsy, MelsCrazyCraftCorner. I painted them with an acrylic paint.

I ordered the next two fancy pieces from Paisleys and Polka Dots

It took me a ridiculous amount of time to paint these stands.

They sure are cute!

Next was a cross stitch finish of a Mill Hill Jim Shore ornament kit, Patriotic Gnome.

I  love this finish. This little wooden frame is from Michaels. I painted it with several coats of red acrylic paint. Covered a piece of sticky board with a batik fabric from my stash and glued the gnome in place. 

My final finish was the fun cross stitch piece designed by OwlHouseStitching on Etsy.

I laced the piece to matboard. Glued the rick rack in place and glued the whole piece to a roughly finished wood piece purchased at Walmart.

Everything came together so sweetly.

I happened to find the cute wooden stars at the Target Dollar Spot.

And...one last quilting piece...top finished. Waiting for backing fabric to arrive.

Such a fun quilt. This is a fat quarter pattern, "Starlets," by Modernly Morgan. I made this at a quilt retreat the first week of June. I used a set of batik fat quarters, "Liberty," from Robert Kaufman Fabrics. The fat quarters were a release from a few years ago.

I will share gardening happenings in another post...but here are a few critter visits.

I went to sit at my sewing machine and noticed I had a visitor...

Munching on new growth...

he headed to the front yard...looks like he is trying to hide behind the tree.

There have been a lot of visits from black bears at my neighbor's house.

They had a birdhouse hanging on the eaves of their front porch...a big no no in bear country.

They found out all birdhouses...no matter where you mount them...are not safe from bears.

Many Animal Sightings in May

 May was chilly and rather dreary...but the animals were all moving and since the vegetation was just blooming it was easy to spot them...and they were everywhere.

May 6th...a bull moose arrived in time for my morning coffee.

May 7th he came again for morning coffee.

 

May 9th...we awoke to a dusting of snow. 

May 20, my husband spotted this grizzly sow with her three, one-year-old cubs less than a mile from our house.

 Amazingly, they all survived their first year.

One cub in particular looks like a teddy bear.

One day we hit a traffic jam driving into town. Mamma moose had two babies...probably a day or two old who were not doing a great job of following her. They could not go over or under the guard rail. We sat for 15 minutes. At one point the mamma game back on the road with them and started to walk to the other side but all the cars had her freaked out so she went right back to this position. We finally eased our way around her as did most others. When we drove home everything was back to normal. No sign of animals.

Our mailbox area is often a place to spot wild life...it's at the bottom of the mountain I live on and not far from the actual river so it's a road for the animals too. As I parked my car, I spotted a moose watching me get my mail.

Here's Bullwinkle...just starting to grow his antlers.

An finally...this lovely black bear was at the base of the mountain as I drove down .

I watched him for several minutes...he was in no hurry...eating the greens along the sides of the road.

All the vegetation has now filled in and I'm not spotting the animals as often but there's lots of bear poop on the roads so I know they are there...just harder to see them. 

About a quarter mile from my house, a baby moose was killed by the grizzly mamma and we are all avoiding the area for a while as it takes a few days for them to enjoy their feast. 

April Crammed with Lots of Stitchy Projects

 It's my understanding that one of the key ways to keep my aging brain healthy is to challenge it...learn a new language, play and instrument...how about getting a longarm quilting machine with a computerized quilting design capability? 

On the 2nd of April, my new machine was delivered, HandiQuilter Amara 20 with ProStitcher Premium on a 12-foot Studio 3 frame. There are many longarm manufacturers to choose from but since I am only looking to quilt for myself, I didn't need a Gammill. I think they are the top of the line but they are pretty pricey. I definitely wanted a machine that could be maintained and repaired locally. My last machine was a Nolting and I had to ship it to Iowa for repair a few years ago. There is a Bernina shop in Anchorage but I have not been thrilled with their tech support with my domestic sewing machine so I didn't feel good about going with a Bernina longarm...I have briefly worked on one and it seemed great...but maintenance was a big concern for me. A fellow quilter has been very happy with the support she has gotten from our local HandiQuilter dealer. 

I ordered the machine on March 13th, and in under 3 weeks I had my new machine...the promptness of it's delivery was a big bonus. I am so thankful for YouTube and all the great videos from HandiQuilter and their dealers. Yesterday...after playing on ugly fabric for a couple of weeks...I put a real quilt on the frame! It all started great...almost halfway through quilting and I had a tension issue...oh no!!! Nothing like working through a problem to really learn the ProStitcher program! I took a break overnight and came back to it this morning and gotter done!

The quilt top was finished in April of 2016. A line of Moda batiks from Holly Taylor featuring dragonflies. I found several edge to edge quilting designs on the ProStitcher library and picked one.

I am sooo excited with how great the quilting stitch quality is and how smoothly it went.

I know it's hard to see the quilting design with all the pieced batiks but in person...it looks great!

I have been stewing on my age a little bit...I am feeling more like a senior. I saw a brief clip on YouTube about "Death Cleaning." It's when you get rid of things you don't want others to have to deal with when you die. I don't know if my sewing room will ever be anything but overwhelming to anyone else when I die but it has made me look at my stash and think...what is taking up space...and should it go now to others...

I did look at one of my oldest UFOs...the supporting fabric fills up three bins of fabrics...all from the designer Nancy Halvorsen from Art to Heart. She was my favorite when I first started quilting. I bought a fat quarter set of any line of fabric she released...plus most of her companion books for those lines. I have finished several projects over the years and have a quilt top waiting for quilting. 

When we were living in Paris, I made all the background blocks for the pattern, "Angels Among Us,"

I do still love this design...and the fabrics. So I pulled it out and am starting to peck away at the individual blocks. Since it was March when I opened the UFO project box, I started with the block for that month. The first step was to embroider the little saying.

I have the applique pieces traced on fusible web and the fabrics picked out...just need to do the first round of fusing.

While watching all the ProStitcher videos I did some hand stitching on the next block. I think I will have more hand stitching time while my quilting machine works. 

I made a little progress on the Cottontail Cottage quilt. I used Roxanne Glue-Baste-It to place the wool leaves and did a little blanket stitch by machine to secure. 

I ordered some bigger pieces of hand-dyed wool for the next block and it arrived recently so hopefully I will get going on this quilt soon.

I never work in my sewing room at night...I would never go to bed if I started working on something in my special place! My handwork must be done in my living room where my dogs can snuggle and get more attention.

I finished another mini patriotic cross stitch piece by Stitching with the Housewives. I have two more in the series to finish. 

I had a big cross stitch finish that I started last year. It was a series of "chick" ornaments designed by Jim Shore for Mill Hill. They are stitched on perforated paper with floss and beads. There is a front 

annnnnd back side that are stitched together. 

The two sides are stitched along the outside edges with four strands of DMC floss.

Jim Shore cross stitch patterns are a lovely challenge...all his special shading means lots of color changes for these little guys.

I have seen other stitchers create hangers for their Mill Hill ornaments with leftover beads in the kits. I did that here and will definitely do it again.

Working on felt projects is a nice...mindless stitching project. No counting...just stitching on the printed lines on the felt.

I finished two Merry Stocking Mantel Series kits. 

Classic Village, 2024, Schoolhouse kit.

Classic Village, 2025, Toy Shop kit

    

I've been spending a lot of great time with my grandkids. They all love getting to see my projects as I work on them and finish them! My 6-year-old has started working on a cross stitch kit and felt kits made for kids. She is doing to great. I feel so blessed to spend time with them and to share my love of various needlework projects...even my 3-year-old grandson loves these pieces.

Most of the snow is gone...just the piles from snowplowing our driveway are left. Temperatures are still mostly in the 40s during the day. I haven't walked into a gardening nursery yet...I don't want to be tempted to buy something when it is still so chilly.

Lots of neighbors are posting pictures of black and grizzly bears roaming our part of the world...I haven't seen any myself...yet...but it will happen eventually. Hopefully I'll have my iPhone in hand when it happens.