My son-in-law was here from NC for his mother's 90th birthday and he stopped by for a nice visit. I finished the purple dishcloth and started a red one for my kitchen. I rarely use the solid color yarn so this one is different for me.
I was looking through "Kaffe Fassett's Quilts from Italy" and I find the quilt that was my favorite when the book came out is still my favorite. I know how hard it is to keep a quilt from bowing out at the center of the sides when adding border after border. I think I do want to make one like this anyway. I have about 3/4 of the fabrics used in this quilt but I might not make an exact copy.
I'm at day 25 after pacemaker surgery. For the first 30 days I was instructed to not raise my left arm above shoulder level. This is time for the leads that were inserted into the heart to be held securely in place by scar tissue that grows around the ends. Since I frequently switch hands (without thinking) when placing blocks on my design walls I didn't dare take a chance of accidentally raising that arm too high. I will be happy to get back to the design wall in another week.
I had some leftover cut pieces from a quilt that I made before I had my Studio die cutter. I decided to sew up a few orphan blocks for my collection. I probably have enough batik blocks to do another orphan block quilt now.
There are still more triangles to sew together and some squares too so there might be a few more blocks. This is just fun relaxing sewing.
I also sewed the last 2 rows for the Australian fabric table runner. It is 10.25" x 23.75" right now. It could probably use a border all around. There are 60 different Australian fabrics in the 2" pinwheels plus the yellow alternate square fabric for 61.
I just have center seams left to sew on the last 16 blocks of the Australian fabric Hunter Star quilt. Then I can start playing around with the pairs that will make the full star blocks. There will be 2 blocks alike of each combination.
Last night I knitted while I watched 2 episodes of "Anne with an e" on Netflix. It is based on Anne of Green Gables which I just read for the first time about 3 years ago. They have the perfect girl playing the part of Anne.
I give the multi-skein dishcloths to my youngest granddaughter. I knitted about a third of the multi-skein one and half of the new one on the needles.
I found enough flannel scrap pieces to cut the last 4 tumbler shapes. I sewed the last 4 rows onto the quilt top yesterday morning. I will press it later. Since I can't do any machine quilting right now there is no hurry.
Last night I was looking for something and came across a bag of scraps from this quilt that I basted right before my pacemaker surgery. I paired the scraps and sewed these little wonky blocks. I'm not sure what they will turn into. They are small, about 4" x 6". They haven't been pressed yet.
I decided I need a mug rug for my living room in lavender shades. I took two 1.5" strips and sewed and cut and sewed and cut until I had this little 7 rows by 8 rows checkerboard. Fun sewing!
I'm always surprised by the color of the asters each year. I thought they were a darker shade last year. Maybe our lack of rain has affected them. The bees are loving them. They look pink here but they are a pinky-purple.
The volunteer plants along the driveway are in full bloom now. I cut down quite a few of the plants early in the summer but there are still a lot of them blooming there.
I needed to get this flannel baby quilt sewn so I can use the table top. I need to cut 4 more tumbler pieces before I can sew the last 4 rows on. I usually have a little pile of flannel scraps that I put near the big boxes of flannel but last night I couldn't find any. The box of flannel that I need is on the bottom of a stack of 3 boxes and I can't lift anything heavy right now so I'll keep looking for random scraps laying around. I'm sure I'll find some.
My granddaughter drove as we completed some errands yesterday morning and then in the afternoon I had a nice visit from the pastor of my church. We are in our heat spell now, 90's in late September. One weatherman says we will probably set a new record on the next 2 days. It sounds like it will be next Tues. before we have relief.
The back garden is really showing signs of fall. The Rudbeckia which was so huge and full of flowers is dying back. The birds will love all of the seed heads. Now I can see the Cannas better. I won't be digging up the bulbs this year so I'll find out if they can survive our winter. I have 2 pots with them that I will bring inside and plant again next year. I'm glad I worked on the back garden as much as I did because I won't be doing much to it now.
The leaves on the walnut trees are turning yellow and it looks they have already dropped the walnuts. The Redbud trees have some yellow leaves too. They usually lose almost all of their leaves in just a day or two but I don't think they are ready yet. We got 3/4" of rain Monday night and it really is the most we have had for almost 3 weeks.
I'm working on the last 4 combinations of the Hunter Star block little by little.
It was a beautiful day yesterday and now we are going to have the hot humid weather that we usually have the last week of August and first week of September. It has been nice to not need air conditioning for several weeks.
I had bookwork and computer work to do yesterday so no sewing. I have been looking for things to sell and this little 9 1/2" square piece is one of them. The finished squares in this colorwash are 1/2" (cut size 1") and there are 144 of them. Yes it was a little tricky to sew, no gridded interfacing, just little squares to sew together. It is just a top, needing someone's loving touch to finish it. I'm hoping someone will want it for $25 which includes the postage.Sold! Thanks everyone!
The blocks for the last 4 stars in Hunter Star have been cut. I thought I might start sewing them but read and knitted instead.
I also cut the little pieces for the last four 2" pinwheels out of the scraps. They are sewn but not pressed. A couple of them don't have much contrast between the dark and light but I think they will be fine. Maybe I'll get the last 2 rows sewn onto the table runner today.
I sewed a little bit yesterday. I have 8 more pieces to add onto each row to finish the bottom half.
I spent a few hours reading finishing a murder mystery. Now I need to look for another book to read. There are plenty of them waiting to be re-shelved.
The asters are just starting to bloom. They are so much darker than this though. Sunlight washes out the color.
This little group is in the shade and they look bluer but are still lighter than looking at them with the naked eye.
I'm not sure if these are petunias or if they had a different name. They were a really deep intense purple all summer and now have started fading.
My friends shared some compost with me and she mentioned they had tomato plants coming up in their flower pots. Lo and behold I have one too. It looks like the Roma variety.
A few days ago I got a card from my friend Julie. She uses her scraps and makes her own note cards. I don't have any of those fabrics; maybe I should save them for a crazy pieced block...or maybe I'll just save the card and enjoy them that way. Thanks Julie!
