a little of this, a little of that

I haven't been in at the machine a lot since my last post (holy cow, that was more than two weeks ago!), but I have done a little.

It's been hot here, so it's hard to go upstairs into a room with no air conditioning and turn on an iron...

But we have had a few cooler days.  And mornings.  And sometimes I was just stubborn, so I went and sewed and turned on the fan for some relief.

In no particular order of when I got them done, I first have just one more of the rainbow scrap challenge blocks finished.  I've been procrastinating these.  Again.  But as of right now, they're about all that's left on my list, so maybe tomorrow?

#53

bowling alley

And then there's the Summer Fun quilt along that my friend Carol sucked me into.  The patterns are released on Friday, but with my new job, I work a lot of weekend hours, so it's hard to squeeze in much sewing between work and time with the hubby.  But during the week, I usually have a few days off and, with the hubby working then, I can find a little time to work on the blocks and have managed to keep up!

Last week we had to make two sunflower blocks.  There were three options to make them.  One used a special ruler to make the flower with a Dresden plate block.  I am not spending money for two blocks.  And I don't like that pattern, so even more reason to not purchase something.  The second and third option involved templates and machine applique.  While this is intended to be a skill-builder, I do not have a fancy machine and don't much care for machine applique.  And I plan to donate the quilt to be used, so hand applique is not a good option.  So I opted to use a different sunflower block, from Lori Holt's Farm Girl Vintage book.  And I'm going to call this an extra curricular skill builder because I built skills by adapting the block to work for me!

(They look a little washed out here, but, well, it is what it is.)

This week is two stars and a butterfly.  These went together fast today, while the hubby is out on a charter fishing trip on the big lake.

Next Friday will be the last set of instructions and will be another extra curricular skill builder for me, as it is appliqueing the word "summer"...again, same story as the sunflowers.  So I'm going to find out how tall the row has to be and substitute something pieced in there instead.  Maybe hearts or friendship stars?  We'll see...

Next up, in procrastinating the rainbow scrap challenge blocks, and finding that a day I had off was going to be relatively cool, I decided to put my June UFO on the longarm.  In my last post, I shared with you the completed top and backing I had purchased.  I got really lucky that my top was just a touch narrower than the back, so no piecing to make a back!  (It was a little tight with my longarm bumping the side clamps, but I was aware and mindful and all was well.)

It took about 5 hours and 10 different colors (more than 10 thread changes, but, well, it needed it!)...

And I took a few photos, one after the first pass...

and one after the last pass...

And then took it outside on an overcast day to get a photo.  The colors aren't quite true, but boy can you see the quilting!

I did a LOT of quilting, but it was fun.  Only a few areas stumped me, but I enjoyed making picket fences and trees and clouds and such in the open spaces.  (Though I was kicking myself at first for such a foolish choice to leave all that emptiness there!)  I marked a few things - like how high to make the fence posts and a grid for the spiderweb - but less than I originally thought I would need to do.  I don't care for marking - I just want to get in there and quilt, but this was good for me!

You can't see some of the quilting well - the brick house has a clamshell quilted in the roof, the upper green house is quilted with a LOT of flowers and there are pebbles in the heart house.  There is also some tall grass peeking between the picket fences.

If I had quilted a little more on the Dairy Queen (the gal who made that owns the local DQ and said it feels like home the summer months it's open, so she made me the block based on the concept design of the new DQ they broke ground for this spring - it wasn't even a started building when she made her block, so I have a DQ older than the actual one here in town!), it would have added two more thread colors, but I decided enough was enough.

It still needs to be bound and I suppose tomorrow, on a second day off in a row (!!!!), I could procrastinate my rainbow blocks a little longer and do that, but the hubby returns to work, so I have a good chunk of day to play (once chores are done...), so I'll probably talk myself into working on what I should really be doing.  And have more to share soon!

Today is also a fairly cool day (though now that the overcast skies and rain have cleared off, it's warming up and getting muggy...bleh) so, after finishing the Summer Fun blocks, I watched a movie and finished binding the Christmas quilt that will go to the hubby's aunt.  Nothing like being done early, right?

Just a tease here, but the full quilt has been shown before.  But apparently I can't find it to link, so I'll just add another photo!

(I'm pretty sure she doesn't read blogs, so I think we're safe!)

(This was another quilt I quilted when procrastinating my rainbow scrap challenge...I'm definitely going to have to think harder about my project choice if I do this again next year because this year has really been a struggle!  But, hey, my to-be-longarmed pile is benefiting, so it's not all bad!))

I still need to put a label on, but that won't take too long.  Says the person who will probably be sewing it on in the car, on the way to the party in early December...

And another project deserving my procrastination of the rainbow challenge is a block for the guild.  While I don't think this person reads my blog, I'm going to keep this hush-hush, so as to not ruin the surprise...but darn it, I wanna share!

So that's it for now.  It seems like a lot, but really it's not.  But it's forward progress on projects that, aside from the guild task, are not entirely new.  Well, okay, not new in the last two weeks...cause the summer fun quilt is kind of a squirrel from three weeks ago...but it's getting done!

And now I post with the hopes that comments will begin showing up in my e-mail again so I can reply.  I have been reading and approving them, but it's a hassle to reply with them just being in the blogger "needing moderation" tab...

Happy quilting!

Katie

PS Maybe I should go clean the bathroom so I have one less chore tomorrow morning?