crazy Katie is at it again...

...I just keep joining quilt-alongs.

But to be fair, this latest one doesn't start for a little while.  By the time this one starts, the books one will be done.  I can do this.

What is it?

It's called Little Miss Sawtooth and I love the low volume print backgrounds and pops of color.  I'm not very good with this way of coloring a quilt, so I'm going to try to learn from this.  (You know me - bright, bright, bright, bright, grey!)  I'll share more as the time gets closer, but right now, this one is in a holding pattern.

In the meantime, there are BOOKS!

#31 to 37 in this batch.  Only 19 more to go!

I'm having so much fun, but I'm worried I'll run out of books that need to be made before I run out of fun prints to use.  Maybe I'll have to make a bigger quilt?  Or put some on the back?

Speaking of the back...I was at my local quilt shop yesterday, innocently dropping off a block for the guild past president, and I came across this in the sale room.  Of course it came home with me.  This just seems like a perfect back for the books!

It's just under 4 yards, so it may need some stretching.  So there may be a few books put on the back after all.  I have to do some math (ugh!) in the near future, but right now I'm just excited to have this.

The next quilt-along is, of course, the 100 blocks.  I have 10-16 to share today!

You can see the martini glasses were featured in both sets this week, but I figured while I had it out, why not just make both?!

And then there's the Jelly Roll Waves quilt-along.  It's a fairly reasonably paced quilt-along, with the most recent requirement being to cut fabrics.  I cut the strips last night and still need to get the background finished, but I can do that, no problem.  This week, I am assigned to sew half the blocks.  That should also be okay.

These fabrics, when unrolled, revealed some of their name (which was not present on the jelly roll packaging itself), but I have to do some teasing of details before I'm sure.  You know, you don't get a LOT of anything on a jelly roll selvedge!  But when I figure it out, I'll share what they are.  I'm sure they're older, but they're still so pretty and bright.

I'm not sure if I'll work on any quilting tonight.  I worked eight hours today and then came home and spent two more hours cleaning.  You see, we had Stanley Steamer out Friday to clean our furnace ducts.  They made a big mess.  I'm sure my ducts are cleaner, but any flat surface near the registers is NOT.  I realized this a few days later, when a layer of grimy debris was discovered on my desk.  I have commenced cleaning a LOT of things I don't often clean to get this gook out of my house.  Needless to say, I was not entirely impressed with their process.  (This alone did not make my decision, but it sure did not help either!)

The following day, Saturday, I had to work.  While I was there, we had central air conditioning installed.  We've lived here 17 years without it, installing window units in a few rooms to keep things tolerable (of course, I'm usually cold, so it didn't bother me most of the summer to have them off!), but this is a nice change.  This week our weather is that intolerable-to-me temperature and humidity combo, so it is very nice to know that coming home from a busy day of work, I have a cool place to relax.  It cost a pretty penny, but we've been saving and this is an improvement on the house that is not a bad investment.

Sunday, I fired up the oven to bake cupcakes!  An unheard of thing in mid-July, but with the air conditioner taking care of things (and our house is very shaded, so it's not as difficult to keep cool), I just went for it.  I also made some enchiladas to serve to my hubby and his brother and his brother's kids, who were all coming over for a WWE event.  (I took my book and went upstairs to read, as that sort of thing is NOT my cup of tea!)  Don't tell my hubby (or anyone in the family) that this was ground turkey, not beef.  They might kick me out of the family.  But the hubby and I are both getting older, and he has some health issues that can be helped with healthier eating, so I'm making some decisions for us both.  I'm sure when he sees his doctor later this month, more changes will come - and this time at his request, but I thought I'd start sneaking in a new recipe every so often already.  These were delicious!  The kids (ages 7, 14 and 18) liked them.  My brother-in-law said they were the best enchiladas he'd ever eaten (though I'm not sure what the sample size he had to use in comparison might be like - I'm guessing limited!) and even my hubby grudgingly agreed they were good.  So this is a HUGE win for me!  Mostly because the hubby liked them!

Whew...that was a while without pictures!

I mentioned the past president block, but failed to show it!  Oops!

She said any block, any colors, finishing at 10".  So I looked around online and found this one.  And I made a mini-pinwheel with the lost corners from it.

And we can't have a post without cats, can we?

Look at those cute little kitty feets!  Lexie is so sweet.  I think she was a little angry I wasn't petting her (because she always wants ALL the pets!), but I just had to get a photo of her toesies!

Time to go feed the fur-babies and myself some dinner and then decide what the rest of the evening will hold.  I might just end up going to bed early!  This heat, even with the air conditioning at work and at home, makes me tired!

Happy quilting,

Katie