Binding completed................

After I took this photo, I continued sewing the binding on the floral stars quilt.  I finished it at 10:30.

It's getting close to the end of the month so I'll have to see what else I can finish.

Yesterday morning I went out to check the tomatoes and this is what I found on the biggest tomato out there.  I had picked tomatoes the night before at 5 p.m. and this one had barely a tinge of orange on it so I left it to check on later.  The squirrels had their party and took 2 bites.  I'm going to leave it on the plant for a few days to shame them.  Ha ha, like that will do any good!

I have cut down or dug out all of the Rose of Sharon but this little one survived right next to a Redbud tree.

It was our last pleasant day with low humidity yesterday.  Today the A/C will get turned back on and will remain on for several days.  

I really enjoyed having the windows open for 3 days.  

 

Another project..........................

While cleaning off a table in the main level studio, I found a stack of batik 2.5" x 4.5" rectangles.  I carried them to the basement to join the others in one of the boxes in the basement.  As I tried to open the blanket box on the left I decided it was one of the "difficult to open" ones and I pulled some easy open ones from the storage area to exchange them.

The first day my helper came we put all three of the large bins with trays of cut pieces in one place, under the longarm.

I started looking with the first bin on the left.  In it I found 2 trays of 1.5" floral squares.  I think this will be another of my mindless sewing projects between planned projects.  I will make 9 patches with them.  It looks like 2 or 3 nights of TV watching to accomplish that.

But, how about the rest of the trays in that box.  I discovered that they are all 2" squares.  You can see by the tray at the bottom left that I was using these for colorwash.  But wait, there is more..........

There are at least 10 more trays of 2" squares in that box.  More 9 patches?  I made 2 quilts that I love with printed fabric 9 patches here and here.  I have made lots more but those 2 are my favorites.  When I clicked on my 9 patch label to go back and look for these, I was surprised how many 9 patch quilts I have made.

The large bin in the middle is all 2.5" floral type squares, and the box at the right has batik rectangles in at least 3 sizes.  So the stack I took to the basement is with its friends.

I took advantage of a day in the 70s to bake some cookies.  I didn't have any left in the freezer so now there are.

Later in the day I decided to bake shortbread cookies.  This should hold me over until the next cool spell.  It sounds like we're going back up to 90 over the weekend.

Binding cut...................

I had the iron on to press some other fabrics so I pressed the binding fabric and got the 7 strips cut.

While I had the fabrics out for the Snail's Trail I also cut a 2.5" strip off the larger pieces.  I needed a few more so I pressed some more fabric and cut them and now have 80 strips, 80 different fabrics.  Maybe they will become a 16 patch when I need some mindless sewing.

While I was at it I cut a few more strips off some of the fabrics and there are 71 in this group.  There are duplicates of some fabrics.  I don't have a plan for these right now.

The great yellow takeover..............

Two years ago there were 2 Black-eyed Susan plants that somehow migrated from the back garden to the front.  This year they have multiplied and have taken over the front garden.  It's colorful, I will say that.

After an hour or so of playing with this group of fabric, this is the final batch.  I removed one purple and like that end much better.  Now I have to read the directions and decide if I will follow them or devise my own directions.  I know the directions are for fat quarters and I'm not sure I want to cut my half yards down the middle. I like full width fabrics and I would rather just cut a strip all the way across.

While I was waiting for the dryer to stop I trimmed the floral stars quilt.

I knew I wanted a fairly light binding on this one and I think the backing fabric looks great.  I have plenty of it.

Outside I filled the bird feeders and watered all of my plants.  Our rain on Monday was barely enough to wet the bottom of the rain gauge.  We have had about 1/10" measurable rain since July 4th.

I don't like to pick the tomatoes when they are just starting to turn orange, but the squirrels have already picked 5 and took 2 bites out of them.  The big one is a Rutgers and there are several more that large getting ready to turn color.  Most of the small ones are golf ball size (for comparison).

Changes.....................

All of the photos yesterday have the fabrics overlapped so you only see 2" of them, which is the width of the finished strip in the quilt.  Here is a full view of the wild card.

In this photo are 3 new pink prints and a purple to replace the 3rd from the left.

In this one the wild card is removed and another pink is in the center.  Still not quite right.

In this group one of the pinks has been removed and the orange swirly added, and then I switched the dotted and the large plaid with each other.  I'll have to look at these photos again today since I was tired last night when I got them all cropped and into the post.

I'm not sure.....................

I thought it might take between a half hour and an hour to find the fabrics to make this Zipper quilt.  It took me an hour to get from 12 fabrics to the 15 I needed and I'm still not sure I'm done.  This was the first group of 15 and I thought I might be done but when I saw the photo I didn't like the 3rd piece in from the left.  I think it is too dark.

 I had another purple to try and it is a little better, but I kept looking.

I changed several pieces for the third group.  I swapped positions of the second and fifth from the left and I like that much better.  I brought back in the first purple for the 3rd from left.  In the center I added a wild card and to the right of it I put in a different red.  What do you think of the wild card?  Do you think it will work or ruin the look?

This is the original group of Kaffe Collective fabrics used in the pattern.  I put in 2 yellows where they have one.  I think I ended up choosing only 3 of the originals.  I recognized most of the prints but didn't have them in these colors.

First quilt top completed in July 2026

Snail's trail is a finished top now, just 10 days from the first blocks being cut to finished sewing.  I will be looking for a backing today.  It is 60" x 84".  All regular printed cotton fabrics, no batik.  6.25 yards out of my brown/rust/gold stash.  While I was cutting for this one I also cut a 2.5" strip for a future quilt from the larger pieces.  

I went out to check on the tomato plants and found this big Rutgers tomato with 2 bites ouf of it, in the grass.  I put it back in the pot for the evil creature to see when it comes back for more.

The Tiger Lily plants in the shade garden have started blooming now.  They are about 4' tall and so are a lot of the Purple Coneflowers.

The Jack be Little Pumpkin plants are doing well so far.  I cut down some Peony plants and the Tree of Heaven while I was back there.

The Cucumber plants that I grew from seed are doing well so far.  The 2 little plants I bought are in a different pot and not doing so well.  I have already pulled out one of the plants and I'm not sure about the other one.

This is the other pot of plants that I started from seed.  I watered them after I took this photo.

One little volunteer Sunflower is blooming.

Today is predicted to be a cooler day but the humidity is still fairly high.  Out here in corn country, we have extra humidity produced by the cornfields.