A collage and the garden...................

 I wanted to have a collage of the finished quilts for the first half of the year, so yesterday seemed like a good time to do it.  They aren't to scale, just tossed into the collage.  It's fun for me to see them all together to recap the first 6 months.

I took a few photos in the garden just before the rain started...again.  We have gotten 8.25" of rain in the last 3 days, 2.75" yesterday afternoon.  My north neighbor has a lot of standing water in their backyard.

This is the Zinfin Doll Hydragea before the blooms start turning pink.

There was one Black-eyed Susan plant 2 years ago.  I counted at least 7 this year.  Since I haven't been able to do much gardening, I haven't removed any of them, but I will need to move them after blooming season.  Those are Coral Bell plants behind this one.

There are lots of blooms on the yellow Gloriosa Daisy now.

I coudn't resist a photo of the front porch on my way past it.

Over by the corner of the house the yellow Coneflower is doing great again this year.  I really should get those weeds pulled while the ground is wet.

Happy 250th birthday America...............

I have let the organizing and cleaning get way behind the last year or two so I shouldn't expect it to be all cleaned up in a week.

One of the stacks included this downloaded pattern for Kaffe fabrics.  They are expecting you to buy the fat quarter pack and label the fabrics in the order they are when you receive it.  I would be cutting from stash so mine might look a little different, especially if I used scraps as well as yardage.  This is a free pattern download and they also show it in cool colors.  I think I should keep this one out and make it soon.

We got 3.75" of rain Thursday evening and another half inch in two small storms yesterday.  I can't even remember the last time we got over 4" in 24 hours.  It was raining again last night at 10:30 so I'll check the rain gauges this morning.  I'm hoping we are now out of the unusually dry and drought categories.  We have been suffering with low rainfall for 3 years.

Last but not least, today is my Blogiversary.  I started this blog on July 4, 2007 at the urging of a friend.  It is my online journal to record all of my quiltmaking and gardening ventures.  I never knew how handy it would be to be able to go back as far as 19 years and see what I was doing.  I am grateful for all of you who are still visiting and for those who leave comments.  I feel like you are all friends; some of you I have actually met in person.  I hope you will continue to visit. 

Sorting scraps......................

There were 2 project boxes full of Kaffe collective scraps plus a pile I had collected in the basement.  This is a 12" x 12" project box opened, with strips in the left side.  On the lid on the right is a bag of scraps large enough to cut 2.5" squares, a bag of tiny scraps, and a bag of scraps with a seam, cut offs from projects.  I have no interest in working with these.  I have too much yardage calling my name right now.  The good news though is that it is sorted and hopefully I can keep the groups separated.

 Last Friday I had shown a group of these magazines with work by Shirley Nilsson and Tuesday this week I found I had a book by Shirley Nilsson in a pile under the workbench.  The magazines will go to recycling but I think I'll keep the book.

I checked the tomato and cucumber plants yesterday afternoon and they definitely needed to be watered.  Storms were predicted but it didn't look too likely we would get the rain.  I decided to wait and see anyway and thunderstorms rolled through starting around 9.  The electricity went off for a few seconds around 10:30.  It was a long line of small storms one after another.  More rain predicted this afternoon.

The workbench organization tweaked...................

 I decided to make a collage of the before and after instead of linking back to the earlier post.  Top photo is from a week ago Tuesday.  I didn't like the Studio dies so close to the window (in case of leaks).  Bottom photo shows we put the stacked units up on their sides Tuesday this week.  We were able to bring the one remaining rack of Studio dies from the bookcase to the workbench.  The last rack on the right doesn't have any dies in the section nearest the window.  The blue plastic unit is still going to be removed and I want to keep that end of the bench empty so I have a place to sort fabric.

Then we proceeded to fabric sorting.  I had 2 big blanket size bins full of brown/rust/beige prints (no batik).  I knew I wanted to pull fabrics for another Snail's Trail quilt so I had 3  groups, ones that I wanted to keep, ones that will be sold, and this group for the quilt.  The keep group fits in one box now.  After I cut off the 11-1/8" strip from each of these fabrics there were be a few remainders that will also fit into that box.  Next we sorted the same size bin of 90s wild prints and the keep pile fits in 2/3 of the box.  I will condense my floral fabrics from 2 of that same size bin down to one full one and the remainder will fit in with the 90s wild prints.  That is 2 big blanket size bins eliminated and the 3 remaining will fit under the pool table/cutting table.  My helper is coming back in 2 weeks and we will continue on the organization.

Meanwhile I'm melting in this heat and didn't get as much done yesterday as I would like.  I've done a lot standing on the cement floor in the basement this week so I may need a day to relax and just sort scraps.  I have a huge pile of Kaffe scraps, mostly strips, so that will be the first I work on.

June 2026 Monthly recap...................

 Three finishes in June, the halfway point of the year.  This makes 14 finishes for the year so far so maybe I can finish just as many in the second half.  On the left is "Glow" made with Marcia Derse fabric and it is 45" x 62.5".  In the center the Single Irish Chain layout worked well with the Terrie Mangat fabrics.  It is 53.5" x 71".  I was happy to get a flannel quilt finished even though it is summertime.  I love the 16 patches.  It is 47" x 71".

The 1990s floral Sawtooth Star blocks waited a year and a half to finally get sewn into a top.  It is 67" x 79".  After 3 quilt tops with these fabrics, I still have 1-1/2 blanket size bins full.  

In the evenings I finished 4 dishcloths.  I think this Sugar 'n Cream yarn is being discontinued because I'm seeing less places carrying it and less variety available.  I think I have enough to last my lifetime so I'm not worried.

Tomorrow I'll show an update to the workbench organization and document how far I have gotten into other areas of the basement.  Since I don't have central air conditioning and my studio is at the farthest point from the window A/C units (and has west exposure with 2 windows!), I didn't do any evening sewing last night.  I'm planning on having a cutting marathon for a few days but maybe I'll find something to sew earlier in the day.  After this week of 90s and high humidity, next week looks like it will be in the low to mid 80s and things can get back to normal.  I watered my tomatoes and cucumbers late afternoon yesterday and then put a top dressing of fresh compost delivered by a friend on Sunday.

Third finish for June 2026....................

I think this is one of my favorite flannel quilts.  It wasn't planned, it just used blocks I had made previously and rectangles that were resting in a project box.  I don't think I'll ever get tired of making 16 patch blocks.

I bought the leaf print flannel on sale recently and added a piece left over from another back to make it wide enough.  This quilt is 47' x 71".  I used Hobbs 80/20 batting and it was longarm quilted by Robin Diaz.

Yesterday I spent several hours in the basement and one of the things accomplished was cutting the backing and batting for the floral stars quilt.  

I found the lid to one of my large plastic bins.  I mentioned a while back that one of my goals is finding all of the lids and matching boxes and reuniting them.  A lot of times I used a lid as a tray to carry cut pieces and then I never returned it to its box.  I'm making headway but I still have lids to a lot of the small boxes to match up.

Trimming, cutting binding..................

I got this flannel quilt trimmed yesterday and then looked for a binding fabric.

I started looking in a box of flannel fabrics where I knew there were bright ones but didn't think I would find anything to use on this quilt.  Surprise!  This brown one was in there and it looks great with the quilt.  I got the strips cut and started sewing on it last night.

The Geranium is in full bloom with even more buds to bloom later.  The new self watering pots are working out great.

I spent over an hour yesterday trying to get a better photo of the floral star quilt, trying to catch the intensity of the floral fabrics.  Also I was trying to get one that wasn't so crooked.  About 20 tries later I finally got one that satisfied me and I replaced the bad photo in this post.