Pressing...........

I had to turn the iron on yesterday to press the binding fabric for the current finish so I paired the fabrics for the Snail's Trail and got 4 pairs pressed while I was at it.  Hopefully I'll get some blocks cut today.

While outside checking on my tomato plants I noticed some of the buds on the Tiger Lilies are turning orange.  It won't be long now for the first few blooms.

Thanks to a friend, I had blackberries on vanilla ice cream last night for dessert.  Yummy!

I got the binding strips cut yesterday so I hope to get the binding sewn on the quilt today.  Maybe I'll hand finish this one.

 

Tiring day..............

I trimmed this quilt a few days ago and yesterday chose the blue stripe at the left edge as my binding.  I'll get it cut today.

I didn't mention on yesterday's post that after getting 8.25" of rain in 3 days I had water seeping in along my south basement wall.  I mopped up some Saturday night and then checked it again yesterday morning.  There was more.  I started working on it, making a little progress.  My son and daughter-in-law stopped by to drop of my 5 gallon water bottle and I asked my son to go to the attic (I have a stairway) and get my box fan.  When he carried it to the basement for me he saw what a mess I had.  I have a small wet/dry vacuum but had never used it for water before.  He vacuumed it all up for me and we set up 3 fans to dry the floor.  This is in the area where my double design wall is and the water was soaking up on the flannel on one of the panels so we moved both and I removed the wet flannel and washed it.  Both design walls are on their sides and leaning against tables, what a mess.  I was up and down the basement stairs at least 10 times yesterday and was wiped out by 10 p.m.  I'll need to run the fans for one more day.  More rain is predicted for Thursday and I'm hoping it will only be a small amount.

My blackberry lily is blooming. That is the name that the lady selling the plant to me said they were.  When I look that up on the internet, none seem to look like these.  Maybe I'll use my plant identifier app today and see what it says.

There is one large and one small cucumber on the largest plant.  The ones I started from seed are about a foot tall now but don't have any blooms on them yet.

I have one tomato ripening on the plant.  This is the 4th of July variety and I usually have ripe tomatoes on this variety by now.  There are lots of tomatoes on the plant so maybe I'll have a bunch ripening at once.

 

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.