Quilt trimmed, binding cut................

 I bought 6 yards of this Kaffe fabric many years ago and I knew it was perfect as a back for this quilt.

The stripe will be a perfect binding.  Dorothy you asked if I would be cutting it on the diagonal.  You are a no reply commenter (your email address isn't enabled in your settings) so I will answer here.  This stripe is printed horizontally on the fabric so to cut borders I needed to cut 4 wide long strips on the lengthwise grain.  This left me just enough fabric to cut the binding on the lengthwise grain too.

The Marigolds in the raised tomato bed are getting big.  We got 1.2" of rain with the big storm that raced through at 10:30 Sunday night.  The tomato plants loved it and I think they grew about 8" yesterday.

There were 2 tornados with the storm just 25-35 miles east of us.  One was an EF-3 with lots of damage.  They said it was 3 blocks wide as it raced through at least 2 towns.  The other was an EF-0 and also hit 2 towns.

The Sneezeweed (a Rudbeckia variety) is starting to bloom now.  I have several of them scattered here and there in the back garden.  

Some of my tomato plants along the driveway got ahead of me and didn't get routed out the top of the cages.  I went out with strips of fabric and tied them up to the sides of the cages.  I need to keep a closer watch on all of the rest of the plants.  I have gotten 5 ripe tomatoes so far, all small ones.  I have a larger one just starting to turn color in the raised bed in the backyard.  I predict a BLT for lunch today.

Quilting!...................

It's quilted!!  I made it easy on myself and did straight lines with the channel lock.  The stitching started getting goofy about 18" in on one row so I stopped and pulled that out.  I figured it was a piece of lint caught in the tension of the bobbin case and it was.  I cleaned it out and then finished the quilting.  I haven't taken it off the machine yet.  I'll get it trimmed today.  I think I might use the same stripe as the border for the binding.

The pink variegated thread was still on the machine from quilting the 2 pink baby quilts.  I figured it would be fine for this multicolor quilt.

Leaves of three, leave it be.  I remembered where the poison ivy was last fall and checked to see if it came back.  I guess I didn't get all of it last year.

One of the plants I dug out of the front garden was a Black Eyed Susan.  I put this one in a pot right away and I planted 2 other small parts in the back garden.  The ones planted in the ground aren't doing very well so I was happy to see this one has buds.  I have had a huge area of Black Eyed Susans in the back garden for about 8 years but I don't see any there this year.  If we start getting rain on a regular basis I may plant this one in that area.  Otherwise it will just stay in the pot until fall.

The rain finally started around 10:30 last night.  The rain sounded pretty heavy so I will check the rain gauge this morning.

 

Loading.............

Another hot humid day and not a lot of energy.  I did get the backing pressed and loaded on the longarm and put the batting on too.  Here is the whole photo of the quilt top.  It is 99" the long direction so it is filling the whole longarm rails except for about 10" on the right end.  The backing is 105" (99" + 6").  I think I have only quilted one other quilt this large so far.

My older A/C unit that we put back in the dining room window bit the dust Friday. 90 degrees and humid and all I had was fans.  My son had an extra small A/C that he didn't need at his shop so yesterday he took out the dead one and put the new one in the window.  Then I ordered another larger one to replace the one we threw out last year when my trim painting was done.  I drove 10 miles to pick it up at the big box store and it will hopefully get installed early this week.

This weedy mess is supposed to get dug out this week and new black dirt brought in.  This is one of 4 areas they need to do.  

Storms are predicted for this afternoon and evening.  I don't know whether to believe we will really get any rain.

A little nature...........

The pots by my garage are filling out nicely.  The Coleus will grow a lot taller before summer is over.

I spent a lot of time in the basement yesterday putting things away and pressing scraps...no sewing was done.

Here is the other pot by the garage.  I depend on the Coleus for most of the color in these pots.  The trailing vine has little purple flowers for some contrast.

I put some of my flower pots by the tomato garden along the driveway.  I have planted some Marigolds between some of the plants and I see a few of them coming up.

The Milkweed is in bloom.  This is in the garden that will be all dug up.  I see some holes in the Milkweed leaves but haven't seen any Monarch caterpillars.  I saw one Monarch butterfly about a month ago but haven't seen any since.  I don't see any way to transplant Milkweed with a root that just goes straight down in the ground.

 

A better photo................

I took my Kaffe orphan blocks off the design wall in the basement so I could get a better photo of this quilt top.  It measures 60" x 84".

For a little perspective here it is waiting to be photographed on a 96" wide x 84" tall double design wall.

I decided to get a photo of the Annabelle Hydrangea bush in case it rains.  As I watched the news and weather last night they were still undecided if we were going to get 1.9" of rain or none at all.

I planted one Canna bulb and it has 2 shoots coming up off of it. When I checked it last night it looks like the one on the left has been bent but isn't quite broken.  I wonder if the squirrels were playing with it.

The black raspberries are turning red.  Some years I already had ripe berries by this time.  I have the vanilla ice cream ready and waiting.
  

 

A little fabric fix...........

I "needed" some new Charley Harper fabric, even though I haven't made a quilt with any of it yet.  I did start cutting some pieces in early spring and they are waiting on a design wall in the basement for me to come back to it.

I pieced a backing for one of my larger quilts next in line for quilting.  I need to press it and then I'll start loading the quilt on the longarm.

In the early evening I planted the Peonies that I dug out of the front flower bed on Tuesday night.  I doubt they will bloom next year since they were dug up the wrong time of the year but at this point all I care is that they will survive.

Big rain predicted for very early tomorrow morning.  I hope we get the big rain but no hail or any other part of a severe storm.

 

Playing at the design wall..........

This is the new fabric that I think goes very well with the star blocks.  Simplest solution would be to use it for sashing and be done.

When I was trying ideas last year I was using a single row of squares as sashing.  Now I'm trying double rows.  This was my first idea.  Ok but a little chunky.

I changed the center to triangles instead of squares.

Then I switched the direction of the triangles to point out instead of in (as in photo above).  I only changed triangle in the center area, the ones out at the ends of the rows are going the wrong way.

Next I took away one set of triangles all around to make a smaller motif.

In outdoor doings, I mowed the shady back yard.  The grass in the front yard is half brown and crispy with the lack of rain so it didn't need mowing.  Work is going to start on my front flower beds next week so I went out to dig out the peonies which are the only thing left to save.  The ground is rock hard in front.  The ground in the back garden is so easy to dig.  This is the wrong time to move peonies so they may not survive but I at least was going to give them a chance.

The first tomato is small...but it is red.  It needs a few more days to finish ripening and I decided not to give the squirrels a chance to see it.  My little neighbor girl was outside too and I showed her one that was almost ripe on her plant.  She picked hers too and took it inside to the windowsill.  This is the earliest I have ever had a ripe tomato.  I looked back in my photos and found that in 2019 I had my first tomatoes on June 22.  Most years it is the first week of July.