2nd finish for June 2026...................

A Single Irish Chain layout seemed perfect for these quirky prints designed by Terrie Mangat.  I pieced the top in August 2024.  Robin, my longarm friend, quilted it for me.

The back and binding are also her fabrics. I was glad I had enough of the stripe for the binding since it goes well with both sides of the quilt.  It is 53.5" x 71".

I have the backing fabric in 2 colors but thought this one went best with the top.

You can click on the photo to enlarge it.  Check out the lavender background with the long skinny shapes.

We had light rain all day yesterday and I'm estimating at least 2".  I'll check the rain gauges this morning.

 

Binding................

I was going to start sewing the floral star blocks together into a top, but then I decided to do the binding on this quilt first.

I finished the binding at 10 p.m. so I'll take its photo today and have it on my blog tomorrow.  These Terrie Mangat fabrics are so bright and fun.

I needed a photo I could refer back to of the 4.5" and 9" finished fussy cut florals.  Now they can come off the design wall.  I'll continue cutting a little each week until I have enough to start designing.

I moved one pot down to the porch because the table was pretty crowded.  I have that vining plant in all of the pots except the one on the porch and the Geranium pot.  That plant needs to be up high to hang over the edge.

I noticed buds on the yellow Coneflower a few days ago so I checked it out yesterday.  There are weeds to be pulled there too, maybe today.

 

The last section....................

I went down to the basement and looked at the last section of the workbench but just couldn't talk myself into working on it.  The weather was perfect to be outside so I pulled weeds and cut volunteer trees from the front flower bed.  I watered the porch pots and all 22 of my Christmas/Thanksgiving cactus, filled the bird feeders and planted some Jack Be Little pumpkin seeds in a pot near my neighbor's fence behind my bird feeders.  They are miniatures and the package says 3" across and 2" high.  I thought about planting regular size pumpkins but I really don't have enough room for them to spread all across the back of the lot.

 

While I was doing all of that I was thinking about the projects that are stalled and hope I have come to a good solution for at least one of them.  

I have 30 of these star blocks and got stalled on whether I want to sew them together edge to edge, or border them with dark floral fabrics, and maybe put sashing between them after that narrow border.  Here is the post where I was playing with layouts, 2 1/2 years ago.......  I need to stop dithering and finish it.

Trim, binding, organize...................

It was trimming time for the quilt made with Terrie Mangat fabrics.

Then I grabbed the pile of her fabrics to look for a binding.

I was pretty sure I would use the stripe and it looks good with both front and back.

This was the next area for the basement workbench cleaning and organizing.  I had piles in front of this area.  The fabric is on my worktable to go through later.  I have a helper coming Tuesday so I (we) will so some brainstorming and decide what goes in the 3 bottom bins then.  The little stack of metal containers with handles were used as little table top wastebaskets when I had a group sewing here.  The metal bar is a fringe maker and I think I got it back in the 70s when I had a Viking sewing machine.  The white PVC thing is a little hand quilting frame.

I had to show a close up of the workbench top.  It was a working workbench for my son, with paint and putty marks on it.  We moved to this house when he was 11 (he's 65 now).  I have no intentions of refinishing the top; it has too many good memories attached to it.

This group of small size magazines was in this section of the workbench.  They are from 1990-92.  Most of them were opened to pages of work by Shirley Nilsson.

At the time of these publications I was teaching classes on thread sketching.  Even though I didn't use the same technique as Shirley, I was always inspired by her work.  Now I'll look through each of these magazines and then probably put them in recycling.  It's too hard to locate people who want vintage magazines with articles about people they have never heard of.  Since I was in the quilting community teaching (since 1976) I met a lot of the people who were popular and active in the 1990s so the articles interest me.

There was also a pile of photos I need to look through.  They were taken at QSDS in Columbus OH and the venues we visited that had art quilting exhibits.  I was there as a student 1991-1995 and 2002.  On the odd years we also were bused to Quilt National which was a real treat.

A little more................

I misjudged how many day in a row I could stand on the basement floor so I only cleaned 8" more on the workbench surface.  This wood thread holder had a thick layer of dust on it so that was the first job, cleaning it.  When I worked at Quilting Books Unlimited, a man visited our store and showed us these racks that he handmade.  We ordered some and this is the one I bought.  I think the only place I might use it now is near my embroidery machine, and I use that so seldom that this would just become a dust collector again.  It goes into the maybe sell container.

This was next to the thread rack.  It is from my childhood, 1950s, and I think my mother is the one who wanted it.

I remember enjoying listening to the records, 4 of them, 2 sided, so 8 sides to play.  I have a record player but I'm not sure if I have the center thing for these 45s.  Now you can see that it isn't only sewing things on the workbench top.

I didn't take yesterday's 12 squares off the design wall yet, but instead added 5 more that I cut yesterday.

Even though the steroid shots to my SI joints has given me some relief, I'm not pain free, so I continue to work at the pace that I'm able to do.  Good days, lots of progress, other days, a little progress and I always keep moving.

We got over an inch of rain yesterday morning and the severe storms mostly went south of us in the evening.  

 

5" blooms, more organizing..........................

From the 6" strips I showed on Monday I got 12 fussy cut blooms.  These are cut 5" to finish at 4.5", 2 to match up with the 9" blocks.  There is lots more cutting to do so these will go in the box with the others previously cut.

Back to the basement for more cleaning and organizing.  The next thing in line on the workbench was the box of Christmas fabric.  I will be going through this and pulling out the few pieces I might need for future Christmas stockings or other small projects.  I will sell the rest.

A little farther down the line I found a bag of scraps of Christmas fabric so it got added to the box.

On top of the box were *9* Christmas stocking patterns.  Two were paper which were immediately added to the recycle pile and there are some duplicates which I'll eliminate too.  All of the rest are cardboard or template plastic.

Do you remember when this brand of potato chips came in bags inside a cardboard box?  Also every August there was a 'back to school' pencil in the box.  I'll have to keep this pattern for nostalgic reasons.

Now I have the first 9' of a 15' 9" workbench cleaned.  I have one more of the green boxes that will go in the empty slot on the right.

In the lower 2 shelves are: top shelf - long strips leftover from backings, all labeled with size and sorted by regular prints, Kaffe, and batik, and bottom shelf - heavier weight fabrics for tote bags, etc.

The crate and the green canvas box on top of it are going to be removed, and when I have a helper, this box will be emptied and hoisted into that slot, and then refilled with my long cutting dies.

The Christmas fabrics that I'm keeping will go into the top right green box, which is empty right now, and the bin they are in will join my other empty bins.

I have a goal of trying to match all of the extra lids with their boxes as I find them.  Right now I have 5 extra lids and one box that I can't find the matching lid.

After my visit to my tomato plants, I came around to the front of my house for another photo of my new table and pots.  The geranium has a bunch of new buds so there will be some bright color in a few days.

 

Cleaning up, designs from the past, nature............................

Do you remember the Reader's Digest Condensed novels, 4 to a book?  I always intended to read them.

I have another use for them though.  I am starting to clean off the workbench at the far end of my basement.  It has been several years since I have gone through everything there.  I made it all the way to 3' in from the left end.  Back to my use of the books.  I don't like this window uncovered at night.

I use the books to prop up a 30" x 40" foam core board to cover the window.  Now the part where I got sidetracked and didn't make it past the first 3'.  There were several notebooks piled there (which I removed so I could clean the top of the table) and I decided to look through them.  2 hours later I decided I was done down there, but what did I find?

There were about 15 page protectors with all kinds of photos and notes about Kaleidoscope quilts and blocks.  Some of it was pages of colored in designs that use the blocks.  These are each made with 9 blocks.

I used to sit for hours and color in designs.  Now I want to cut more pieces and make something.

I tried to not get a glare on the plastic sleeves but wasn't totally successful.

Have you fallen asleep yet?  You probably won't want to see what else I find as I work myself down this workbench that is about 14' long.  I'm going to be spending about 3 hours a day down there trying to organize, clean, and move some things to recycling or trash.  I need to organize more than I need to be making another quilt right now.

I have another color of Gloriosa Daisy blooming 3' away from the others; nice Coral Bell flowers as a backdrop to it.

Here is the group of orange blooms.  These plants are growing in the crack between 2 pavers.

One of the tomatoes on the half price plant (that had 10 tomatoes already growing on it) is starting to change color.  Since it is nestled down in the plant I think it is safe from the squirrels, but I'll probably pick it in a few days.

We had another beautiful day yesterday with a nice breeze coming in the windows.  It sounds like possible rain today and very likely rain tomorrow.