3 mini quilts finished......

I finished the 3 mini quilts and mailed the center one off to its new owner.

I love the pieces in their unfinished state even more than with the quilting.  They remind me of palette knife paintings with thick paint on the canvas.

We finally got some rain yesterday.  One storm rolled through around 10 in the morning and the other storms after 9 at night.  Maybe our crunchy brown grass will turn green again.

My gallery show ends at 5 p.m. today at Ciel Gallery in Charlotte NC.  This month has just flown by.

Inside on a hot day...........

I continued cutting fabrics and working on the new colorwash piece.  I'm not happy with the transition of green into rust and brown so I'll move the rust/brown area to the left and try to find better transitional fabrics.  I have quite a few that are green/brown but I need more.

I needed to clean up the pile of tiny pieces so I decided to do 2 more and then put the scraps away.

I quilted one last night with straight lines and variegated thread.  I'm not happy with the distribution of the colors in the thread though.  I can't figure out what thread I used for quilting on the first one that I did last year.

Getting my energy back.......

Even though it looked like I have been busy since I got home June 9th, I really have been dragging.  Too many long hours standing on a cement floor, plus the stress of flying.  I am just beginning to feel like my old self again.  I started another colorwash with regular quilting cottons (no batiks).  I think I may be building this one sideways on my design walls as I usually like the green at the bottom of my pieces.  I am low on squares of this type of fabric so I am cutting as I work on it.

Here is a link to the Alabama visitor that went to my show in NC.  She and her husband are really having a fun trip.

I just love this Coleus that is in my pots in front of the garage.  I saved cuttings of several varieties over the winter, just letting them root in water and I planted them in a pot in May.  I'll have to remember to get a cutting from this one before frost in the fall.

Another SOLD!

Another small piece sold at my show at Ciel Gallery in Charlotte NC.  The show will end at 5 p.m. Saturday June 30 so you still have time to see it if you are in the area.  Yesterday a blog reader and her husband from AL visited and also a NC resident who traveled 3 1/2 hours to see the show was there.  My daughter was in her studio and got to meet them.  Thanks to both of you!!  I wish I could have been there and met you too.

I decided to make another piece similar to this one.  So far I have just pressed all of the raw edge strip onto a piece of fusible batting.  I have no idea what is happening to it next.  I'll let it tell me.

Warning to greedy squirrels:  Don't go head first into the bird feeder without an escape plan!!  I was eating my lunch and glanced out at this feeder and noticed the tail wasn't moving.  I went out to investigate and he's dead in there.  I thought I could shake him out but he's stuck.  It really makes me angry that he waited until I hung a new feeder to replace the one that was worn out.  The squirrels have been doing this dive into the feeders for years and this is the first one that didn't make it out.  They are just too handy for their own good.  They know how to pop the tops off of 2 of my 3 bird feeders in about 2 seconds.  I won't be replacing this feeder.

Making a gift.......

One of the art quilters was interested in how I made Journal Quilt #12 so I assembled this while they were here.  The tiny pieces are on top of fusible batting so it is partially held in place by ironing.  Now I need to layer and quilt it.

Sewing again........

The basement is clean, the cookies are baked for the art quilters today and it was time to get back to the sewing machine.  I made 2 little wonky blocks to use up all of the short ends that were accumulating on the table.

This gives you some perspective how small the new blocks are.  I added one row around Wonky 1 on the left and 6 rounds to Wonky 3 on the right.

Here is the whole wonky family.  The design walls are 7' tall and 4' wide so you can get a better idea how big the blocks are.  They aren't as much fun once they get too big for a 45" strip.  I have to keep looking for something similar in color and width to piece them.  I might be done with all of the big ones.  I'll think about it for a few days.

I caught a glimpse of something yellow when I opened the blinds yesterday.  I know I need to deadhead the coreopsis if I want it to keep blooming and I only did about a third of it.  Now I can see I need to leave some seed heads on there for the goldfinches.

I pieced a block......

A friend found a GO die on sale and picked it up for me.  I have the adapter to use the GO dies on my Studio die cutter.  It is the large triange in the flying geese sections on the sides.  It matches up with the 3" finished triangle and I had a box full of them that I had been cutting from scraps.  I also had a stack of 6" finished squares to choose from so this block went together fast.  I can see I need to take a little narrower seam allowance to make the block come out at 12" finished and that is why I made the block, to check out how everything fit.

A lot of my plants are drought tolerant so this batch in the front is doing fine without being watered.  We have only had about an inch of rain all month.

 You can see the balloon flowers are doing well too.  I have watered this bed lightly a couple times while I was watering my porch pots.

I moved these red lilies to this location about 6 years ago and they finally have more than just one or 2 blooms.  Maybe they like it hot and dry.

I should have known...

that I wouldn't have time to sew yesterday.  My art quilters group is coming Monday so I had to finish putting away the garage sale stuff because they come in that way to get to the basement.  Then I had to vacuum the basement and dust all of the tables.  I had put all of the machines on one table and put a plastic drop sheet over them while I was gone so I had to set up all of the machines too.  I was putting away all of the class samples and supplies and I don't think I showed this little piece after it was sewn together.  Maybe I'll decide on borders and finish it soon.

I finished reading "Spider Bones".  I was so close to the end that I had to keep going until it was done. 

I need to bake one batch of cookies early this morning while it is still cool.  I'm not sure when I'll do the second batch.  It will depend on the weather.

How to stay awake at a garage sale.......

Garage sales in my town are not the bustling events they used to be.  By 2 p.m I was struggling to stay awake so I went in the house and got 2 Grabbags for Crazies from Cherrywood fabrics and sorted them by color.  That woke me up!  I sold the cedar chest that my cousin decided not to take on Wed. and that was my main goal for the sale.  I sold a lot of little stuff too but money wise it wasn't big.  Now I can get my wheelbarrow back inside my garage in the space where the cedar chest had been for 3 years.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll be back to quilt related blogging.

In answer to the questions about my colorwash kits yesterday, yes I will have them for sale on my Wandaful blog in August.  4 of the 5 people who asked me had either 'no reply' status because they don't have their email enabled in their Google account or a returned email for some reason.  I couldn't respond to any but one of the 5.  If you are interested I have an email link on my right sidebar and I'll keep the email in a special folder and let you know when they are ready.

2000th post in 5 years.............

2000th post today.  My 5 year blog anniversary will be July 4th. Lots of milestones lately.  My next big project is to cut fabrics for colorwash quilts.  They won't be for sale until August because it will take me that long to pull the fabrics, press them, cut them and sort into kits.  I have started pulling the fabrics in my spare time.  I started with reds because I have so many of them.  Busy and multicolor prints work best so that is what  this pile represents.

Yesterday I went out to eat with my cousin, his wife and her mother and then helped them load the china cabinet into their truck. When they left I ended up having to call a plumber for a clogged kitchen sink drain which meant emptying out everything in the sink cabinet.Then I got ready for a quick garage sale today.  My neighbors have a large sale every year and they advertise.  My garage has had a lot of my dad's things in it since last Aug. when we moved him to the assisted living home.  I'm hoping to gain the space back with one day of sales.  I'm also hoping for a lazy day soon!

Busy but time to read.......

I have so many things to take care of after being gone almost 2 weeks this month.  None are worth listing here so I'll talk about the book I'm reading instead.  I found this on sale at B&N in NC.  I have read all of the series up to this point and there is another new one to read after this one too.  I started reading it on the flight home and I read 5 chapters yesterday.  Once the story develops it is hard to put it down.

Hot days......

The first balloon flower has bloomed.  They are growing in between a bunch of different plants.  I thought I was going to clean up this garden this year but as hot as it has been this early in the summer, it might not have worked out even if I had had the time to do it in May.

I didn't sew yesterday.  I rearranged my main floor studio so I will be farther away from the hot TV and closer to the window to enjoy my back yard view.  Then I started cleaning out the china cabinet that my cousin is going to pick up on Wednesday.  I have my free quart of Clark and Kensington paint (and primer together) to paint one wall and see if I like the color I chose.  I think it is enough to paint the fireplace wall.  I will wait until Saturday when it is supposed to cool off a little and I might be able to have the windows open.  It is supposed to get up to 97 today.

Another student link..........

Here is a link to another student's blog post about my class in NC.  Check out her work on her blog.  She makes some great stuff!

I forgot to show this sample to my Thursday class in NC. I always have them piled in order and somehow missed this one.  It is an example of leaning toward the next colors in the color wheel.  This one is blue with turquoise and periwinkle added.  Here is a better shot of it.

We should have hung this little quilt higher for all of the attention it got.  Here is the post with the step by step of how I made it.  The show is hanging at Ciel Gallery until June 30th if you are in the area of Charlotte NC and want to see it in person.

Flowers and pie......

I finally went shopping for plants for my pots.  I didn't want to do them before I went to NC so I had to hope there would be some plants left.  This is my mirror image pots that go in front of my garage.

I bought some of the plants on Friday at a nursery and then on Sat. I found some at half price at Ace Hdwe.  I decided to fill every pot until I ran out of potting soil. 

There are 3 pots that have Gerbera Daisies and they will be sitting out in my back garden for a little color.  It is going to take a long time to clear the weeds and create a sunny garden.

I have had hostas in pots on the porch since early May.  I had to move a few to make room for pots with flowers.

My cacti are on the 2 levels of the table and on the porch beside it.  I will keep moving them around so the same ones aren't in full sun every morning.  I used to have a tree shading the porch so I'll have to see how it goes this year.

I have placed a couple hostas in pots in bare spots to the left of the front porch.

I have a friend and neighbor that I share plants and fabric with and she wanted to know what she could give me.  She wondered if I would like some rhubarb.  I told her I'd like a strawberry rhubarb pie (wasn't that bold of me?), not knowing that her oven was not working.  Yesterday she baked one for her dad for Father's Day and one for me, and I think one for herself in her mother's oven.

It was still warm when she delivered it to me and this is what it looked like 5 minutes after she left.  Yum!!  It was SO good!!

I asked my sister-in-law if she could get her 2 grandsons to stop over at my house so I could give them graduation gifts.  They surprised me and came yesterday.  I gave them these quilts that I made last Dec. 

Found blocks, more rounds on wonkies.........

I was cleaning up one area in the basement and I found a bag with diamond shaped crazy pieced blocks.  When I was making this quilt I tried adding blue into it and rejected it and stayed with all green.  The blocks have been in that bag for 5 years.  How time flies!

I have added 2 more rounds to Wonky 1.  It is about 38" x 46".

I have added 4 more rounds to Wonky 3.  It is still small, about 28" x 32".

We finally got some rain last night. The heaviest storms were about 25 miles south of us.  It rained nice and gentle for over an hour.  Maybe we will have green grass again.

I made a purchase............

While I was visiting Ciel Gallery where my show is hanging, I made a purchase.  A museum charges admission.  A gallery lets you browse for free and depends on purchases to keep their doors open.

I was impressed with the nice jewelry pouch holding my purchase.  It will be handy when I travel next time.

I love necklaces and especially hand made ones with lots of different elements.

There are 5 partners in Ciel Gallery with a variety of products available.  Some of them do commission work also.  If you have enjoyed a visit to a gallery lately, tell your friends about it.  If you know of an office that is being redecorated or a friend needing fresh new art for their walls, check out Ciel Gallery in Charlotte, NC and all of the neighboring galleries.  Of course the featured artists would like sales too, to cover the costs of shipping, hanging, and insurance to produce their month long shows.  Here is a link to the current show (mine).  You can check out my posts about the gallery if you go to my label list (right sidebar) and click on NC.  The photos on the website and my blog were taken different times of the day so you can see them in all different kinds of lighting, some natural daylight, some artificial lighting.

Also while there check out my daughter's studio space.  It is a dream studio and you can see her works in progress as well as items she sells.

Wonky 1 and 3.........

I will start out with Wonky 3.  I showed the new center block yesterday and now I have 4 rounds sewn on.  I am going to stay with alternating dark and light rings for the target effect.

I sewed 3 more rounds on Wonky 1.

It is longer than 45" on the 2 long sides now so I have to start joining strips for the rounds.  I try to choose something with a similar color and width.

Strips added, bonus blocks..........

I added the dark strips on the right side and bottom and now this top is complete and will be a wallhanging.

I ended up with a lot of short ends from the strips when making the above quilt and its partner.  I decided to go ahead and make more crooked cobblestone blocks with them instead of putting them away and getting them back out later when I would be making more blocks.  There are over 20 in this pile.

This will be the center of the third quilt which I will be chain piecing with the second one as I finish it.  Maybe on this one I will alternate light rounds and dark rounds for the target effect.