Just under the wire for July................

Top finished at 4:30 p.m. July 31.  Seven weeks procrastinating to cut and sew the border on, 1.5 hours to cut, sew, press and photograph it.

Monthly recap tomorrow.

 

A little cutting....................

I had to turn on the iron yesterday to press the Aboriginal Dot fabric.  All 15 strips are cut now so I can start sewing on this project.  While the iron was on, the 13 little 9 patches got pressed too.

The Zinfin Doll Hydrangea blooms are just starting to turn pink.  I hope we get the rain they are predicting for this afternoon through tomorrow.  Otherwise I will have to start watering this bush.

There is one tiny Tiger Lily in the front flower bed.  I'll have to dig it out because it is right next to the sidewalk and keeps falling in that direction.

I have one more day (today) to get the borders cut and sewn on the William Morris TAW if I want it included in my July recap.  It will probably just take me an hour; I just need to do it.

Miscellaneous............

Yesterday was mostly household tasks but I did manage to get 5 more of the 3" nine patches sewn.  I have 13 to press when I turn on the iron today.

I went out the check the garden and found a few more flowers on the Weigela bush.

Just past that bush, this sunflower in the cucumber pot is in full bloom.  I don't know if it came from a seed planted a couple years ago or if a squirrel planted it.  However it got there, I am enjoying it.

I didn't have a clear shot but there is a cucumber in there.  This plant produces 6-8" cucumbers.  I picked 2 others and gave them to the neighbor girls.

Rain is predicted Friday and Saturday but each day they keep dropping the amount of rain expected.  I have to decide whether to water again or wait and see if we do get any rain.  It has been 25 days since we had rain other than a light shower.  I have 2 days to get another top finished by the end of the month.  Maybe I can get it done today. 

A visitor...................

For those of you who read Nann's blog With Strings Attached, you know that her power was off yesterday from the big storm on Monday.  She contacted me to see if she could visit...we had been planning to do this some day.  We had lunch and a tour of my studios.  It's always fun to meet a blog friend in person.

She brought me a gift.  She goes to estate sales, etc, and gets the best bargains on fabric.  This batch has an African theme.  A couple pieces are long enough to use in a pieced backing.

This group is all Nancy Crow designs.  I have some of the same prints but there were different colorways here that I didn't have.  Oh, what fun I will have with these!

I made a few more of the 3" nine patches last night and have a few more ready to sew tonight.

What a great day!

Turned on the iron...................

The basement had cooled off with those few cool days we had so I had a pressing session yesterday morning.  All 20 little 3" nine patches are pressed and trying their layouts.  Edge to edge always makes an interesting design.

I also thought about adding 4 plain squares (a floral print) for 9" blocks.  I'll make many more before I decide.

I knew I had a little drawer full of strips so I pulled it out and went through them.  I'll cut some squares from them for variety for the project.

While the iron was hot I pressed the 15 fabrics for the Kaffe zipper quilt and cut a 10" strip off each.

I wanted to use the brown Kaffe Aboriginal Dot instead of black for the zipper teeth.  I think it will work.

I didn't get the borders cut for the William Morris quilt...maybe today.

There were fierce thunderstorms east of us yesterday with strong winds and as much as 3" of rain in some places.  We didn't get a drop.  I had to water my tomato and cucumber plants.  I planted Marigold seeds in the 3rd week of May in the pots with the tomatoes and I just have my first bloom now.  Next year I will pick up small plants instead.  9 weeks to bloom is too long to wait.

The Oxeye Daisy plants are in full bloom in several places in the back gardens.  It is also called False Sunflower.

It was cloudy for a large part of the afternoon so the temperature and humidity dropped a little.  I decided to do my grocery run and leave today's calendar clear.

Hot and steamy.....................

We went from 3 days of pleasant weather to tropical humidity and 88 degrees yesterday.  My energy level was low so I decided to start sewing 9 patches out of the 1.5" squares.  There are 20 nine patches and it doesn't look like I have used any squares yet.

I didn't want to turn on the iron so the little blocks are curling.  I started out with all of the fabrics that had at least 5 dark squares and 4 light squares alike.  Now I'll be switching to random groups to make more blocks.

There are lots of fabrics with black backgrounds and not as many with a definable color so I might have to cut a few to spice up the remaining stash of squares. 

Today is supposed to be even hotter and more humid so I'm sure I'll be inside most of the day.  I hope I can get the borders cut for the William Morris Trip Around the World top.

Second finish for July 2026..................

I'm so happy to have this quilt finished because I love it.  I have always loved floral fabrics and this group, mostly from the 1990s and early 2000s are favorites.

The blocks were finished a year and a half ago so cutting the border pieces was my most recent sewing on it.  It is 66" x 78".

I didn't know if I had anything in my stash from that era for the back but found this green leafy print that goes so well with it.  I love my stash!  This quilt has Hobbs 80/20 batting in it and it was longarm quilted by Robin Diaz.

There are a few one way prints in the centers of the stars so I have them all going the same direction.

The binding is the same fabric as the back of the quilt.  Since most of the prints have green in them, I thought it would be the best choice.

Yesterday afternoon I looked through my backing fabrics for something that will work for the Snail's Trail quilt.  This print is spider mums but doesn't jump out as flowers.

This one is a Brandon Mably design and I have 6 yards of it.

You might have to click on the photo and enlarge this one to see there are tools in the print.  

Any thoughts on the backing?

 

Binding completed................

After I took this photo, I continued sewing the binding on the floral stars quilt.  I finished it at 10:30.

It's getting close to the end of the month so I'll have to see what else I can finish.

Yesterday morning I went out to check the tomatoes and this is what I found on the biggest tomato out there.  I had picked tomatoes the night before at 5 p.m. and this one had barely a tinge of orange on it so I left it to check on later.  The squirrels had their party and took 2 bites.  I'm going to leave it on the plant for a few days to shame them.  Ha ha, like that will do any good!

I have cut down or dug out all of the Rose of Sharon but this little one survived right next to a Redbud tree.

It was our last pleasant day with low humidity yesterday.  Today the A/C will get turned back on and will remain on for several days.  

I really enjoyed having the windows open for 3 days.  

 

Another project..........................

While cleaning off a table in the main level studio, I found a stack of batik 2.5" x 4.5" rectangles.  I carried them to the basement to join the others in one of the boxes in the basement.  As I tried to open the blanket box on the left I decided it was one of the "difficult to open" ones and I pulled some easy open ones from the storage area to exchange them.

The first day my helper came we put all three of the large bins with trays of cut pieces in one place, under the longarm.

I started looking with the first bin on the left.  In it I found 2 trays of 1.5" floral squares.  I think this will be another of my mindless sewing projects between planned projects.  I will make 9 patches with them.  It looks like 2 or 3 nights of TV watching to accomplish that.

But, how about the rest of the trays in that box.  I discovered that they are all 2" squares.  You can see by the tray at the bottom left that I was using these for colorwash.  But wait, there is more..........

There are at least 10 more trays of 2" squares in that box.  More 9 patches?  I made 2 quilts that I love with printed fabric 9 patches here and here.  I have made lots more but those 2 are my favorites.  When I clicked on my 9 patch label to go back and look for these, I was surprised how many 9 patch quilts I have made.

The large bin in the middle is all 2.5" floral type squares, and the box at the right has batik rectangles in at least 3 sizes.  So the stack I took to the basement is with its friends.

I took advantage of a day in the 70s to bake some cookies.  I didn't have any left in the freezer so now there are.

Later in the day I decided to bake shortbread cookies.  This should hold me over until the next cool spell.  It sounds like we're going back up to 90 over the weekend.

Binding cut...................

I had the iron on to press some other fabrics so I pressed the binding fabric and got the 7 strips cut.

While I had the fabrics out for the Snail's Trail I also cut a 2.5" strip off the larger pieces.  I needed a few more so I pressed some more fabric and cut them and now have 80 strips, 80 different fabrics.  Maybe they will become a 16 patch when I need some mindless sewing.

While I was at it I cut a few more strips off some of the fabrics and there are 71 in this group.  There are duplicates of some fabrics.  I don't have a plan for these right now.

The great yellow takeover..............

Two years ago there were 2 Black-eyed Susan plants that somehow migrated from the back garden to the front.  This year they have multiplied and have taken over the front garden.  It's colorful, I will say that.

After an hour or so of playing with this group of fabric, this is the final batch.  I removed one purple and like that end much better.  Now I have to read the directions and decide if I will follow them or devise my own directions.  I know the directions are for fat quarters and I'm not sure I want to cut my half yards down the middle. I like full width fabrics and I would rather just cut a strip all the way across.

While I was waiting for the dryer to stop I trimmed the floral stars quilt.

I knew I wanted a fairly light binding on this one and I think the backing fabric looks great.  I have plenty of it.

Outside I filled the bird feeders and watered all of my plants.  Our rain on Monday was barely enough to wet the bottom of the rain gauge.  We have had about 1/10" measurable rain since July 4th.

I don't like to pick the tomatoes when they are just starting to turn orange, but the squirrels have already picked 5 and took 2 bites out of them.  The big one is a Rutgers and there are several more that large getting ready to turn color.  Most of the small ones are golf ball size (for comparison).

Changes.....................

All of the photos yesterday have the fabrics overlapped so you only see 2" of them, which is the width of the finished strip in the quilt.  Here is a full view of the wild card.

In this photo are 3 new pink prints and a purple to replace the 3rd from the left.

In this one the wild card is removed and another pink is in the center.  Still not quite right.

In this group one of the pinks has been removed and the orange swirly added, and then I switched the dotted and the large plaid with each other.  I'll have to look at these photos again today since I was tired last night when I got them all cropped and into the post.