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?

 

First quilt top for June 2026................

This was my original plan, adding pieces of a variety of light color florals to the edges of the blocks.  This way a border was assembled while I webbed the quilt; no long strips to add to the center section.  But then I kept thinking I wanted it larger and that is where I got hung up for a year and a half.  I finally decided I would settle for a smaller quilt, 67" x 79".

After I took its photo, I decided to look in my backing fabric bins and see if I had enough yardage of anything I liked.  After seeing the photos together here, I don't think this one has the right flavor.  I have 5 yards of this one.  I think I need to make a green quilt specifically to go with this backing.

This was the second one I pulled out.  The blue in the leaves isn't quite as predominant in person.  I have 8 yards of this one.

Both of these fabrics are from many years ago.  I don't have enough of any of the 1990s florals for a backing.  I do have one 3 yard piece that I would need to add to so I'll keep looking to see what else I can find.

Started sewing stars......................

After thinking too hard about this quilt, I am sewing it together with my original plan.  I'll explain that when I get it all sewn and pressed, hopefully today.  I made the blocks in December 2024.  I have the rows all webbed, just need to sew in the other direction now.

Two of the tomatoes have ripened on the half price plant that had 10 tomatoes on it.  All of my other plants have lots of little tomatoes on them but nothing near ripening.  Next week is supposed to be in the high 80s and 90s with high humidity so I'm hoping for a lot of growth then.  They don't like that high of heat so much but they love the humidity.

Most of the storms missed us yesterday but there was a brilliant sky after they all passed the area.

The Hydrangeas in the backyard are starting to turn lime green.  I haven't checked the ones in the front of the house.

The flowers are starting to bloom again in the 2 hanging baskets.  They are double Impatiens, red in one basket and white in the other.

I'm still loving the purple and yellow together in the back garden.  I let about half of the Creeping Bellflowers plants bloom and the other half I have already pulled out.

One more patch of the Bellflowers in front of the Hostas.

 

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.

Continuing on...............

The 4 patches for 24 more blocks are sewn and just waiting for me to cut the 4.5" squares to go with them.

I was pretty sure there was another box in the basement with more pairs of the 2.5" and 4.5" strips.  I knew where it was (yes, really!!) so I retrieved them and counted 36, which will make 72 blocks.  So far I have only sewn the purple/green combinations.  If I sew all of these plus the ones left from the first group I showed a few days ago, I will have 138 eight inch blocks of miscellaneous colors.  That should give me enough TV sewing for a few nights.

I have been thinking about the 30 twelve inch floral star blocks and how boring it will be to just sew them in rows (maybe with sashing).  I just think I should do something else with them.

This is a quilt I made in 2009 with 16" and 8" stars, 4 patches and 8" squares of several of the fabrics in the stars.  I have always loved this one and don't even have a photo of the whole quilt.  It was a gift for my daughter.

I did take a couple detail shots before I mailed it to her.  If I do something like this with those 20 blocks, I think it would be a lot more interesting and I have plenty of floral fabrics to work with.

 

Finish # 3 for October 2025......................

It only took 8 years to get this quilt to the finish line.  I made the top in 2017 and considered ditch quilting it but ended up having it longarmed this month.  It is all batik fabrics and there are 3 sizes of 16 patch blocks in it: 4", 8" and 16".  I paper pieced the star before 2017.

It has Hobbs 80/20 batting in it and it measures 38.5" x 51".  Most of my batiks are a half yard to a yard so I was happy to find one that was a larger cut to use for the back.

I'm linking to Alycia for her finished or not Friday.

I planted some mixed flower seeds in August and they finally bloomed in October.  These are Marigold.  Every day I add a few more tomatoes to the windowsill from the boxes in the garage.  There are usually 3 or 4 every day that are turning color.

Working on the binding......................

I had a few sessions of hand sewing on the binding of this batik quilt yesterday and I have about 20" left to stitch.  The star in this quilt was paper pieced many years ago.

Other than that I paid bills and ran an errand and that's it.  Oh, yes, I talked to all of my cactus plants a couple times too.  There are buds on about 10 of them now.  The red ones were the latest to set buds.  The one closest to blooming is white with pink edges.

Binding choices and a finish.................

This quilt dates back to 2017 but it's going to be finished now.  I trimmed it yesterday and chose the dark blue at the bottom for its binding.

I also trimmed this one and chose the Folk Art Kaffe print for the binding.  I made the center of this quilt top in 2011 but didn't get the final border on it until 2022.  

This one became my sewing project for last night.  There is mostly the orange with roses on the back with a narrower strip of the other fabric.

My purple Rosy blocks are on the wall in my main floor studio and I didn't want to go down to the basement for photography last night so you will probably see the full quilt tomorrow.

About a week ago I potted some Christmas/Thanksgiving cactus plants.  When I buy a new one and it is in a large pot, it is usually about 7 or more little plants in the pot.  I divided up the white one into 7 pots.  My daughter-in-law got 2 of the small ones yesterday.  She didn't have room for another large one.  I know my grandson's new wife will probably take one or maybe 2 of these so I still have a couple to share with friends.

This was the amount of tomatoes I brought in before the freeze.  I will toss some of the tiny ones after I go through them.  I just cut little branches with anywhere from one to 4 tomatoes on them and I will only save the ones golf ball size or larger.

 

Past quilt from parts department............

To expand on my "parts department" post yesterday, this is a quilt I made in 2016.  I had a lot of 2" finished triangles that I had previously cut from scraps.  I made the star blocks as my mindless evening sewing for a few months.  Then the blocks got placed on a shelf.  One day I came across them and on the next shelf were leftover red 16 patch blocks from another quilt.  As I moved them and placed one pile on top of the other, I saw that the both sets of blocks were the same size and this quilt was born.  It is one of my favorites and has never been moved to the gifting pile.

I searched my flannel boxes and found 4 more light fabric for triangles.

After I cut the new triangles I paired the fabrics for sewing last night.  I had enough light triangles to match all of the rest of the dark triangles that were cut last year.

I sewed 40 of them last night but will wait to take a picture of all of the remaining sewn squares.  I think there will be around 85 of them.

More parts department finds:  Last year I started sewing 2" strips together and the plan is blocks like the blue one.  I only have enough prepared for 4 blocks but I put them in a project box with a note of what I'm doing.  That is progress....adding the note.

In the same project box were stratas of batiks sewn but none cut for blocks.  I think I was planning something different with these.  Again, there aren't very many of them but I decided it was a good idea to keep them all together in a safe place.

The last box I opened was the Kaffe small scraps and some blocks.  Here is a post that shows some of the blocks from last September.  I'll definitely work on this one soon.

This is a long neglected wall hanging.  It is taped to the table, ready for hand basting, to prepare for ditch quilting.  It has been ready for a couple months and I finally did the first 3 lines of basting.  I took this photo before I started the stitching.  Maybe I'll finish it today.

No progress...............

I didn't get around to sewing the floral star top, just not interested in doing it yesterday.  So here is a lot of miscellaneous.

This is the leftover block that didn't get used in the layout.  It will go into the orphan block box most likely.

I was cleaning off the dining room table so my birthday cards were gathered up.

My orange cactus is starting to bloom as most of the others are done.  I'm happy this one waited a while.

I baked Aunt Ethel's Kringlas last night.  I had to test them, over and over.  I think I ate 3 of them and pronounce them delicious.

 

Playing with layouts..............

Off and on throughout the day yesterday I came back to the design wall and moved a few blocks.  Here is the progress as I worked.

Still not quite there so I moved more blocks.

This is getting close and may be the last layout.  I'll look at it again this morning and see if I need to move anything.

Here are all three side by side so you can see better where the changes have been made.