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.  

 

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).

Done but no formal portrait..................

I finished the binding yesterday morning but my design walls in the basement are still on their sides, leaning against a table.  The design wall on the main level isn't quite large enough to display it.  Rain is forecast for today so I'm waiting to see if more water seeps into the basement before I put the walls back in place.

I cut 8 of the blocks for the Snail's Trail quilt and got 6 of them sewn yesterday.   Most of these print fabrics are from the 1990s.

I noticed the first bud has bloomed on the Tiger Lily so went out to take a few photos.

This is the section that is all False Sunflower and Purple Coneflower.  It is just getting started with all of the blooms.

This section was in the shade and the coneflowers are more vivid here.  I had to cut a lot of bindweed off the plants.  It was strangling them and tying them together.

The Hosta bed is partially in the sun but by late afternoon is all shade.

This was my treat last night.

I like to put the colors in rows and I hit the jackpot in this package with all 6 colors.  I'm not so OCD that I need all of the little m insignias turned the same direction.  Do you line yours up too, or just eat them?

 

Finally sewing again..................

I did some die cutting and then came up to the studio and started sewing the binding on the Marca Derse Other 16 Patch quilt.

I was thinking about hand finishing the binding on this one, and then I asked myself, do you really want to do that?  The answer was no, so I have 2 sides finished and 2 to go today.

I ran into an old friend I used to share plants with and she mentioned she had a bunch of hostas die.  I had been looking for someone to come and dig out some hostas because they are crowding each other in my back garden.  They were covering part of my path through the garden too.  They purchased bags of topsoil to fill in the holes where they dug out some plants.  I used to dig them up myself and pot them and give them away.  This time I didn't have to do any of the work.

Tiring day..............

I trimmed this quilt a few days ago and yesterday chose the blue stripe at the left edge as my binding.  I'll get it cut today.

I didn't mention on yesterday's post that after getting 8.25" of rain in 3 days I had water seeping in along my south basement wall.  I mopped up some Saturday night and then checked it again yesterday morning.  There was more.  I started working on it, making a little progress.  My son and daughter-in-law stopped by to drop of my 5 gallon water bottle and I asked my son to go to the attic (I have a stairway) and get my box fan.  When he carried it to the basement for me he saw what a mess I had.  I have a small wet/dry vacuum but had never used it for water before.  He vacuumed it all up for me and we set up 3 fans to dry the floor.  This is in the area where my double design wall is and the water was soaking up on the flannel on one of the panels so we moved both and I removed the wet flannel and washed it.  Both design walls are on their sides and leaning against tables, what a mess.  I was up and down the basement stairs at least 10 times yesterday and was wiped out by 10 p.m.  I'll need to run the fans for one more day.  More rain is predicted for Thursday and I'm hoping it will only be a small amount.

My blackberry lily is blooming. That is the name that the lady selling the plant to me said they were.  When I look that up on the internet, none seem to look like these.  Maybe I'll use my plant identifier app today and see what it says.

There is one large and one small cucumber on the largest plant.  The ones I started from seed are about a foot tall now but don't have any blooms on them yet.

I have one tomato ripening on the plant.  This is the 4th of July variety and I usually have ripe tomatoes on this variety by now.  There are lots of tomatoes on the plant so maybe I'll have a bunch ripening at once.

 

Trimming, cutting binding..................

I got this flannel quilt trimmed yesterday and then looked for a binding fabric.

I started looking in a box of flannel fabrics where I knew there were bright ones but didn't think I would find anything to use on this quilt.  Surprise!  This brown one was in there and it looks great with the quilt.  I got the strips cut and started sewing on it last night.

The Geranium is in full bloom with even more buds to bloom later.  The new self watering pots are working out great.

I spent over an hour yesterday trying to get a better photo of the floral star quilt, trying to catch the intensity of the floral fabrics.  Also I was trying to get one that wasn't so crooked.  About 20 tries later I finally got one that satisfied me and I replaced the bad photo in this post. 

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.

 

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.