Pieces and Parts box, day 3

I don't know why I keep these blocks. The upper right one is a leftover from my oldest granddaughter's first big quilt, 18 years ago. The one on the top left is the same pattern and made later for a class sample. They are all 12" blocks. Leftover strip piecing from several things.
Checkerboard borders that I made to try out on a quilt, a leftover from a group Easy Pieces quilt project, and light to dark strip piecing from ????
I'm not sure what project these are from either.
I moved this lily from the front sunny spot to a semi-shady place in the back yard. I am only going to get one set of blooms from it I guess after 2 years in this spot. I may have to move it back to the sun area.
It is a beautiful sunny day with low humidity again. I have an outdoor wedding reception to go to, to deliver the flannel quilt that I finished a couple weeks ago. Happy Sunday everyone.

Pieces and Parts box, day 2

I used to teach a braided border class, back in the early 1990's. Then in Georgia Bonesteel's "Bright Ideas for Lap Quilting" she had a quilt and the instructions that showed how to piece the rows together without cutting off the ends. I showed an all beige one awhile back that I made with this method. I squared up these samples a couple months ago but still haven't made them into anything. These are the triangles that didn't work in my Aug. 9th,2007 post titled Progress. You can go to Archives on the right side of my blog and click on the arrow, and then click on Aug 2007 and follow down until you come to the 9th.
More sample basket blocks, 2 sizes, and pieces to continue on.
The first block for my winter Lady of the Lake. I pieced this about 6 years ago so you can see how excited I am about continuing. I have a summer Lady of the Lake and an autumn one already made. I'm too lazy to go back to make links, so you can try the search box at the top, type in Lady of the Lake and click on Search Blog and it will take you to my Oct. 12 post for pictures of both of them.
For one of my Nancy Crow workshops we were to bring our favorite block pieced in black and white. The block on the left is Lady of the Lake and that is the one I ended up taking with me.
See you tomorrow with 5 more parts.

Fixes and a box of goodies

I pieced some irregular width strips together yesterday and pinned them next to the quilt with about 1" of the purple border exposed. Then I folded that strip in half again for a narrower border and added a section of a crazy pieced block. I think both of these work but the narrower one wouldn't take away any glory from the center where the wider border might pull your eye to the outer edge. I will piece some more and play with it.
This is the box I took off the shelf to look for a crazy pieced block in the right colors. It is a "pieces and parts" box.
This is the view from the top.
Here is one of the blocks that was in there. I made this block about 15 years ago. I like it but have never decided what to use it for. I love pulling it out and looking at it so I guess it is just some eye candy for me.
I will be spending the next few days deep cleaning the guest room to prepare for a visit from my brother and sister in law. I will post 5 things from this magic box each day for the next 3 or 4 days while I play with the vacuum cleaner and feather duster.

I've been digging

Remember the bottomless box of "ready to finish" that I showed last year? Well I haven't made any progress on the current project so I went digging and found another that I haven't shown yet. I was so sure this purple border was going to be just right, and I didn't want a wide border, so I cut and sewed and afterwards was so disappointed. I put it back in the box. I made all larger squares for the main part of the quilt and half size blocks for the 2 ends, alternated with a print batik square.
I should probably just quilt it and forget it, but it keeps nagging me that I could have done something better.

Added later (10:43 a.m.): Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions. I had considered having no border when I made it. This purple could become the binding (or not). I had tried at least 50 fabrics for a border and nothing seemed to do anything for it. It is 53" x 78" now, 49" x 73" without borders.

Well then I'll just take a walk in the garden and maybe I'll know what to do when I come in. The coneflowers are in their prime.
I noticed the center of this one has another circle of little nubs. I wonder if it is a different variety or is just a little older than the other bloom I pictured.
The weather is beautiful again, low humidity, nice breeze. It has been a good summer.

More blocks added

All I got done yesterday in quilt related activity was 3 more blocks to finish the layout. I am still contemplating making 2 wallhangings instead of a quilt. Right now I think this one would be in the range of 64" x 80". If I made 2 wallhangings they would be in the 50" square range. I will play with setting triangles and then make my decision. Actually I could go back into my photo program and crop this and see what it looks like with half blocks as setting triangles. I always check Sitemeter in the morning to see how many people visit before I post. This morning there were already 120 visitors by 8 a.m. I checked the referring URL's and a bunch of people came from a yahoo group. Since I can't find out what anyone said that would bring so many visitors, I want to think they said something good, and welcome the new visitors.

Look at what I just got for lunch

I was on the south side of town and spied the fresh sweet corn stand, fresh picked this morning. Since I was a child from a farm, grocery store sweet corn just doesn't cut it for me. Cathi mentioned my garden must be magnificent in its entirety so I decided to take a picture of it all the way across. Please don't mention the weeds to me if you click on it for a closer view, LOL.
The back garden is a shade garden so it is hard to get a picture of it without it looking dark, and just green. It is very pretty in person.

Cooler and less humid, at last

I went outside in the nice clean, fresh air and took some more flower pictures. The brown eyed Susans (rudbeckia) are in full bloom now with a little dwarf phlox peeking in on the left side. I actually took this picture a couple days ago from the kitchen window. It is a little blurry, sorry. I haven't seen very many butterflies so when this one just hopped from flower to flower I had to take a picture.
I planted this ground cover in a little section of my front garden. My landscape contractor up the block tells me this one is invasive. I have seen it move across the space in the last couple years. I think it is really pretty but I'll probably start digging it out little by little.
I have a nice cool spot in the shade of a tree where the pansies are still going strong. They don't like the hot weather so I'm surprised they are still here.
I will have enough tomatoes for my salad for lunch today.
I need to do grocery shopping for my parents and me this morning and then I hope to work on something quilty.