Awhile back in the late spring I won a book called “Selvage Edge” by Karen Griska. I posted about my win and the intention that one day I will make something from the book after I collect up some edges. My stash is small so that might take awhile.
Well imagine my surprised today when I got home from my yoga class to see a small box had arrived for me and it was full of selvages! My secret pal last year from the Dear Jane Secret Pal Club has been saving some edges for me and when her box was full she sent them off to me. Thank you Marianne!
Pictured is the book I won last spring and the box of selvages with the cute card that Marianne sent. You can check out Marianne’s blog at the link above.
The monthly quilting group that I am in meets tonight for our monthly get together – I decided to join the group for supper before the group meets – I normally skip the meal and just meet for quilting but thought I would join in for the meal tonight too. After all I missed two months of meetings, I need an extra long meeting tonight to see and hear what every one is working on. I will bring my camera and see what quilts are on display tonight – I am not bringing anything as I have nothing finished! Maybe next time.
EDIT: 3 days of rain in row – it is coming down kind of heavy right now – maybe the long hot dry spell is over – this weekend to be in the 80’s and 50’s at night!!!
For the second straight day we are getting some rain – granted it did not give us as much as we needed yesterday and most likely won’t again today – but I am thankful to be getting what we are getting. There is a county wide burn ban right now and I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t for the whole state right now. Have you ever noticed it is hard to get a photo of rain if it isn’t coming down heavy – maybe it is me – here it is on my car 
On the deck again, it just started so it doesn’t look like a lot. All that green in the circle flower bed is my crinum lilies – they are good at staying green until fall and I had a lot more of the white with pink stripe lilies than I normally do – it was a good spring for these “pass along” bulbs. I have just read an article in Southern Living that says these are one bulb that is passed along from friend to friend, family member to family member that there are. And I did get them from a friend who passed away about 5 years now so it is a good remembrance plant.
A close up of the quilting on the Christmas Baltimore Album, the background fabric is not so yellow – I didn’t have the lightening right, it is a beige with a hint of yellow in it.
This is the fabric bundle that I bought while at our daughters house in Wisconsin – it is a bali fusions pastel bundle – it will make a good baby quilt I am sure:
I do not know when it rained here last but this morning it rained! For over an hour – maybe it was even closer to two hours, I wasn’t really looking at the clock all that much. I was busy enjoying seeing the rain. With all those leaves on the ground it looks more like fall – and sad but most of those leaves have fallen since we got home last week and have watered the yard several times.
I went to the fitness center this afternoon and when I got home some of the ground cover was actually greener and there we several patches of green grass here and there – it sure was soaking in the water quickly. Now if we could just get several days of this
I appliquéd this Christmas quilt last year – I put it on the quilting frame last November and I feel like I have barely worked on it since. Here and there, 30 minutes here, 15 minutes there – 90 hours later and 10 months later I finally see the last border as I gave the quilting frame a roll down this evening! The end is in sight thank goodness. I really want to put it out for Christmas this year as a nice decoration.
This is what is left to finish:
An angle of the whole width and length left to do:
For those that do not know the quilt pattern is called “Christmas Memories” and it is from Apple Blossom Quilts by Connie Sue Haidle follow the links on the blue highlighted words for information on it if you are interested.
When we got home last week after being gone for 7 weeks we of course no longer had all the birds hanging around that we normally do at this time of year. I always put food out for them and of course none had been out for a long time. I got busy and filled the bird feeder. Boy it looks like winter out there with all that dried grass.
Soon a nuthatch came to visit and about 4 more in the tree as well although they have not eaten much seed – maybe a lot of dried up seeds out there from all the dried flowers and such?
I have hung up the hummingbird feeder and have a pair of hummingbirds coming and going. I couldn’t get a close up though of the hummingbirds feeding without the photo coming in blurry.
I got some flowers to pot and the butterflies are coming back (not in this photo though – didn’t have the camera with me at the right time).
I have watered plants off and on all week and I have some coming back and the ground cover is perking up in places. Now if we could just get some rain things would start looking like it was back to normal. I’m not sure when it rained here last.
Well this morning I finally finished the August Star Crazy Blocks. These little blocks really shouldn’t have taken the 3 days that it took me but my sewing skills kept running into problems and I had other things to do! I’m so glad to have this months blocks done because the September blocks instructions come out in just a couple days. I have been trying to stay caught up on these and not fall behind.
3 different kinds of stars and 3 of each –
Besides the stars this week in the evening I have been working on my quilt that I had brought along on our travels to quilt and then didn’t work on it. It is coming along nicely.
The quilting so far. What I do with the quilts lines is as I get some quilting done I use a little water to “erase” the lines – I do not do the whole thing I have quilted so that the blue lines that I still need are still there – I will wet up to about 2 inches away from the areas that need quilting still. I do not recommend you doing this if you have never used the blue pen before. You have not be careful to not use too much water. I just do it if I want to really see what the quilting is actually looking like without the blue lines to interfere with it. (the quilt will still need to be washed several times to get all the blue out as I did not use a lot of water, just kind of dabbed at it with a wet cloth.)
The whole quilt – well actually you can see the strip border on it as I have it folded in to prevent raveling. As I get to the border I will unpin it. I didn’t straighten it out completely on the floor – it is not bunched up like that but does lay flat.
Finally got around to taking a photo of my July Stars – all pressed and squared up as well as they can be. I always find that I am a little off no matter how careful I am.
My yellow on the large block is a little light I think but with the print that is in it maybe it will work out ok. I will decide later when it is time to put the top together. There have been several over the months that I wasn’t sure about and decided awhile back to decide when I put it on the design wall – you can never tell sometimes with scrap quilts when you lay it all out it looks just fine.
I have been working on the August blocks off and on since yesterday but things have not been going well. I have not gotten back into my “sewing groove” if you know what I mean. I will get part way through and run out of bobbin, then the thread acts up and I need to rethread the machine – then I will notice I cut something a little off and need to replace – I have 3 more stars to make and 4 half square triangles for the border. No Irish Chain blocks this month – I haven’t looked ahead to see if I make some of those for September – it will be a surprise I guess.
Today got rather warm after a couple cool nights and yesterday was nice and only in the mid 80’s out here. Today was in the low 90’s and humid enough to feel uncomfortable after awhile on the porch. I was out there for awhile reading a book I picked up at Barnes and Noble when we were traveling and had never gotten around to reading it. It is called “Die For You” by Lisa Unger. I don’t believe I have ever read her books and I really like this one. I think I will be writing her name down in my notebook and look for her others at the library soon. ( I write down names of authors on a tiny notebook I keep in my purse as I am always forgetting the names when I go to the library to look)
Finally today I got back to on getting some piecing done. I got my July blocks for the Star Crazy BOM squared up and pressed and I am now working on my August blocks. Two down and 7 more to go. I will try to do a photo tomorrow. Might be Saturday or Sunday – I would like to get them all finished and then do a photo of the two months together.
Good news on my little hydrangea’s – all 6 or is it 7 plants – have little new leaf buds growing – all of the dead stuff has fallen off. I’m really surprised to see new leaf buds already – I have watered the plants almost every day since we got home – maybe we got home soon enough to save them? I’ll take a photo of them tomorrow also.
This morning though was a bad start to sewing. I felt like I had forgotten how to sew at the sewing machine. Do you ever feel like that after you are away from your machine for awhile? Nothing was going right. I started and about 20 minutes later I tossed everything down and said to heck with it I will try later. I have finally finished two stars this evening and maybe tomorrow will go better – hope so!
Thanks for all the advice on EQ7 – yes I am getting it although I most likely will wait until it is a little closer to my birthday before I order it so it will be for my birthday And yes I will use my discount from American Quilters Society. It is the lowest price I have found.
Thanks all for the opinions on EQ7. I have a birthday coming up at the end of September and it has been my tradition for many years to pick out my own present I have heard a lot of good stuff about this program and I think it is time for me to move into the modern times of quilt design and have the computer program LOL, it will take some learning on my part but from the video clips I have seen on the EQ site I think I will be giving it another shot. I will be ordering it soon I’m sure.
On the quilting front since we got home (Saturday afternoon) I have not accomplished a lot LOL – I have been too busy watering plants and getting organized again. Today I wasn’t even home – I had my check up in Little Rock, went shopping, lunch out with our daughter who lives in North Little Rock – we met at Chili’s on her lunch hour – had a nice visit and got caught up and then we dropped by their house to get our house plants and two hanging baskets of ferns that she and her hubby (who was home sick) were taking care of for us. Home in time for supper.
I do have my July Star Crazy blocks pressed and squared up and I have the August patterns printed out and need to get busy on them as here it is almost September already – I really need to get busy. I have not touched the Bow Tie quilt pieces since June and need to get back to that one also. Too many projects!! I have gotten a little quilting done on the Christmas Quilt and on the smaller quilt from the Fat Cat Patterns page - LOL – I don’t even remember what I decided to call that one – I will need to go back in my blog pages and see if I said. And I completed forgot til just now that the triangles still need to be made for Dear Jane #2. I need help!!
I think once I get caught up on some of these I need to try just working on two at a time again – one on the frame to be quilted and one to be pieced or applique. I do not like having UFO’s – it takes too much time to get them all finished. It will take me several years at this rate to get caught up.
Quite a few years ago I tried EQ5 – new to me at the time — I am not good with computer programs – I have to use over and over again to learn and remember all there is to working them. I have been against quilting programs since as I never caught on to it well. I have been looking at so many blogs though where people are using EQ7 and have nothing but compliments and rave reviews for it.
If you used the old EQ programs did you find EQ7 easier to use or harder? Do you like it and do you feel it is easy for a person who is not computer program savvy to use?
More and more I wish to design my own quilt patterns for me to use and possibly also design some wall hangings from vacation photos – if you use that part of the EQ7 program do you like it?
All opinions are welcome!
