ONE LAST TOUCH . . .

The all important tag . . .

and it's ready to go in the mail for next week's birthday!

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS . . . . .

. . . especially when it helps me find my mistakes.

I didn't realize until I uploaded this photo of my Ohio Star blocks for our "community gift quilt" that I made a mistake on the top left one. The top quarter triangle is turned the wrong way. Silly me.

The photo has also helped me decide that yes, I will replace the dark center of the star in the bottom middle block with a lighter fabric. I thought maybe I'd like the darker center, but I don't.

So, back to the sewing room I go on this lazy Sunday afternoon.

Ahhh, that's better:

HERE I AM !

OK, OK, I promise I have not gotten lost . Here I am!

Admittedly I have not been doing much quilting in the past few weeks. I've been using my sewing time to FINALLY get drapes made and hung (with my husband's reluctant help !).

This is my make shift "sewing table" at the dining room window. My mother taught me to let drapes hang a while before hemming them. And I guess I'm just lazy, but once they are up (and I'm happy with the way they lay), I don't take them back down. I just leave them hanging and hem them in place. (The ironing board goes to the window too!)

,

Here are the completed dining room drapes.

And here are the drapes across the "great room". There's a matching set on the other side (but I can't get a photo of all at once without furniture in the way). I need to get the swags back down and work on them a bit to get them to lay more smoothly.

I am still knitting on my granddaughter's sweater (May 22 post) and in the meantime, I've ordered yarn for the next 4 sweaters.

This will be my grandson's for his October (12th) birthday.

And this is for my son's daughters for their birthdays next year.

I guess I've got my work cut out for me.

Oh, and speaking of "cut", I have some fabrics chosen and ready to cut pieces for a "community" gift quilt that I'm making with my on-line quilting friends.

FOUR MORE FOR LINUS

Finally - - I got a few more quilts dropped off at my local yarn shop that is a pick up site for Project Linus blankets. These are all pretty much lap size quilts.

These first two incorporate some more of the home decorator fabric that a lady at church gave me a couple years ago. I'm about to get through that 25 yard piece of fabric. Phew!

I had shown you this while it was in the making. Most of it is from my own scrap stash, but the car fabric was donated.

The turquoise with the white "leaves" on this was donated fabric; again the rest is from my scrap stash. I had a good size piece of flannel that worked for the backing of this one.

I've made a couple others (from my own stash only) in the past few weeks that I've decided to keep on hand as baby gifts. But oops, haven't taken photos of those yet.

And yes, I am still knitting: working on granddaughter Isabela's sweater. And just got some yarn this week for one of her big brother's sweaters. I guess it's time to speed it up a bit.

FUN ON THE FOURTH

We all had a great time on our family weekend, but I don't think anyone enjoyed it more that little Roman.

And why not when he has big brothers and sisters to stock his very own pool with fish!

Drats, I meant to take more pictures.

Oh, well, maybe next year. By that time, this little guy will most likely be in the other pool with the "big kids".

SUMMERTIME . . .

. . . and the Red, White, and Blue.

Hope your Independence Day weekend is safe and fun-filled.

Mine will be here at home shared with my daughters and their families.

THE BIRTH OF A STASH QUILT . . .

This was REALLY fun, but when I started out, I had no idea where I was going. (Thank goodness for my makeshift design wall -- that now hangs over the cabinets in my sewing/laundry room -- when I'm not using washer or dryer, that is.)

A couple years ago, ladies at my church donated LOTS of fabric for charity quilt making, along with yarn for charity knitting or crocheting. I had made a few quilts at that time, but a couple months ago, I attacked those boxes of fabrics with a vengeance -- leaving me with at least the beginnings of about 30 quilts, sorted by color, theme, or whatever came to my mind at the time.

A few of those little stacks have been parked on my dryer for WAY too long, so this past week, I've been putting together several quilt tops with those stacks.

One of the piles had this adorable "monster truck" print. But there was way too little of it --and that in several small pieces--to really do the print much justice. There were only 3 whole trucks, and once I cut the fabric to get a the whole trucks, there was very little fabric left for anything else. I was able to cut a few 2 inch strips and three 3 inch squares.

So I "framed" those 3 trucks with coordinating fabric (in the middle, top left, and bottom right). And then I "mirrored" my framed trucks with enough more blocks to get some symmetry. (Oh, yeah, I did have to piece my bits of fabric for the fourth 3 inch block.)

I didn't know where to go from there, 'cause I thought that more blocks would just kind of muddy the whole thing and the trucks would get lost.

Then a light bulb went off. Why did it have to be blocks? Maybe I could just put strips between the blocks.

So I played around a while with several leftover fabrics and came up with this concept.

Tweaked it a little more and . . .

Voila: a fun quilt top!

I have a lot of the red border print that I'll use for the backing.

I'm hoping some little boy will find some comfort -- and smiles-- wrapped up in this one!