Happy Summer!

Summer has finally come to Western Washington - with a vengeance!  It has been blazing hot here for days, and it's expected to be like this all week.  Today is very nice, the high was only 85* and mostly cloudy, which was nice after yesterday being 92* and blazing sun.  It's supposed to heat up all week culminating in 96* on Thursday.  Yikes!  We don't have A/C, so we suffer when it gets that hot.  And we usually only get about 4 or 5 days of truly hot, so this is really unusual for us.  Plus we're having a drought as well, so everything is brown and crispy.  Not my favorite weather!

So, thanks to the heat, I haven't been getting much sewing done,  My sewing room is upstairs and on the east side of the house, which means it heats up early and then stays too warm.  A week ago, my guild had a workshop on Bargello, so I did some sewing there.  And then Friday I sewed at a friend's house, where I finished my Bargello pieces that I had started.

second piece

I'd never tried Bargello before, so I wanted to give it a shot.  The concept isn't hard if you're used to strip piecing, but it can be confusing and achieving a nice curve isn't as easy as I thought.

first piece

You can see that my first try is kind of awkward compared to the second one.  I used all batiks for this project, because I thought they would work well for this.  I like the variations in colors in the batiks - I think that makes it more interesting.  These two pieces are each about 18 inches square. I'm going to be turning these pieces into a tote bag - at least that's my plan at the moment!

"Jungle Cat"

Our local art gallery, where my DH sells some of his pottery, is having an Artist Trading Card sale again this year, to raise funds.  So DH made some pottery ATCs as well as some paper ones.  I, of course, made some fabric ones.  Which only makes sense, since I not really good at drawing or painting, like some of the other artists.  But my ATCs seem to be popular.  The last time I checked, they all had bids on them!

"Time Cat"

These little pieces finish at 2.5 x 3.5 inches.  Not a big investment in time or supplies.  But lots of fun to make.  I fused the Laurel Burch cats onto the background fabrics, and then added the fun buttons and beads.

"Untitled"

This last one was made with my smallest hand-dyed and Cherrywood fabric scraps, which were left over from this quilt.  It has kind of an Amish vibe to me, but I had to add those beads just for fun and to make it a little more "artsy".

A week or so ago DH and I got new cellphones.  Our 4 year old phones were dinosaurs, and were starting to die.  So we got a new plan (I can text now!) and nifty Galaxy 6 phones.  These phones have the best camera on them!  I've been having lots of fun taking pix.  The photo above is a barn about 1/2 mile from my house.  I love this barn, and I think I got an interesting photo of it.

This photo was taken directly across the road from the barn. facing east.  You can't tell from this photo too well, but that is Mt. Rainier in the center (where it looks like clouds).

Same photo, just super zoomed in.  That is the mountain, with the clouds hiding the top half of it.  With this warm, clear weather, we're getting some awesome views of the mountain.  Finding a good place to stop the car to get a photo is the hard part!

Dear Son made some "Midsummer" cookies this week, and we finally got them frosted and decorated today.  Sorry this photo is a little fuzzy.

fireworks, flowers, ice cream cones, cats (and a nudist in the upper right corner)!

a tree and a tent, airplane, music note and more fireworks & flowers

the last four cookies

The hardest part is not gobbling them all down immediately.  We love these cookies, and decided they're not just for Christmas.  *grin*

Dunkel says "Happy quilting"!

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Round Robin - Part One

We're almost at the half-way point in this block exchange.  I've done 7 blocks, and there are 16 of us in this exchange.  I thought you might like to see how things are shaping up so far.

You can see my first post about the Traveling Round Robin here.  So, we've all been making blocks and passing them on to the next person.  We haven't followed the list exactly, as some people have been ill, some have been traveling, and so on.  But they're all getting done, and it's starting to get exciting now.

Here's what I've done so far, along with that person's total blocks that were in the passed box.

First, here's my block I made for me:

This pattern is a Sister's Choice variation.

Now I get to make the same block for everyone else, in their fabrics. 

 The first block I did was B's.

P's block.  Sorry, no photo of all the blocks.  I was hurrying to get this done in time for the next "pass event" and forgot to take the picture.  Duh!

 N's block.

All of N's blocks so far.

C's block.

All of C's blocks.

K's block

And all of K's blocks.

D's block

All of D's blocks.

I'm happy with my block because it "works" in everyone's fabrics.  Deciding on fabric placement within the block can be challenging, but so far I like all the ones I've done.  

This has been fun!This is kind of like dating different people - trying out all those different styles of fabrics with no long term commitment!  *grin*  So far, I like everyone's fabrics too.  It's interesting to see how each person's fabric choices reflect their personality.

Our goal is to have them done for the quilt show in October, but I'm dubious we can get them all "done-done" in time - you know, quilted, bound and quilt-show-ready DONE.  Fingers are crossed!