Thursday

July Client Quilts

This month's quilting for clients includes a second Minion quilt - I had quilted a different one for the same person a while back. I did make sure not to use the same quilting design so they each had their own personality. 


The other items I quilted included 3 table runners. 




My husband had his own project to complete. The quilt shop is getting an new look. Karin, the manager decided to buy many white Billy bookcases from Ikea to replace the old brown shelves in the shop. The Billy comes with 6 shelves and you can only use 4 in order to accommodate the height of the fabric bolts. So Karin went to Home Depot and purchased white laminated wood pieces that were 6 feet long to use as bookcase sides. She needed someone to take the leftover Ikea Billy shelves and attach them to the Home Depot pieces and make more bookcases. My husband completed 6 of them over the course of a weekend. He really enjoyed making them. 



Friday

Rock Painting

My granddaughter Chloe painted some rocks. She says she is going to sell them at my next craft fair for $6 each. Not sure where or how she came up with that number but it was definitely cute when she said it. One is called Bun with Cream and the other is Tiny Turtle. Her mother works in a bakery so I think that's where she was inspired to make what looks to me like a cinnamon roll.


Chloe inspired me to work on rock painting too. I ordered some books from the local library for help and proceeded to clean and spray paint a base on the rocks I gathered from around my yard.  I used the oldest spray paint I had laying around. The paint I found was so old I had it when I lived in my last house which was over 30 years ago. When I look at the stuff that's in it, I'm pretty sure they are chemicals that are now banned so I made sure to wear a respirator mask while spraying it. The Styrofoam board I used to set the rocks on has melted! 

I'm not sure what I'm going to paint but I will definitely take photos when I'm done.

My cat decided to have a standoff with the cranes that visit us. There are two of them and they come pick the grubs out of the grass - and tear up the yard which drives Jeff crazy.  I'm certain that by the end of summer there will be 3 of them. I love when they bring their babies around. Jeff grabbed the cat and put him in the house before he got into any trouble tangling with the crane.


Saturday

The Pergola

   

Jeff finally got all the cedar needed to make our pergola. The cedar posts have been backordered since May. We really thought this project would be done by the 4th of July and here we are just getting started a week after. 

In the meantime, the garden is starting to flourish. I just wish the cherry tomatoes would start turning red. I know it will take a while for the regular tomatoes but the cherry tomatoes usually turn red sooner. I can't wait. 
The carrots are looking good and so are the peppers. This is definitely my favorite time of year. 



Today the pergola is just about complete. Here are photos from yesterday. The lattice on the top was the last thing to add and Jeff finished it in 90-degree weather. I think he deserves a cool break after all his hard work. 



Now that the pergola is almost done I'm sure it won't be long before we are sitting under it on nice summer days. 

In the meantime, I think I have to make some pickles. Every day I am picking these:

Monday

Making a Gabion


When we were in Europe I saw these cool rock filled dividers all over. They were mostly walls that separated pedestrians from car and bicycle traffic but some were decorative. All I know is that I wanted to make one of my own once I returned. And now that my landscaping projects are close to the finish line, I thought I would take an afternoon to make one. They are called gabions.

All that I needed was some wire mesh fencing of some sort and rocks. Lots of rocks. Those were two things easy to come by. First of all, I have lots of wire fencing in various sizes that get used in my vegetable garden. Years of trying to keep bunnies out have left me with a bunch of the stuff.


Then the rocks; when we removed our deck to prep for the new cement patio, we had lots of nice round river rock under the deck. It was holding down a plastic weed barrier we installed 30 years ago when we built the deck. It was amazing to see how little was left of the plastic. I spent the better part of an afternoon picking up each and every rock. I wanted only the smooth, rounded ones, not the pointy ones so that was the best way of doing it.  It was very therapeutic. 

Once I knew where I wanted to put the gabion, I got right to work. It is something that would be difficult to move so I had to make sure I knew where I wanted it. I cut the wire fencing leaving a nice long wire where I made the cut. That way I could fold the wire over to where it would meet the other size of the fencing. It made a nice cylinder and I'm pretty sure it won't come apart. I pinched each piece down as hard as I could. 


When I finished, I thought about using stacked coffee cans inside of the cylinder, like I do in large planters so I don't have to use a lot of soil. After looking at the rest of the wire fencing, it occurred to me to just make another smaller cylinder to place inside the bigger one. Then just fill the space between the two with the rocks - genius! It took a lot of wire wrapping but it was worth it. 

I placed my cylinders in the spot where I wanted it and started filling it with rocks. It was so easy. Once I had it filled all I needed was something to put on top. I thought I had a very large pretty plant saucer somewhere but I just can't find it. I really wanted to make this into a birdbath. But for now, it will be a plant stand. That is, until I get to an art fair to find something cool to make into a birdbath!

Kiera's Birthday Quilt

This is Kiera. She is my daughter's friend, Corina's youngest daughter. Did you follow that? Corina has three daughters who all have summer birthdays. Sometimes Corina throws big birthday bashes for all the girls and sometimes their birthdays are celebrated independently. We always get invited. 

Corina's oldest daughter, Lilly is my granddaughter, Chloe's best friend. All of the girls get along fabulously. It's wonderful to see them all play together.

Anyway, back to the birthdays. Each year I make one of Corina's girls a quilt for their birthday. I started with Lilly since she is Chloe's bff. Lilly favorite subject is the solar system so I made her an outer space quilt two years ago. Last year I made the middle girl a princess quilt and this year this little darling got a pink and purple floral quilt. I was so happy that her mom sent me this photo of her enjoying it.

Thursday

What's on the design board?


I'm in-between quilt projects right now. It's generally part of my summer ritual as I go from staying indoors to outdoor projects like gardening and my patio project.  So I've turned to my donation bin for inspiration. There are so many fat quarters in there that I needed to find a fat quarter friendly pattern and along comes the Perfect Ten pattern. It uses a little yardage and 10 fat quarters.

I pulled out 10 prints in bright primary colors. I numbered them from 1 through 10 and followed the sample layout found in the pattern. In an evening I had the blocks sewn together in three sections. All that's left is to sew the sections together. Considering the magnitude of my outdoor projects, that might take a while.