Sunday

Avery's Birthday Party

My plan was to take my family to Disney World for my granddaughter Avery's 8th birthday. We would be there the second week of September since her birthday is September 12th. Then came Covid. Back in July my travel agent rescheduled the trip for 2021, same week. Her 9th birthday will have to do.

I really wanted to do something special since we weren't going to Disney. But what? I mean with social distancing and families staying apart it was difficult to expect that anyone would want to participate. After all, school was going to be virtual when it starts in September to keep families safe. 

I decided to rent this:


It's a bouncy house with a climbing wall inside to get up to the top and slide down the water slide. And a perfect way to celebrate a little girl's birthday. I decided that I would rent this for August 29th - the Saturday before the Monday when school starts. What a perfect end to summer! And close enough to Avery's birthday. I asked her if it was ok to rent this and she was thrilled. I told her she could invite 1 or 2 friends but expect that their parents might not want them to come because of the pandemic. If they did want to come I would assure them we would only be outside (except for bathroom breaks) and that we could social distance as needed to enjoy the day. Or Avery could invite no one and enjoy it with just her sister. I didn't care. 

Well, she invited her 2 friends who's parents were thrilled that their children was going to have something special to do after a summer of staying still. So we invited the parents and the siblings to make it even more special. They all came and had a lovely afternoon watching kids slide down the water slide on a warm, sunny day. And what a wonderful day it was!

My sister made this cake:

It's called a pinata cake and when you cut into it, candy spills out of the center. It was fabulous!

We had a nice afternoon barbecue with the families along with my sister's family, and Avery's uncle and grandpa on her dad's side. The really special treat was that I invited the administrative assistants from Avery's school who both came to the party. 


Avery absolutely loves these ladies and she was very surprised to see them. Not too much social distancing going on but we all agreed that in keeping our circles of people we see small, we might be ok. I think our mental health is definitely better after the day was done.

Thursday

August Client Quilts

I met with my friend Cindy to pick up her quilting projects to longarm. It was nice to meet up with her and get caught up on each others' lives. She had a baby quilt for me to longarm that she needed for a baby shower in a few weeks and she had a charity quilt that she was donating to the PKD fund raiser that she is involved in every September. I've quilted her PKD quilts for her over that last few years. This one was really big and very pretty. These were the first quilts I've done in a while that had a real deadline.



I also quilted a project for the shop. This one is a table topper and matching placemats. They will be shown at the fall preview party next week. 


I also quilted a little girl's quilt for a client who plans on gifting it to one of her nieces. 




That's it for August quilting. We are planning a big end of summer vacation/birthday bash for our granddaughter, Avery since we can't take her to Disney World. I would rather have a quilting deadline than a party planning deadline - haha!


Sunday

Giant Hexagon Quilt

I finished the hexagon quilt today. I'm not sure what I will do with it now. It might become a charity quilt for church since I don't think it is cute enough for Quilts for Kids. Isn't this a great photo of the quilt via the pergola - ok it's really a great shot of just the pergola - haha!


I don't know what it is about the colors in this quilt, but I can't take a photo that does it justice. So I just want to mention that the free tutorial I used to make it is called the Giant Hexagon Quilt tutorial and you can find it here.

I brought my scroll saw up from the basement so I could cut out a dinosaur from a piece of wood we got at the Makers' Faire last year. There was a guy who had a full sized set up of Owen's Jeep from Jurassic World and he was dressed like Owen. My granddaughter is crazy in love with everything Jurassic World so it was fun to see her reaction to the display. The man was impressed with Chloe's extreme interest in everything he was saying so he gave her the wood with the dinosaur template on it. 

I cut the dinosaur out and hopefully I can convince her to get involved by sanding and painting it however she would like. Maybe she can draw more dinosaurs and we can cut them out together - that would be fun.

Monday

Who has time to sew?

The garden is flourishing and I can't seem to keep up with all the vegetables. But it's not for the lack of trying. 

This week I:

Canned 2 cases of salsa.


Froze many spring rolls.


Made stewed tomatoes.


Made a pitcher of fresh squeezed lemonade.


I wouldn't change a thing.

But I am sewing these:


It's making my partner tired.

Tuesday

Sewing Machine Sale

Working at the quilt shop, I see some things close up that I would've never noticed before. Like how desperate people are to have a sewing machine these days. Since the pandemic, more people are sewing masks and they are dragging out old machines from attics and basements. The quilt shop is very behind in sewing machine repair because of all these machines. And reasonably priced machines are hard to come by. They are sold out everywhere. 



With that in mind, I decided to sell my Janome Jem Platinum. I've had it for about 5 years and it just sits in a travel bag. I bought it to take to retreats and discovered I wasn't that fond of the machine. It is very lightweight which is good for travel but for use, I like a heavy duty machine. So I rarely used the machine. It is in perfect condition and I feel like I can get it to someone who really needs a machine. 

I listed the machine on Craig's List and on Facebook Marketplace. In less than 5 minutes I had 6 offers to purchase. I made arrangements to meet my buyer at a local farmers' market held at Milaeger's garden center. As I waited to make the sale, I perused the discounted patio furniture. Since it's the end of season the prices were very good - even for high end furniture like the stuff found here. 

Wouldn't you know it? I found a perfect table at a perfect price. I took a photo and sent it to my husband while I waited. We have 4 iron chairs that we picked up at the Habitat for Humanity store and we really needed a table. This was exactly what we needed.

Once I made the sale, I turned around and purchased the table. What luck! It was a perfect day to be at Milaeger's and I hope I made someone happy who needed a sewing machine. 

Saturday

What's on the design board?

I started a quilt called Button Collection. I fell in love with the quilt on the cover of Quilts & More Magazine and I knew I had to make one. I chose Tula Pink's True Colors fabric collection to use in this quilt. I know August will be very busy with vegetable harvesting happening all month so I won't overestimate the amount of time I will spend working on it. No pressure, haha!


Here are the first few completed blocks. So far so good, right?


I made a few more masks last week. I swore I wouldn't make more but now that school is going to start up in a month there seems to be a greater need again. I sure hope this won't continue for much longer.