Ready for That Picnic

I finally finished quilting my picnic tablecloth, remember the one with those fabulous fabrics I got from Jennifer Paganelli?

After stitching in the ditch around the entire top, I used some artist tape for a guide to sew a square on the inside of each fabric square.

I used blue thread to match the Bella solid blue backing.

I love how all the colors really seem to glow on this quilt!

I layered the front, the back and a piece of flannel instead of batting so I could use it on our table without too much bulk.

I don’t think I will have the nerve to use this on the table when we serve spaghetti or sloppy joes, but it sure does brighten up the room!

A Family Affair

I feel like I just spent the past three days on holiday! My family arrived on Friday to hang out and entertain our extended family for a reunion on Saturday to celebrate my sister’s time in the U.S.

We opened the day with a trip to the farmers market and art fair.

(Abby, MaryKay, Taylor and Mike)

The produce and flowers at the market were beautiful, as usual.

My sister filled her shopping bag with lots of bread and cheese, of course. They can’t get good bread in China, and as long as they are in Wisconsin, they might as well stock up on cheese too. My brother bought these delicious jalapeno popper biscuits, quite tasty when warmed and buttered.

The rest of us filled up on cookies for breakfast. (gotta keep up with the kids!)

We checked out some cool art,

and some funky art.

All the while, my wonderful mom was at our house getting the food ready for a party for 25 people (thanks Mom!), and my husband was setting up the backyard (thanks Dave).

(Mom, Mike, Taylor, MaryKay, Amanda, Me, Abby)

We lucked out with beautiful weather, and everyone had so much fun together!

Modesty

You all know what a modest person I am, right?  Have you seen Jennifer’s post today?  Just go check it out.

In the blog presence of many of you, I am so humbled.

A Finished Coin Quilt – Progress!

I made this coin quilt a couple months ago as a part of the coin quilt piece-along, and I finally finished the quilting and binding!  Just wanted to prove that I have been sewing a little bit lately.

I quilted straight lines around each column of coins, and then more lines around the entire piece.

I pieced the back with a larger cut of Bell Bottoms fabric I had in my stash and a couple extra columns of coins for the backing.

I think the back looks cool, but in hindsight, I would have had made the front wider with those extra coins and put a solid green in the middle section.

I still love how this one turned out!

Mini Quilt in the Mail

I came home from a boring day of work yesterday to a package in the mail. What a great way to brighten up my day! It was a mini quilt from my partner in the Spring Blooms Mini Quilt Swap.

My partner was Syliva. Her card says she is a mixed media textile artist. Boy, I’ll say – with the beautiful work she shared with me! This mini quilt offers a mixture of fabrics, applique flowers, various threads and machine stitching, as well as hand stitching, all creating different textures and patterns.

Check out her blog and more of her beautiful works of art. Thank you so much, Sylvia!

By the way, have you signed up for the Summertime Mini Quilt Swap? I think the deadline was yesterday, July 6, but you might still be able to get in.

Weekends Go Too Fast

I can’t believe how fast the weekends go!  Especially when you’re having so much fun. We welcomed my sister and two nieces back to America from their first year of living in China.

They were so excited to be back!

We spent the past two days shopping, from Target to the grocery store to Kohl’s to Boston Store to Barnes and Noble. We shopped until we dropped! They were happy to see children’s menus at restaurants, Western bathrooms, bookstores full of American magazines, convenient foods in the grocery deli, cereal that didn’t cost $10/box, blue skies, fresh air, and wide open spaces.  We fell back into our routines of eating, cracking jokes and sharing stories, playing, going for walks, and just catching up.

It’s going to be a great six weeks having them around!

Coming to America

The 4th of July weekend is upon us. For my family, that means my sister and her family are coming to America from China for the summer!

My mom and I are picking them up at the airport very early on Saturday morning, so I will be out of the town the rest of the weekend. I haven’t seen them since March (other than on Skype), so we have lots of catching up to do.  Hope you enjoy Independence Day festivities!

A Postcard Package

Have you ever seen a quilted postcard in person? I have seen them in many magazines, such as Quilting Arts and Artful Blogging. I always thought they were beautiful mini art.

This lovely quilted postcard showed up in my mailbox yesterday, courtesy of my friend Kim who won one of my fabric giveaways in May.

The words are beautifully appliqued, and the lovely flowers are outlined with different thread colors. The orange fabric is quilted to the fabric backing in a ripple design, and the card is framed with fun yarn trim. She also sent me this adorable notepad.

I think this is such a thoughtful and generous way to say thank you.  I love it, Kim!

Catching Up (not really)

I haven’t been sewing much lately. There. I said it out loud. (or put it in writing)

I don’t know if I’ve been in a sewing slump lately, or if it’s because of the four books I just read over the past two weeks. What an amazing journey that was! Now I’m starting over with the first one because I read it too fast and want to appreciate it at a slower pace.

I am trying very hard not to start another sewing project until I get caught up on some of my unfinished projects that have started to pile up.

I did manage to get three quilts basted over the weekend. Remember that picnic tablecloth I made with those Jennifer Paganelli fabrics? Since I’m not going to sewing on a binding, I layered the quilt top with a solid blue backing along with a layer of flannel, and sewed them right sides together with an opening to turn right side out.

I made this quilt about a month ago using Darla fabrics, so I am happy it’s basted and ready to be finished now.

I finally basted my quilt-along quilt so that one is ready too!

I’m still working on sewing the binding to this coin quilt.

I will make some progress, one of these days.

June Gardens

I haven’t been spending much time in our gardens lately because this week was so hot (90s) and humid around here. I tend to hibernate when the temperatures get above 85 degrees.

Our weekend weather could give us a little relief, so I decided to take a walk through our gardens this morning.

The shasta daisy flower bed has grown like a weed in the past month. These things are almost up to my shoulders.

Our coneflower garden is always wild and slightly overgrown.

But they are all so pretty!

Plants in the whiskey barrel usually do well too. 

These yellow daisies must be some of the easiest flowers to grow. Lots of color with little effort (just need to do some dead-heading).

We are lucky to get a couple lilies this year since the rabbits usually start eating them as soon as they poke through the ground in late spring. In the four years we’ve lived in our house, I don’t think I’ve ever seen these lilies get this tall and bloom.

The vegetable garden is finally taking hold and starting to look healthy.

We planted several raspberry bushes, thinking they would produce fruit in a couple years. But I found some raspberries in the making already!

Finally, I would like to leave you with a beautiful shot of our clematis climbing up it’s trellis.

Thank you for taking a walk with me through our June garden. Enjoy a beautiful day!