Two quilts and some visitors

The view from my dining room window onto the front yard, included these midnight visitors.  Thursday evening we saw 2 deer in the side yard as we pulled into the driveway.  But as my husband was coming to bed a couple of hours later, he looked out the window and called to me to come look.  These four deer were happily pawing away the snow and nibbling on the frozen grass - right next to the sidewalk.  We live in a small city (approx. 15,000) but are on the edges so we're used to seeing a lot of wildlife come through.  But it's still neat to watch them. 

Now for sewing news.  Here it is . . . Summer Soiree with it's borders attached, and ready to be quilted. 

My original thought had been to find a floral or a batik to use as the outer border since all of the blocks have both floral and batik in them.  The frames are a medium grey with little splashes of every color.  And with the outer borders added this flimsy is about 70 x 88.   

One of things I love about shopping in quilt shops in person, is the expertise of employees.  That is certainly true of our local shop, The Pin Cushion, here in Mitchell.  I'm sure it's a mixture of years of experience and a passion for quilting, but those ladies have such good sense of color.  I'm not ashamed to ask for assistance and ideas either.

And Cindy came through - by asking which of the colors in the blocks I really wanted to "take over".  I really didn't want any of the colors to become the main focus.  Her next suggestion was to use that same grey in the frames for the outer border, and then bind it with all of the leftover bright batik colors.  

After laying the top next to that grey fabric I could definitely see that was going to work out really nicely.  A 2" border of the white background, and a 6" border of the grey was an excellent solution for this quilt.  Thanks for your help ladies!!! 

And I got a good start on the newest Quilt of Valor.  This was my personal reward for finishing the flimsy for Summer Soiree.

Beads is the block name, or also known as Chandelier.  I'm very excited already for how this is coming together.  It's so simple, but will be striking I think.  These blocks will be ONE of my priorities this week, and hopefully I'll get the blocks themselves all sewn.