Moving day

I've been lucky to have a small office space in a local elementary school for the past 12 years. My job involves staff development at about 30 regional school districts and it was definitely a luxury to have a "home" location to work when I'm not on the road and somewhere to keep my books and files and workshop materials.

Well, that elementary school is bursting at the seams so my office is being shifted to the high school. I spent the whole morning today packing up and moving all of my stuff OUT . . . to my garage floor.  My new office space at the high school was supposed to be ready today but it isn't likely to be ready for a couple of weeks now.  I feel almost homeless.

No sewing - just kiddos

This is the reason for no sewing for a few days. . . and I don't mind at all.  The giggles and hugs are just what I needed.

Last weekend at guild we had a great lesson on piecing curves presented by Alvina.  She had a couple of gorgeous quilts to show that were completed done with these blocks with the curved seam. And she gave each of us a baggie with these pieces already cut so we could take them home and try out the technique.

My results - which I think will become a pillow since it is 14.5" square.  Hopefully my stash has a light blue to match those little circles.

Design Wall Monday - More Green

I don't always follow directions closely enough but sometimes we get a chance to correct our mistakes.  Earlier in the year we had green as the color of the month for RSC14 and I made a dark, a medium, and a bright green block.  Our instructions were to stick to the darker greens.  This month we are doing bright and light greens.

So on Sunday I dug into my stash and made one dark and 2 bright green pigtail blocks for my RSC14 challenge.  So now I have 3 dark and 3 bright/light ones for my quilt, which also has blue, red, purple, pink, aqua, and yellow.  We know there will be orange coming up, but the final 3 colors are still a mystery.

I'll be linking to Judy's Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.  Check out everyone else's projects for this week.

Sunday sewing is limited

I only had a couple of hours this morning to sew, but I did manage to get a few small things done.  I finished another 2 string blocks.

These are perfect leader/ender project between other blocks.  I can run these through when I need to press a seam on a block before adding another piece.  And it's amazing how quickly both get done when alternating a string block with another block.

The centers of these are all reds - dark and mediums.

Watermelon season

August means hot humid weather and the local farmers' markets are full of fresh garden produce. We live close to a major watermelon growing area and if you have a chance to taste a Forestburg melon, you will enjoy the experience.  To celebrate August I love to put out my watermelon table runner - hand quilted and appliqued.

August 1 means my summer "break" is over.  My goals for August will need to be much more conservative than July was because I'm back to work full time with lots of time on the road.  And that means very little time to sew except on weekends.  And one of those weekends will be spent enjoying my grandchildren instead of being a hermit in my sewing room.

• 3 bright green RSC14 blocks
• mail Halloween swap blocks
• put borders on Halloween table topper & sandwich for quilting
• 5 string blocks with red centers
• finish hand quilting on Cats For All Seasons wall hanging
• 3 Traveling Stars blocks