Lazy days of summer!

Not much quilting is going on in my life right now.  This is cottage time and my sister and I have been busy doing a bit of redo ...... painting and flooring.  It never ends, but we enjoy our work done so far.  I even cut down a wee tree by hand.  It took about half an hour of sawing, but it got down.  This little cedar tree was blocking my sister's view of part of the lake and she asked if 'we' could cut it down.  I knew what the 'we' entailed ..... me!  LOL

A few weeks ago, I attended a guild meeting and the project that night was making a quilt barn block.  This is my version .... a churn dash block!  How timely this project was as I'm in the middle of a challenge making a quilt with this block!

My real churn dash quilt has stalled.  Border fabrics have been purchased and I'm ready to go ..... just need time at home to do those borders.

A bit of binding on my August challenge has been done.  Just need another strip of binding to be sewn on and this can be completed before the end of this month.

Recently, we had a girl family outing to another city for shopping and I sat beside my young great-niece.  She was bundled up in this quilt that I gave her back in 2018.  As we rode along, I kept glancing at the fabrics used in her quilt.

This is the quilt that I made her.  Looking at it now, it wasn't my best design but she is using her quilt and that is all that matters.

Now, I need to chat about squirrels.  No,no,no .... not the quilting kind .... the real four-legged kind out in the wild.  LOL

At our cottage, we've noticed a lot of cedar seeds out on part of the lawn and on the deck and picnic table in front of our bunkie.  What is going on?  Then we figured out that a squirrel is drying up the seeds before storing them away for the winter. 

We haven't had much rain lately, and this part of the property is somewhat protected and gets lots of sun.  A perfect place to dry seeds.  There is another area out back on our road, there are seeds drying there too.  The thing is, this is the first time that we have seen this happen.  I wonder what the signs are for our upcoming winter?

A few nights ago (around 10:00 p.m.), my sister and I were sitting in our cottage reading ..... when suddenly out of the corner of my eye ..... a mouse quietly went past my legs and under the sofa.  Oh crap!  It had to go outside fast!  As a team, we got brooms and pounded on the sofa and finally got the mouse out onto the screened-in porch.   The door to the cottage got quickly slammed shut.  Now what?   We pounded on the door and then very quickly ran out into the porch and slammed the door again.  It was not going back inside!   Again, as a team we systematically pounded with the brooms and finally got the mouse out of the porch.  Phew .... that was a good deed done!  I wonder what the neighbours thought of the noise and the yelling?  At night, it is so quiet out there, but no one came knocking to see if we were ok.

Last week, we lost a BIL to Covid.  He was 92 and in poor health.  So, for those of you who think Covid is over ..... think again.  We still wear our masks and wash our hands.

So, that is what's happening in my life right now.

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Chevron Legacy

Gosh ..... we are almost mid-August and here is another Xmas quilt ..... my "Chevron Legacy".    

My hubby wants to display this one now instead of waiting until December.  Patience, my dear, patience and he will enjoy it even more later.  Our old shed at the cottage is the perfect backdrop for taking quilt photos.

What about some by the lake?

Quilt Details:

Pattern source:  McCall's Quilting magazine Nov./Dec. 2013   Designer: Sheri Bain Driver.  My quilt is slightly different than the original pattern.

Started:  April 2017

Top Finished:  June 2017

Quilt Finished:  July 2022

Quilt Size:  65-1/2" x 87" (top size before quilting, washing & drying:  69" x 89-1/4")

Batting:  Hobbs poly on a roll

Machine quilted by:  Kathy Wareham

Quilting design:  Gothic Vine by Willow Leaf Studios

Another quilt to enjoy during the holiday season!  Happy, happy, happy!  Gosh, I may have to retire some of my older Xmas quilts to make room for these new ones.  

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Christmas Stars

How about a Xmas in July ..... hmmm ..... August ..... quilt?   I meant to post this quilt in July, but time slipped away and here we are in August!

"Christmas Stars"

A close-up of the quilting design.

It's not often that the back of the quilt is shown, but here it is for this quilt.

Quilt Details:

Pattern Source:  Inspired by a quilt shown in Fons & Porter Love of Quilting, Nov/Dec 2021.  Their      pattern was all machine pieced using only a few fabrics, but I did my quilt using the EPP method and there is quite the variety of Xmas fabrics.

Diamond size:  1-1/2" edge

Started:  November 2021

Top Finished:  April 2022

Quilt Finished:  June 2022

Quilt Size:  59-1/4" x 81-1/2" (top size before quilting, washing and drying:  61" x 83-1/4")

Batting:  Hobbs 80/20

So, there we have it ..... another quilt to display come this Xmas.

This quilt was worked on during Chookyblue's (http://chookyblue.blogspot.com/) zoom meetings.  Many of the ladies (from around the world) who zoomed in at the same time as myself saw me working on this project.

Cherish your day ..... cherish your life!

August binding challenge

August, August, August ...... the months are flying by now ....

We are in the dog days of summer.  The garden is winding down and in a few weeks, we may start to see some leaves change colour.  As I wrote this, I got up to look out our living room window to a tree that is the first to change and ..... whew ..... not yet! 

No-blog Mary and I have chosen our designated quilts to bind.

When Mary sent her photo to me, she wrote that it is a huge quilt and it has borders on it.  She is quite surprised that it has borders because she never puts borders on quilts.  Mary just pulls quilts out of a bag and it is always a surprise to her because some she has forgotten about completely.  Hmmm ..... how old is this quilt, I wonder?  Anyway, isn't this a gorgeous scrappy pineapple quilt!

My quilt will be my Stash Buster Challenge quilt.  The top was dropped off to the LAer and I got it back a few days later.  She was going on vacation and I needed this quilt back for a gift at the end of August .... so, she quilted it for me!  How sweet is that?

Our garden is still blooming.  

Cherish your day .... cherish your life!

July Binding Challenge

We're winning again!  Seven months we have completed the binding on one of our quilts!  Time to pat ourselves on the back!  That makes seven quilts done to enjoy by us or someone else!

This is no-blog Mary's completed quilt:

This is my quilt (more on this in another post):

My sister and I were away at the cottage for a few days.  It rained a lot, it was cool, but we saw the most incredible rainbow!

Cherish your day, cherish your life!