Finishing up July - 2015

Like in so many places, the heat has taken it's toll on productivity and creativity.  The occassional storms that rolled thru were not always friendly.  And July saw the 3's - they say things come in 3's.  The car that died (fixed), the iron that died (replaced), and now my sweet Juki (in for repair).  But for every dark cloud there comes a ray of light - so let's see how I did on my July goals.

  

The Le'ts Book It project almost to flimsy stage - one more border to go.  This one is big and will be sent off to a long armer.  I did pick up backing and binding fabric on my outing yesterday.

The color for RSC15 for the month of July was Red and I completed all my various blocks for 'in-progress' projects.  Now that we are more than half way thru the year, do you get the itch to finish these up?  It is hard for me to wait each month for the next month's color announcement and then just work a few blocks.  I'm eager to wrap up some of these projects.  I was hoping for ORANGE and even picked up some orange FQs on my outing - but it is Indigo or option for deep purple or black.

I needed a little slow down at times and used the Slow Sunday Stitching to finish up the binding on this monster.  I don't normally do BIG, but I love this quilt and it so represents me as a quilter.  As I handled each of these 2.5" squares from the barrel or the bricks from the totes - I remembered the other projects those fabrics appeared in.  And said some sad (and happy) farewells to some as it was their last performance - gone and used up.

And this little piece was a 'slow down' project which took forever to do - I procastinated, not that it was hard or large.

July was a month of clearing out, too.  I passed on some fabrics and UFOs, organized, and put the piles of blocks together.  This one - 'Grandpa's Stars' - was inspired by Jo's Country Junction to finish up one of our Bonnie Hunter projects before her retreat.  Some of you were in shock when I said I was planning borders for this.  It is small and I could make more blocks, but the reason for making this quilt was to use up all those 'stored' HSTs - not make more.

And when you play with so many scraps, you get the itch to play with NEW.  Although most of this is OLD that was sitting on the shelf for far too long.  The Charms gifted and waiting for the right quilt.  A Kona black jelly roll found behind a UFO.  A surprise find of an old fabric that just wanted to be in a quilt.  I rarely make a quilt from cut to finish, but that is what happened with this one.  And I got to have fun with my aboundance of thread - I have a thrill of thead as much as the thrill of fabric.

With the heat, summer activities in the next month, waiting on a sewing machine repair - I plan a little more slow down in August.

"Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability."
-  Sam Keen  

Sewingly Yours,

Sharon