June is Nearly Gone

This month sure has flown by.  It doesn't seem like I’ve gotten much done this month.   Although I have done some canning.  The cucumbers are doing good and I’ve done 12 pints of dill pickles, 9 pints of Bread and butter pickles and 6 pints of sandwich slice pickles.  Hope the dills turn out better this year.  I read in the Joy of Pickling book that adding grape leaves ( in my case, Muscadine leaves ) would keep the pickles firm. I hope it works.  I enjoy canning and am looking foreword to the tomatoes getting ripe so I can start making tomato sauce.

In between the canning, I did do some quilting.  I pieced some 9 patch blocks for a quilt and finished the Strip Twist community service top.

I even quilted it.  Now to get the binding on it.  I also quilted a community service quilt for another guild member and still have another one to get on the frame, as soon as I fix the backing. 

In a couple of weeks is another quilt camp.  I need to decide what I want to work on, probably purses.  I’ve got fabric to make a couple more and haven’t gotten around to it yet.  Also need to decide which classes I want to do.  There are three this time, placemats, pincushion and crazy border quilt.  I’m planning to do the crazy border quilt and maybe the pincushion.  The supply list hasn’t been post for the pincushion and placemats yet.  If I have to buy a lot of stuff for them, I probably won’t do them.  Guess I should see if I have all the fabrics I need to do the crazy border quilt.  I may find out that I won’t be doing that one either, if I can’t come up with 12 coordinating fabrics for the border.  1/3 yd cuts is all the is needed of each, so I might could buy a few if needed.

Challenges Revealed

The AQG met yesterday.

Took this picture before the meeting started and the room filled up. The guild has nearly 100 members. If everyone showed up, we wouldn't all fit.

We revealed our challenge projects. I learned the hard way, don't zoom in. A lot of the pictures turned out blurry. We could make any project, any size, as long as it was quilted and had a house that was at least 3" square.

I tried to get as many pictures as I could, but I think I missed a few. I really enjoy the challenges and seeing what everyone decides to do for their project. Every one that completed their challenge received a spool pin.

Finally Finished Too

The Burma Shave Sayings block swap from several years ago is finally a finished quilt.

This is such a fun quilt. I enjoy reading the Burma Shave sayings on the blocks.

Here are pictures of the coasters I made.

This is the first set, made from a charm pack. They are all different, but co-ordinate.

This set is all the same, made from fall fabrics in my stash. Think I made these when I should have been fixing the backing for a quilt. Well, the backing got pieced and the quilt is on the frame. It is partially quilted. I've had some trouble with the thread breaking, but other than that, it is going fine. I'm just not much in the mood to quilt. I'd rather be making 9-patch blocks from charm packs. I have seven charm packs of the "Glace" line, enough to make a queen size quilt. I'd like to get another dessert roll for the borders, but can make do with the roll I have.

Speaking of charm packs, I need to hunt the pack I bought to make a cute little wall hanging and get them with the pattern, before I use them for something else. Think they got put with my collection of charm packs. I just can't help collecting them. Although most of the time I can't figure out what to do with just one pack. It usually takes. at the least, two packs for the projects I find to use them in.

Finally Finished

One community service quilt For Etowah Valley Quilt guild is finally finished. There are still two more to go.



I made the top a few years ago when I was active in an on-line group. It was one of the week-end work shops that they did. It is a free pattern that was on-line at the time. I don't remember which web site it was from, but it is an easy pattern using FQs. I got carried away and made enough blocks for three quilts. This is the largest one. My daughter wanted the crib sized one and I gave the third one to a friend in exchange for quilting another quilt for me.

Another community service quilt just needs the binding sewn down by hand. The third one needs the rows sewn together and and borders added. I should get busy on that one. They are due at our August meeting. I also volunteered to quilt 3 more community service quilts for others. So I will be busy for awhile.

The kittens are growing. They're 6-1/2 weeks old now and so cute. I took some pictures of them.

This is the oldest one and looks the most like her mother, but has a little tinge of red in her black coat.

This is the middle one and was the first one to eat the kitten food. She is also always trying to escape from the sun room. We have to watch real careful when we go in and out.

This is the baby and is the cutest one. She finally ate cat food for the first time this morning. Not the kitten food the others eat, but the same food her mama eats. I'm just happy I finally got her to eat.

This is their mama. She has changed since she's had the kittens. We can actually pet her now without her biting. Before she just wanted to play and play rough, biting and scratching.

The day is wasting away and I can't make up my mind what I want to do, besides laundry. Do I want to listen to an audio book and quilt the quilt on the frame, put in a movie and piece 9-patch blocks, machine stitch the binding onto the sampler quilt, or work on the 3rd community service quilt.

I slept in this morning I was so tired and sleepy yesterday, that I took a nap and still slept in this morning. Last night I felt like I was coming down with a cold, but today I feel fine. Guess my eye doctor's appointment and the trip to Wal Mart wore me out. At least this time I stuck to my list and didn't make any major purchases like last time. Maybe that's because I stuck to the grocery side. I didn't need light bulbs to take me to the other side of the store to stumble upon any good deals.