quilt progress

Jon and I have spent the last few evenings putzing around the house...he's doing some bonsai reading and I've been working on my quilt. I abandoned the project for a few weeks (I guess I can stop something and still come back later on).

I had intended on making this quilt for our summer bed, but seeing as the summer is quickly slipping away and we keep kicking off our down comforter every night, I figured I had better get a move on things!

So, on Monday and Tuesday nights I finished the blocks, trimmed them and sewed them all together.

Then yesterday, I marked the quilting lines (hoping my marker lines don't disappear before I have the chance to quilt them), and basted the three quilt layers.

The quilt is rolled up like a tootsie roll right now ready for the machine quilting and I'm scratching my head wondering how this queen sized quilt is going to fit through my sewing machine - another reason why I prefer free motion quilting...no right angles and no constantly rotating the quilt.

We'll see how it goes. Hopefully I can finish it up by Sunday evening!

overheard this afternoon

Something you probably shouldn't ask your husband while you're sitting in bed with your laptop:

"Will you bring me my credit card, honey?"

back to reality...

Jon and I have been mia lately, partly because of our mission to re-read the first six Harry Potter books before the final book comes out on July 21, and partly due to this lovely little kitty. Thanks to the wonder-drug/cat pheromone, Feliway, and lots of cleaning, we now have a calm cat and our sanity back. Thank goodness for science!

Because we were so obsessed with taking care of the cat and cleaning our house, we both kind of neglected our garden. I went outside to look at it this afternoon and was amazed at how big everything (both plants and weeds) had grown. We really are going to be able to eat lots of veggies later this summer...I can't wait!

And, our flowers are filling in nicely this summer. Some coleus (my favorite):

and big, beautiful hydrangea blooms:

And finally, this afternoon we got our first Thursday edition of the Oakland Press. A few weeks ago I was coerced into buying a 15-week subscription from an amazing adolescent salesman who only needed TWO MORE subscriptions before he won some fabulous prize. I caved under his amazing sales capabilities. He is going to make one excellent car salesmen in the future. This comes as a big disappointment to me because my Persuasion and Propaganda class in college was one of my favorites. I guess I need a refresher course!

Jon, on the other hand, has this amazing ability to avoid any and all forms of door to door salespeople. In less than five seconds, he is able to turn off lights, close blinds and yell our our secret “child-salesperson approaching” codeword to warn me of the impending guilt. Next time I think I'll follow his lead and run and hide when I hear the doorbell ring!

new veggies & funny site

We enjoyed a delicious tossed salad tonight! And the best part was that we were able to eat our first batch of lettuce from our garden. All those back breaking hours of sod lifting and dirt hauling are finally starting to pay off. Looking forward to the beginning of August when everything else should be ripe for picking!

And, one of our tomato plants is starting to bear fruit...it may be small, but it's a great start!

Check out this site...it gives grades to world flags based on their overall design aesthetic...read the methodology first to see the judging criteria and icon key.

overheard in the car the other day

"Oh cool....lego ice cube trays! We should get some...they're only $8."

"But you don't like ice."

"Well, I would if it was lego shaped."

good weekend...

...enjoyed lots of relaxing, reading, napping, bike riding, weeding, mulching and festival-going.

We went to the Detroit Festival of the Arts on Saturday for about six hours. First we saw Jon's soon-to-be erhu teacher's band, XD Wei perform. Then we saw the fantastic Wailin' Jennys and Amos Lee perform. The weather was beautiful and the music was delightful! And, of course, there was the kettle corn, oh the yummy kettle corn!

The Wailin' Jennys are worth checking out. I'm pretty sure they've convinced me to tune up my guitar and start practicing those fingerpicking melodies again! Their voices were soulful and harmonic and the melodies they played were enchanting.

another new project!

I wasn't joking when I said I was planning on making pretty much every project from the Denyse Schmidt Quilts book. I bought the fabric for the "What a bunch of squares" quilt a few days ago. You can see a beautiful example of it here.

I started cutting out one set of 8 squares and was pretty dismayed at how long it was taking me. Then I had the realization that if I folded my three yard piece of fabric into eighths, I could cut all eight pieces at once. I was so proud of myself for having this thought...seriously, so geeked!

So, here are all of the square cut and ready to be assembled. I'm planning on turning this into our summer bedspread, so this is going to be a queen sized quilt...my largest undertaking yet. I had every intention of buying fabric that would match our current duvet, but I fell in love with the green and sky blue, so it will just have to match our neutral walls for now. Trying to work on the whole balance thing, so I don't think I'll be able to whip this thing out in a week like the last quilt, but we'll see.