July Quilting...so Far

Mid-July! What a glorious day, a perfect summer day. Temps in the mid70s, dry, light breeze, and the only clouds in the sky are wispy and pretty against the brilliant blue.

Mo and I finally are getting our summer afternoon groove back.The deck is looking pretty! My flowers are growing and everything [except the white screens] is clean;

I found a rug in my closet, needed to protect Mo's paws from the burning tile of the deck.

Mo is given a chew stick and on very hot days, if he is very very good he gets  scoop of doggy ice cream.
But earlier this week, just as I was setting up to take photos for this post---

...very suddenly the sky turned black!

So dark. There had been no forecasts of storms or rain. I quickly hustled Mo in and instead took pics indoors [so pardon their dimness].

Mo thinks thunder and lightning are a big boring yawn.

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I've been doing more sewing machine sewing this summer, mostly because the Temecula  1880 Sampler blocks are so fun and enticing.

And you may recall that 4th of July week, the assignment was 5 blocks instead of just one. So there's a lot to keep with.

These are some of the 4th blocks: I did a Flag for remembrance.

This is a small 9 Patch with Crazy, towards the bottom right.

Other solo blocks:

Puss in the Corner, bottom.

 Flying Geese:

 I especially love this block. Maybe a modified Hovering Hawks?

This is a tiny pinwheel block, only 2 " finished. So cute!

And  with its crazy pieces added to make it 4" finished.

Another has a 1 1/2" Monkey Wrench block within the crazy block, so tiny!

1/2''  triangles, ugh. Good enough for me.

One or two more to do of the current assignments. One incorporates a small Friendship star, not a fav of mine. I looked at the original 1880 quilt and one of the crazy blocks has a 6-section circle. I'll do it instead.
Here are all the blocks on their window.

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I'm working sporadically on Feathered Star blocks. These are the Birds in Baskets.

The birds are a weird shape, raptor necks and heads, like little Stegosauri, but I love them and I'm not gonna fix them now..

This is a simple Evening Star with a circle and star center. I got interrupted on the second one, there are two alike. Good for beach sewing.

pattern page and pattern photo

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And you may recall this  plaid half square triangles top I bought in an online auction.

I like it! The triangles are the biggest I've ever seen, about 5 1/2". This is with a 4 1/2" TQC 1880 block set on top, for scale. All hand pieced. c. 1890-1920?

To me the plaids and checks have an early Autumn,  vintage back to school look. I think of boys' homemade shirts in plaid, little girls' checkered dress or pinafores.

After much thought I have decided to use this piece of alphabet fabric for the backing. It has all the colors and that school days/ olden days look about it. Certainly no one I know would ever want it on their actual child's quilts, so what am I saving it for the past 10 or 15 years.

The images are both funny and charming:
The Kite is hilarious, it looks like a turnip.

And I thought this was T for Tern, but no. It's S for Swallow, the T is...uh...? [trumpet!]

F for Eagle? is it a Falcon?? No, E is above.

A rather colorful Zebra, I do love  zebras.

Still saving to have this quilted, sigh.

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We went to Joann's yesterday, for zippers for throw pillows and cording for pillow cases. What chaos, and very busy. Even with a list I forgot stuff. It wasn't very fun, too bad.

Have a good weekend!

love

lizzy

gone to the beach....