This was a good week on so many levels, but a hard one as well. Hard in that we’ve been in the middle of having the condo painted - well, the living room, entryway and master bedroom, which together encompass about half the square footage of the condo. But it looks so clean and fresh now! Now that it’s done, we’ve been unpacking All The Things we boxed up over the last two weeks. The new blinds for the back half of the house will be installed on Monday, so I’m going to wait for that before I take pictures. Oh, and we need to rehang everything, just like when we first moved in. So I need to get my sons over here to do most of that because we have some heavy pictures and mirrors or things that need a stud finder and laser level. I’ve also been updating switchplate covers and rearranging furniture. Where’s a darn magic wand when you need one?
And speaking of switchplates (couldn’t resist that segue), here are my switchplate blocks for July. The color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is purple, and I got a good start this week on that color.
These 15 switchplate blocks will finish at 3x5”. After that I moved on to my flying geese blocks, inspired by the blocks that my friend
Cathy of Sane, Crazy and Crumby made last year. They’re a great way to use up miscellaneous black print scraps.
One of my very favorite things to do at the start of every month is to sort through the scrap basket for the new color of the month. Last weekend as I was sorting through the purples, I found a baggie of 50-some cute novelty squares measuring 4.5”. Well, I opened the bag and out popped a SQUIRREL! It took no time to find three matching fabrics to use in large chunks or minimal yardages. I cut out the needed 4.5” squares, and in roughly an hour, had this cutie of a top up on the design board.
Then Cousin Kim came over on Wednesday, and we spent some time sewing. I got it fully webbed vertically and the first three rows done horizontally. I looooooooove this happy little gem!
It may get a solid border - I’ll just wait until it’s completely sewn before I make a decision. I do know that the blue will also be the backing and border. I have 8.5 yards of it from an estate sale and will be using it to back several quilts this month and possibly into next month!
Yesterday was an interesting 4th of July. It started off hot, then at about 1pm a rain, hail and thunderstorm rolled through. Although it measured less than a quarter inch total, it was a fierce storm for about 10 minutes. Two minutes later, the sun was out, and I snapped the picture below from our front door. I can see that the wind blew one side of the bunting off the front gate (left side). Bruce and I did go out for awhile, and when we got home an hour later, the rain picked up again. At least things were damp, and that allayed my fears of fireworks staring a brush fire in our parched area.
I did run to the store in the morning yesterday to do some grocery shopping. They had the most beautiful (and delicious) apricots there, so I bought these to make some apricot jam today!
I’ll leave you with pictures of Darla and Alfie snoozing away in the living room. They are very happy that the Strange Mans who were here moving furniture and painting are gone. Obviously, the whole process of supervising exhausted them. (Ha! They found excellent new hiding places for the duration).
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| Darling Darla (whom I also call “Darlicious”) |
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| Alfie (AKA “Mr. Cat”) in his best shrimp pose |
Please tell me we’re not the only ones who have several nicknames for our cats! Darla is DarDar, Darlicious, Darling Darla, and Miss Kitty. Alfie (Alfalfa) is Mr. Cat, Himself, and Al.
On that note, I’m off to go make some jam. I also have some raspberries to make raspberry jam, so my morning is spoken for. But the afternoon will (hopefully) see me in the sewing room! Have a great week!
