I feel like the kids must feel – that whooshing-by of the end of summer. We had a couple of cool august days (and nights! One night it was 46F!) which made me think of going to summer camp and being glad for an extra blanket. At work things are trending to the angst-filled back to school thing. Parents with kids that don’t want to acknowledge them, don’t want to ask questions about whatever it is they need (you know, lest the parental units see that they don’t know everything…), parents with a lot of separation anxiety going on, blah blah blah. It will all be over in a few weeks thankfully.

Meanwhile, I started to layer my quilt last night and don’t you know, I need to do a little work on one of the squares. Thankfully it’s at an edge. Pain in the patooty though to sew it back in, given that the whole thing is pinned. Oh well. Do it right, etc etc etc.

In the next day or two, I’ll be harvesting my first zucchini from the couple of plants nestled along the front edge of the yard. This is very exciting, if only because the front yard isn’t quite the salad bar for critters that the back yard is. Speaking of critters, saw five racoons one night. More exciting – saw a praying mantis down on the blackberry bushes.

I spent quite a bit of time over the weekend chopping down stuff and hauling it around. Thinking some evil thoughts here, but little by little I’m catching up. I think I’d really get the use out of a little chipper. I’m much better at chopping down than I am at hauling, and just think of the mulch!

Guess that’s all for now. Better go and remake that one little square and sew it back in.

The scary part

So here I am again, at the scary part: that confluence of completed top, show entry deadline and not a clue. Not a clue in my brain as to how to quilt this thing.

This is the part — and I did write it down last time — where Naomi says to me and I quote “you’re going to quilt the hell out of it!”

OK, but how to deal with all those little short lines? Those color and value changes? Ignore the whole thing? I don’t want to lose the shiny little dashes of color that are the silk strips.

I guess I’ll start by auditioning some thread. Yeah that’s the ticket.

Good news!

I heard this morning that my quilt Green to the Power of Pink won second place in the traditional category of Quilts For Change which opens on the 10th. That was a nice phone call to receive first thing in the morning.

I have two other quilts there: Red Sky Red Sky and Shine.

Here are the first postcards I’ve made for FiberArt For A Cause. These and many others will be sold to benefit the research of the American Cancer Society at the International Quilt Festival in Houston this fall.

These are all 4 by 6 inches.