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July One Monthly Goal Finish Link Up

 It's time to share your progress for the month.

This link up will remain open until July 21 at 11:55 pm EST.

Want to see everyone's goals? Check out the July goal page.

My goal this month was to quilt my Churn, Churn, Churn mini quilt. I wanted to custom quilt it, and I did. Typically I have a plan for what I am going to quilt prior to starting. I did not do that this time. 

I used four colors of Glide thread (Monarch, Cornflower, Mars, and Space) and a Frankenbatting remnant of Pellon Bamboo batting. The blue thread didn't match as well as I'd hoped. It looks sort of green against my fabric.

I did a combination of FMQ and ruler work. There are definitely things I would have done differently. I thought I was going to do the pebbling in all the blue, but I was really tired after doing the outside, so I did quicker things on the inside. In retrospect, I would have done the coils on the outside and the pebbles on the inner parts. I probably should have redone the corner coils because they are kind of sloppy. 

And I made some big errors in my crosshatch considering that I used a ruler, but I was tired and my back was killing me, so I left it. 

I tried a boxy quilting in the red that turned out pretty well. I know that's one of the more basic FMQ patterns, but I've never tried it by hand before.

I finished sewing down the binding yesterday morning! I didn't think I'd get it done in time.
For the backing, I sewed together a bunch of red charms I received years ago from an international swap. I thought I had centered the top with the backing, but as you can see, it was a bit off. Luckily I did not run out of backing fabric! 
  

Now it's your turn to share your finish. Add your link and then go visit other linkers and make new friends.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Teal/Aqua RSC Block Two

I've finished my second planned Teal RSC block. I thought this scrap bin had tons of this color. Nope. I barely had enough to make a block (hence the charm square in the central portion which I probably should have cut into smaller pieces). Much of the fabric remaining in this bin reads more green than aqua to me and that was surprising. 

Free pattern available from mmm quilts.
Linking with So Scrappy RSC

Once it's the orange month, I'll have all my blocks and can start assembling the quilt top. I should probably start planning the backing now.

I've been able to do a bit more sewing this week. I made some napkins for my daughter using this giraffe fabric from my stash.

I also knitted three dish scrubbies for her. Only two are pictured since I made the third one in the car on the way up to her house last weekend.

I also made this little guy. It's part of Fat Quarter Shop's Spooky & Sweet pattern. I'm hoping to have the rest of the top assembled by the end of the week.

I've been very busy with the quilting and the bookings are rolling in. It almost feels like the Christmas rush although it's way early for that. 

I quilted a loopy meander on Jess's quilt. She had me trim her quilt. The backing is minky. I'm still finding little black fluffs everywhere.

Cindy chose Flirtatious for her Christmas Wreaths quilt.


She picked Primrose Stipple for her Laura quilt. This one is based on Little House on the Prairie. It's hard to see the quilting on this one.
Cindy also brought me two quilts she labeled as "Falls in Town". She selected Windswept for both. The first one is the larger version.
And the second is the smaller version.
Trudy picked In the Swirls for her quilt.

Like I mentioned above, we went to see my daughter on Saturday. We took her to IKEA, Lowes, and Walmart to pick up odds and ends and groceries. It's been really expensive to get her set up in her room she's renting. 

Speaking of expensive, I thought I'd like to get an Apple Pencil while they were on sale ($80, not too bad) because I'd like to learn to use Procreate ($13, also not too bad). I've been trying to learn all different softwares and do things that scare me this year. So far I've taken a Pro-Stitcher Designer course for Modern Textiles, I've signed up with Karlee Porter to do a class this fall, I went to QuiltCon, I took Alderwood Studio's pattern writing class and learned how to use Affinity Designer, I entered quilts in IHQS and the fair, I watched a technical editing roundtable and started offering quilt pattern technical editing, I went to h&h americas and started an Etsy fabric shop, and changed my business to an LLC. Whew! That is a lot. I'm glad I made the list so that I could see everything I've done this year.

Let's get back on task here. It turns out my current iPad is too old to support the Pencil. It's so old it has a home button (which is starting to fail, but I'm stubborn and will use something until it is completely non-functional unless it is replaced by my family before I give in). So that led to my husband deciding to buy me a new iPad and the upgraded Pencil, which led to needing a case and screen protector. My birthday is this weekend, so I guess this is my extravagant birthday present for my milestone birthday. Good thing all these quilts are coming in!

My son has taken over house-sitting duties for my neighbor since my daughter has moved. He's finishing up his summer college classes this week. He told me it's been a stressful summer. And treated himself to some video game system that is coming from Japan to make himself feel better. On my tab of course since it required a credit card and he has yet to give me cash to reimburse me. He'll start regular school on the 7th. Did I ever mention that he and his friends had a PowerPoint party? They each created a 15-minute+ PowerPoint slide deck to present to their friends. 🤣

I was joking about needing our passports and realized that his was probably expired since young kid ones expire sooner than adult ones. I dug them out to check and he had about a month left. So we went and got a new one ordered on Friday. More money, but the guy at the PO took a very flattering picture of my son. We were near the local jeweler and I mentioned that I needed to get the prongs redone on my wedding ring, so we dropped that off too. I feel naked without my ring. I hope they get it back to me soon. The jeweler said six prongs need to be fixed. I think it only has six, or maybe eight? You'd think I'd know this after wearing it for almost 30 years. LOL. I've been putting this off for about five years, so I'm lucky I didn't lose my stone.

One highlight for me right now is that one of our favorite shows--Claim to Fame--is back on the air. We have a lot of fun trying to figure out who each person is while avoiding spoilers online. We had to coordinate with my daughter to try to stream the latest episode at the same time so we could discuss it through text. 

I also stumbled across a show that I've been enjoying immensely--My Name is Gabriel. It's a Korean show available on Hulu. I have to pay close attention to read all the subtitles. The premise is that well-known Korean stars spend 72 hours in another country, assuming someone else's life. They have to figure out who they are and live as the person. The first few episodes feature Park Bo-gum and Park Myung-soo. Bo-gum's episodes are very touching and Myung-soo's are funny, so it's a great mix. 

A surprise last night on our evening walk was discovering that we have a flock of chimney swifts in our neighborhood. Our volunteer pumpkin patch has produced one pumpkin, which is fully ripe. The rabbits or squirrels or deer or whatever eat most of the blossoms off the plants (including my zucchini 😫).

I've gotten rather lengthy here. If you've made it this far, thanks. I'll be back tomorrow with the July OMG Finish Link Up in which my Churn, Churn, Churn mini will make an appearance.

Linking with My Quilt Infatuation, Quiltery, and Alycia Quilts.