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Hi. Hope you are well. Glad you are here.

I've switched my email feed from FeedBurner to Mailchimp. I apologize to those of you who got duplicate emails the other night. I published a guide outlining the steps I took to make the switch and failed to actually remove the FeedBurner feed. Ugh. How embarrassing. My guide is now updated to include disabling FeedBurner--it's the post directly before this one if you're interested. So...if you'd like to receive emails each time I post, there is a "Follow by email" sign up window located in the right column on desktop or in the pop up menu on mobile.

Moving along, I keep signing up for quilt alongs! This might not be a great thing since I don't seem to find myself sewing much at all at the moment. But I have hope/optimism that I'll find the time. Here's what I have going on currently.

The Macaron Mystery Quilt is starting soon. I'm providing a free quilting prize again! Cheryl's patterns are always top-notch and the pace of this mystery is so easy to keep up with. From Cheryl:

This is the seventh annual, free quilt along hosted by Cheryl Brickey of Meadow Mist Designs. Instructions are posted to the Meadow Mist Designs blog on the Thursday of each month with a reveal parade with tons of prizes in the spring. There is an active Facebook group to quilt along with and even a sneak peek option for those who would rather the design not be a mystery. Visit the Macaron Mystery page for more information about the quilt along, schedule, sponsors & prizes, Facebook group, and un-mystery option.

I also signed up to participate in Art East's #Trending quilt. We (my family) thought this one looked like fun and it will be interesting to see what each of the nine blocks looks like. It starts in September.

I also have this testing project in the works. My son helped me pull the required amount of fabrics from my stash.

Meanwhile, I still need to work on my OMG--sewing all the Bonnie Hunter Grassy Creek blocks. I haven't even started yet because...remember this quilt from last week? i'm obsessed with getting it done and donated.

I have started to create a backing using only fabrics I already have. I pulled things from my stash that went with it. There are also four blocks that were supposed to be corner blocks for the front. Here's my frenzied fabric pull.

I decided to sew the blocks together to make a strip for the center of the backing.

Then I did a little math and determined that I'd need 16 fat quarters to make the backing the correct size. I got this idea from Gyleen X. Fitzgerald (hands down the best speaker I've been honored to hear), though I'm modifying it to fit what I have.

I need to trim all my FQ to be the exact same size before sewing. This is my rough layout.

I also have a few small projects I completed this week. I can share them next week.

And of course there are quilts!

Carol's quilt, being quilted with Pretty Paisley. This quilt is so beautiful. The colors are amazing and Carol is donating to a fundraiser, Purrfect Paws Cat Rescue. You could own this quilt. 😉

And here is where I've spent the last three days. Brenda made this Hunter Star and we decided to use Merge as it's for a young man. In order to keep everything lined up properly, I needed to baste the vertical seam lines. It was a lot of extra effort, but the results are worth it. It looks really good, if I say so myself.

Not gonna lie, I was really happy to see the end of the quilt yesterday evening.

That's more or less my week. I spent hours with Q-Tips, cotton balls, and toothpicks cleaning the used 430 I bought on eBay. Once I used the machine for a few hours and everything got loosened up inside the machine, it seems to sew appropriately. I got an email last night telling me my 440 is fixed and ready to be picked up, so I'll go get that in a bit. Last I knew they thought maybe it was the pressure sensor for the presser foot and they had a call in to Bernina. I don't yet know if that's what they determined was wrong.

We've had muggy, rainy, cicada-filled weather. (Totally not a fan of these cicadas.) Last I checked my veggies, there was virtually no lettuce. Less than a week later, it has grown and mostly bolted. The critters have discovered the strawberries. It looks like I'll have quite a few dill plants, but though I replanted cucumber seeds, I still have no cucumbers. The rest is growing but not producing yet.

Here is my clematis that fell off its support. It's filled with blossoms this year and the robin's nest with eggs does appear to have been fully abandoned now. Nature is always interesting.