Stories from the Sewing Room

I'm way ahead of the game this month as I have already completed my RSC blocks. I'm using the free pattern available from mmmquilts and having so much fun that I want to just race through the rest of my scraps to get to a quilt top!

Blue is the color that was assigned this month. I'm not sure if navy or dark blue is also included in the blue category or if they will be their own month, so I just made the two so far. I only have enough scraps left to do orange, dark blue, and teal/aqua blocks, so I may wait and see, or I may make the dark blue this month if the mood strikes.

I'm making good progress on my OMG as well. I'm not sure what has come over me to be this far ahead on two projects. Sadly, this phenomenon is not extending to other areas of my life. My inbox overflows. My yard...ugh. My work life...mostly behind. But I'll take the small wins with the RSC and OMG. {Maybe i should assign acronyms to other things as well? Hmmm.} In case it doesn't translate, I'm being jokey and a bit sarcastic.

I have quilted four quilts for others this week. I quilted Rosemary on Jeri's quilt. The thread looks light in this picture, but it's actually a gold, Glide Sand.

Next I quilted Cynthia's batik quilt using the Graceful Vine design.

Then I quilted Susan's quilt with Julie's Chicken Wire. 

Finally, another of Susan's, quilted with Soho and Glide Brownie thread. 

On a personal note, life has been very busy recently. My son got his driver's license (finally!) last week. I forgot you need an appointment for a driving test, so we took two trips to the BMV. He took his first solo trip to a friend's house Friday night. That was nerve-wracking for me, but he did great. We are in deer-running season right now. Well, I think we always are, but they tend to dart out in the road more than usual this time of year. We have one that's been lurking in the neighbor's yard. It will start to run, turn around and run back towards their house, and then, just when you think it's safe to go, they turn again and dart in front of you. My husband and I had a near-miss last week; we think we brushed its hair with the car bumper. I warned my son about the heavy deer areas. He told me after he got home that the demon deer did try to get him, only this time there were two deer. "It was fine though, because you had warned me, so I was only driving 5 mph." Okay then.

Our state community college system is offering high school students free tuition again this summer, so he is enrolled in calculus and art appreciation classes. It looks like those will keep him busy. He is helping me with product photography as time permits.

My daughter is still seeking full-time employment while she works her part time retail job and has continued on with her internship hours at the animal shelter, but as a volunteer. I'll be accompanying her to several appointments this week. 

In the garden, I was very surprised to see that a few of the peas have blossoms and there are two small peas growing. There's one on the far left and one on the far right next to the blossoms in this photo. I am growing purple peas this year.

The tomatoes are starting to blossom and I found a baby tomato last night. The peppers look decent. The dill is already forming flowers and the black swallowtail caterpillars have descended. The beans look very mediocre. 

I found a volunteer tomato plant growing next to the giant patch of volunteer pumpkins. The pumpkin that's growing in the front flower bed appears to be growing about a foot a day! LOL. All of the pumpkins have loads of flowers, but I haven't found any baby pumpkins yet.

I still need to cut down the jungle growing in most of my flower beds. I was dismayed to see that either the deer or rabbits ate the buds off all my day lilies in the side garden. One upside to the totally unkempt front and lower front flower beds is that they are so thick with stuff that the critters can't get to the flower blossoms. 

Yesterday we enjoyed watching a baby mockingbird and its parents. My son took this picture. He said it was his favorite. {He took a ton of photos while I was downstairs working.}

One of the adults kept doing this. I'm sure it must mean something, but what?

I took this one.

It's time to get to work. Have a great week!