Another month has flown past. I feel like I've accomplished a good amount. First off, here is my PHD report for the month.
I'll be linking with Ms. P for my report.
I was able to get the donation quilt (Runway from Quilter's World Spring 2024 issue) bound over the weekend and it will be turned in to the guild at our next meeting. Look closely at the binding. I used all the leftovers from the quilt top, including the block trimmings, to get the binding made. Only thing I wish I would have done differently is to press open the seams from the block trimmings instead of leaving them to one side.
The RSC quilt is coming along nicely. I made four blue RSC blocks this month. I made two right at the beginning of the month using light/medium blues. I made two more using medium/dark blues. I now have 16 of the 20 blocks that I want for my quilt. This has been a really fun process so far. If you want to make your own, visit Sandra's blog for the free instructions.
Linking with So Scrappy RSC
I'm trying to honor the process and only work on the designated color each month. It's hard when I'm so close to assembling the top! I have orange and teal scrap bins left. I think I will put a skinny white sashing between the blocks and possibly add a skinny border as well. I like skinny, non-contrasting borders because it helps the blocks look like they're floating, you don't accidentally chop off the points during binding, and gives it a more modern look. I will need to look through my white on white print stash and see what I can do for the sashing and border. I'll also need to be thinking about backing. Maybe I should make a totally pieced backing to match? I could use some of my less-favorite fabrics in a fat quarter-type arrangement. And binding...rainbow-y would be good.
As far as my other projects on the PHD list, two are ready for quilting and the rest have made little-to-no progress.
I'm still keeping busy quilting for others. This week I quilted five quilts. The first one belongs to Barb. She picked Ginger Snap for the quilting and I suggested Glide Sand for the thread. It's a light gold that looks good when there's a big color difference between the background and the blocks. It also helped accentuate the gold metallic in the background print.
Next, I quilted Retro Lines on Trudy's mini. This design is pretty intense! I had to slow my machine down so much that it took several hours to quilt a mini. I used 60 wt thread on the top and bottom to help avoid heavy thread build up from all the backtracking. It looks really good though, so it was worth the effort. 
I quilted van Gogh on Toni's quilt. I selected Glide Khaki this time. It's still in the yellow tones, but not as intense as the Sand was on this quilt.
Connie requested Circle Drama for this quilt. I need to bind this one.
Next up was another of Connie's, quilted with Honeycomb with Bees. She wanted it fairly small, so this was another where I had to really slow down the stitching to get it to look accurate. Another long stitch-out and another one to bind.
Other than all the work, we are preparing for a robotics tournament this weekend. We partnered with a professor at IU and we are the host team. The boys designed all the challenges and rules and such. Although the event is completely free to participants, including lunch and dinner, we had a fairly small amount of teams sign up. That's probably good because it will be easier to host a smaller amount, particularly when this is our first time running this type of event.
And...my daughter got a job offer yesterday! She starts July 15. She'll eventually have to move as it's really too far to drive every day. Housing will be a challenge. I knew our area was expensive, but I didn't expect it to be so much there. I was also surprised that for many of the places, you have to apply and pay a fee before they'll even let you look at the apartment. And we've read that some places will have you apply, collect the fee, and then tell you they have nothing available. How is that legal?
Moving on, we've really been enjoying the birds lately. We have parents bringing in their babies to the feeders and I've also seen birds that don't come in to the feeders foraging in the edges of the yard with their young. All the young can fly, but they seem to still be dependent on their parents to feed them. I've watched grackles, Baltimore orioles, orchard orioles, and house finches with their young. We also have some hummingbirds coming in.
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| Baltimore oriole |
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| orchard oriole |
It's hard to tell in my photos, but the orchard oriole is a good bit smaller than the Baltimore.
Friday we all went down to Spring Mill State Park to look at a juvenile brown booby that somehow made its way into south-central Indiana. It's been there for almost a month, so the naturalists think it will stay for the summer. I borrowed this picture from the American Bird Conservancy to show its usual range. You can click on the link under the picture to see what the birds look like and learn more about them.
The bird was across the lake from the observation dock. We could see it well enough with the binoculars, though we don't own powerful enough equipment to get great photos.
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| https://abcbirds.org/bird/brown-booby/ |
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| Can you spot the booby? |
There was a family there with a bird scope who let us look. My daughter got a really great video through the scope. Here's a screen shot from the video.
Well, wish me luck in surviving the rest of this week. It's gonna be busy and I still need to work at some point. Unfortunately, I was down with a headache yesterday, and once I was feeling better we had a strong storm come through that knocked out power. It’s been off since 4:10 yesterday afternoon. I hope it comes back soon. Duke Energy, ugh.
Linking with Alycia Quilts, Quiltery, My Quilt Infatuation, and From Bolt to Beauty.
Wow! You had a full and busy week! Congrats on your finishes and quilting all the other quilts! Thanks for the link for the stars. They look like a fun project. Angela pulled teal as July's color...I was hoping for orange as I am getting close on to finishing on one of my RSC projects, too.
ReplyDeleteSo much fun to see my stars here again! Thanks for the shout-out. I hope the booby gets back to home territory safely. And wow four quilted quilts! That’s a lot of work. I don’t think you could pay me enough to bind someone else’s quilt, lol Sandra— ephdra at gmail dot com
ReplyDeleteLove seeing how you used up the scraps in your donation quilt! It somehow makes the quilt more fun. Great job on the progress.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your progress! I enjoy seeing your quilts, and also the bird photos.
ReplyDeleteLove the scrappy stars, cant wait to see the finish. Glad to see you're staying busy. Wow on the bird. Thank you so much for linking up to Put your foot down.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on doing so well with your PHD report and with all the customer quilting. You definitely had a busy June, not just a busy week. Best wishes to your daughter, housing is a serious issue but I didn't realize how bad it was in some parts of the country.
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