More Charity Quilts

I've been on a roll with the charity quilts this year.  It's a great way to practice quilting or try out new things. Here are the two I finished this week.  The first one is a more girly quilt.  I quilted one of my favorite patterns ever, Ginger Blossoms, on it.
The second is the second I Spy quilt I made with some bug fabrics I'd had forever.  I tried a new quilting pattern, Cobblestones, on it to complement the black fabric.  It's very hard to see, but the black fabric has small circles on it.  This quilting pattern requires a lot of precision that this quilt did not quite have.  Also, I used a gray thread that is virtually invisible in the backing fabric but it shows up like white on this quilt top. It's not quite the look I was going for, but I feel like using a black thread would not have looked very good through the colorful fabrics.  What color would you have used?
 I just love the cute zebra print on the back. 


Do you remember back in April when I shared pictures of a guild quilt that I quilted and bound?  It won first place at the fair!  This one is a fundraiser for the local branch of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.  The pattern and fabrics are by Heather Givans of Crimson Tate.
And next up for me is, you guessed it, another charity quilt!  I am quilting another guild quilt.  This one raises money for kids in foster care.  What charities do you quilt for?

 In other news, my husband's single jalapeño plant has continued to produce loads of peppers.  I made him some pickled jalapeños the other day.  This is a refrigerator pickle recipe, so no processing.  He says they are good.  I always have to wonder if canning/pickling recipes I find online are actually safe.  Sometimes the Ball Canning book just doesn't have a recipe that suits my needs though.
Jalapeño refrigerator pickles.  They look cloudy because they have condensation
on the jars from taking them from the fridge to the counter for a photo.
We got/renewed our passports last week and I just couldn't pass up buying some new stamps.  I absolutely love fun stamps.  No boring flags for me.  I added frogs, Sesame Street, and the moon landing to my current inventory, which includes dragons, birds, and John Lennon.  Good thing these are forever stamps, because I probably will have them for just about forever!  I hope the person processing our Menards rebates enjoys them!  😜
I am still working away at getting my quilting website going.  I'm just waiting on the logos and business card design to be finished by a person I found on Etsy.

Linking with Sew Fresh Quilts, For the love of geese, and My Quilt Infatuation. 
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Baby Steps This Week

Well, it's been another week.  I've done a few things, though certainly not anywhere near the amount of things I should have been doing.  It seems like every year I'm like, "Wow, I've reached a new low," in terms of letting things slide.  My gardens are disastrous.  My house needs to be cleaned.  I haven't exercised enough. I'm letting my kids sit around on technology way too much.  I'm not sewing enough.  I'm not dedicating enough time to working on business.  I have these slumps a few times every year.  It just seems like everything piles on at once so that small things become outsized. Eventually I just decide, enough self pity. Let's do at least something.

 I'd been pretty bad about exercising the over the last week or so.  So I walked on the treadmill and made the kids go on a short walk last night.  Exercising, no matter how much I may dread it, always makes me feel better.  The house I'll probably let ride for another two weeks until school starts.  It's much easier to clean when no one is home.  The gardens can wait until it's a little cooler out I guess. If anyone local wants any, I have loads of Lamb's Ear and Iris to share.  Both of these are really easy to grow and care for.

 As far as sewing, I'm working on a few more Quilts for Kids tops.  Those don't take a lot of mental energy and I feel that I am sewing for a good cause.  
I Spy, in progress
I have the guild quilt to work on as well.  It will be finished within the next three weeks, right after I quilt the donation quilts.  They get first crack at the frame simply because it's already set up for them and I will need to adjust some things before I do the guild one.

 I am slowly working at the business end.  I'm having someone design logos for me since I lack any Photoshop/Illustrator skills and software.  In fact, I've wasted a lot of time trying to figure out how I'm going to set up the new website for the quilting and agonizing over the logo proofs. It's amazing how many hours can slip by while you are looking at stuff online.  So although it doesn't seem like progress, some is actually being made, although not at the rate of progress that I would have preferred.

 We're in the midst of a lot of changes around here.  We're getting new neighbors across the street today.  I realized last night that of the fourteen nearest houses to us, only three families have been there since we moved in a little more than six years ago.  I hope the new people are quiet.

 We had the Andersen window rep out Monday afternoon and we are going to repair/replace all the remaining windows on the house--minus the three in the basement that were already replaced.  This is going to be a huge amount of work since siding has to be removed on the outside and the trim will need to be removed on the inside.  We will be (okay, my husband will be) doing the replacement work ourselves, so it will be slow going. 

 I'm about to have a small milestone birthday where I jump an age bracket.  For my gift, I chose and purchased a handheld vacuum for my sewing room.  I find it's a lot easier to sweep up a mess and then vacuum the crumbs instead of trying to get them into a dustpan.  I have a similar vacuum in the laundry room upstairs and it works great.  No affiliation, I just went with one that was available locally right away and at a somewhat reasonable price.
I tried making a different type of sweet pickle with some of my overripe cucumbers.  The recipe I used was dead on on the amount of yield, which was nice.  I made a half batch since this is a new recipe and we don't eat a ton of pickles anyway.  They are supposed to sit for three weeks before opening, so it will be a while before we can try them.  I probably overcooked them a tad, but since they are supposed to be "soft" hopefully this will be okay.
While most of my gardens look overgrown, in need of weeding, chewed, etc., these Phlox are looking quite nice.  If you look closely, you may see a giant bumble bee in here.

Well, that's about all I care to share this week.  I hope you are doing well and not in a summer slump like me.  :)

 Linking with Sew Fresh Quilts, For the love of geese, and My Quilt Infatuation.




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