July

July is nearly 2/3 over, and the last 4 weeks have been a blur.  A complete and total blur.  We went to Mexico for 8 days as soon as school got out, but it just does not seem like it has been 23 days since returning.  I have been THAT busy!

Doing what, you ask?!...Mostly trucking my middle kid (12 yr) around to all-star baseball games. First, it started with three district games.  It took playing all 3 in order to win the district.  Then, it was a practice tournament - 5 more games.  They were practicing for the state tournament.  There were 6-8 practices (every day this past week), another practice game, and the culmination - from this past Saturday to today we have been playing State tournament games.  They got out today in the semi-final.  It was a really good showing, but it was far more than my son envisioned.  That's him with the completely lack-luster look below. Most kids would just relish getting the trophy.  He's different.

All in all, I estimate driving over 1000 miles, sitting for 25-30 hours at games -- a total of 13 games. My poor daughter was SO ready for it all to end since she's not old enough to be at home alone.  We did this in all weather too -- 95F sun, and absolute pouring rain.  Oh the fun.

During this craziness, I packed up 16 of my quilts.  They went to a retrospective exhibit that is at Quilt Odyssey -- the show is this week!  If you are near Hershey, PA go and have a look.  I am also teaching 4 classes of 22 students.  That is what 3 of these boxes are for.  Prepping to teach takes forever...even more so when you have to rationalize every thing you are putting into the boxes because it costs $$ to ship.  I am excited about my classes and getting to share some fun stuff with new quilters.  I am also well in need of a quilty-retreat, even if it is a working week.

Summer has had little bits of the usual.  This year I opted not to fight the uncooperative kids.  Sophie and I went berry-picking alone one morning.  She's still happy to do things with mom.

 ...and she loves to bake too.

Summer finally arrived in Maine and my gardens are full of color.  

I took my younger two to the beach and the lake one day last week.  They play splendidly together. Though hard, I am accepting that my oldest is not interested in doing the fun things we always did. Easier to just walk away than to push him.

 Quilting?...(sigh)...just a little bit.  I have done a couple of simple edge-to-edge quilts.  The customs seem to take forever.  I have on on the frame that I loaded a week ago.  It will clearly be another week or two before I get it quilted.  I plan to offload my kids to Nana's to conquer some quilting (that paycheck would be really nice, ya know!), but since they want to go this week while I am in PA, not sure when the next opportunity will be.  I quilted this piece for a CA client.  It is a simple light custom, in plenty of time for Christmas.

 These are my pieced hexagons - or what I have this far.  I am feeling a little blah about where they are going.  It is looking like a really large quilt, and the layout at this point sort of leaves me unsure and underwhelmed.  Time to ponder some. Or move on to a small silk quilt.

 

For over a month it seems I have been working on getting a binding on this beast.  It's 80" or so.  The pipings (there are 2) took about 10-12 hours.  Then I put an ivory silk binding on over half of it, hand stitched part of that down, then removed the entire thing.  It didn't look right.  Wasnt laying well. Hemmed and hawed for a couple days, then opted to use a black cotton binding.  It's actually a batik, and I just never imagined the flat black would look so ideal.  Now I am moving onto the finale of the binding - a corded variation.  It won't be exactly as is shown, but those colors are used.  When I finish this (If I finish this), I have plans to do a tutorial on what I did.  The details make the quilt, or so I keep telling myself.

So, not much else to report.  I did get 2 quilts into Houston, surprisingly.  With about 50% rejection, I was truly shocked to hear that news.  I don't have plans to go because I am teaching at MQX Midwest 10 days before that show.

Have a good July~