Sunday at the Landings

The long tablerunner:

Today the time had come to quilt it.  I haven't been doing much sewing lately, having been much taken up with working with clay.

 However, I tidied up my sewing room and sat down and started to quilt.  It just has straight lines running it's length.  As you can see, I am halfway through binding it as well, having chosen a nice bright green that co-0rdinates nicely with the back.

 I also spent some time today transferring photos around from my ipad to laptop, and having a little fun with them.  This one is a part of the previous photo,  tweaked by the "pencil drawing" effect on the Picasa photo software,

 The mandevilla vine has started blooming, which is nice, having spent the last several months twining itself around the banister of the back deck,

 I took these photos a couple of days ago, when it was really nice out.  Today it is nice too, but very windy as we are waiting to see what the tropical storm Beryl plans to do.

 I am starting to get excited about returning to Saskatoon and my yard!

 Isn't this guy fat? I think it is a female cardinal.  She was fluffing out her feathers and spreading out her tail, for some reason, maybe it just felt good. 

 I borrowed a book on fabric designs from a friend and spent some happy hours looking through it.

 It was quite engrossing to read all the descriptions of how patterns are classified,

 I love pattern and repetition,

 I also like blueberries,

and this is a new bowl that I made a week or two ago.  It is just right for blueberries.

Awoe

Absent with out explanation!
I haven't been very active on the blogging front lately-- taking a little break from most computer activity, it seems. However I might be back later,

Pickup Block #19, and the Final Applique Block!

this week's pieced block is called

and for the final applique block, Oak Leaves and Daisies

Just a photo

Jag vill, jag kan, jag skal
I want to, I can, I shall

A Weekend Outing or Two,

 Although I was a bit reluctant to attend, at first, I participated in a croquet tournament on Saturday.  It was a fundraiser for a home for at-risk boys up in South Carolina. 

 It was actually quite a lot of fun to play croquet, althou it was not a conventional game, but more like a speed version where you tried to get as many points as possible in 20 minute matches. 

 Although our team was keen, we did not finish in the top echelons.
But there was nice food!

 And the tents were wonderful to provide shade, since it got to be about 102 degrees F, and yes, Richard and I both got a bit of sun-burn. 

 I also found time to start a pair of socks the night before!

 Today we had an adventure in the car, and went past an interesting site.  It is of a church that had been built, burned down, rebuilt and burned down again!

 It is an interesting way to preserve trees from rot and mildew  by filling the hollow parts with cement-- sort of medieval looking, like in a fairy tale.

 I love to look at views through windows or doorways...

 I wonder how headstones sink into the earth like this, like into water,

 It was a sunny day, and the light was beautiful as it filtered through the leaves of the live oak trees,

 weathered wood,
and this branch reminds me of a chinese dragon,

 It must have rained last night, because the resurrection ferns in the tree were all green, instead of being dry and brown,

 and the lichen is quite pretty in this tree,

 It turned out to be a pretty nice weekend,

Pickup block # 18

This is the block for the week:  It is called Granny Squares
I had seen that many people on blogs had been making the Granny Squares block recently, so I decided to include this one, although it is really similar to Block #13.  But then after I finished the pattern and the sample, I came across one on another site and realized that it doesn't have the thrid row of blocks on it-- the blue ones in the photo below.
So, if you want to make the smaller version, just leave that final row out and use fewer setting triangles,
Of course, you can keep on adding rows too-- in which case you are making a "Trip around the World" !

What's on my wall?

I feel like Flo!  She calls herself a butterfly quilter because she flits from one project to another.  However, I have noticed that she really finishes a lot of projects!!
But this week, I seem to have several different projects on the go.  I noticed this when i looked at my design wall:

 On the far left is the 1930's baby quilt, using  6 inch blocks,
In the center is the long table runner using a dark grey back ground,
and on the right is my latest start-- Some dresden string circles.  I came upon the StringThingALong blog, here,  and had to immediately start a new project!  So yes, these are from random scraps of varying widths.  I throw them into a box as they are generated.  These ones had a lot of 1930's scraps, since I did quite a few projects with those fabrics in the past few months.

 I continue to chip away at the final squares for the baby quilt,

and I've handquilted an outline around the 3 bottom ladies on the bonnet girls quilt.  This photo shows the machine quilting that I did on it first.  I totally disregarded the borders and went from one edge to the other with the straight lines.  I used a pale gray 30weight rayon, which I quite like! 
Hope that you have a happy day, whatever you decide to do!

Quilting

I am spending a little time relaxing with some hand quilting. Although I rarely do this, I love the look of it. I did mostly machine quilting straight lines along the edges of each of the borders and sashing on my bonnet ladies quilt but still needed something in the blocks too. So I'm just outlining each of the 12 ladies. Looking forward to getting this quilt finished..