It's September, Let's Catch up

 Yikes! Where does the time go??? 

It's been hot-Dilly has been helping with yard work.

And we got a basketball hoop for him-he shoots hoops every day!

There have been a few windy storms pass through-we lost some small branches and one bigger one.

I got them cut up and burned one batch then we had another blowing storm and had more! So now the fire bowls are full again!

We went to a "Flea Market" at Huibbard Park-unfortunatly the only things there were clothing resellers. Who Knew there were so many people selling used clothing-I swear they had a Hawkeye shirt for every man woman and child in the county there!

There were a few selling artwork and little jewelry, but nothing worth the time it took to park!

We've had some good park time!

I like these playgrounds that have the rubber mats on the ground-they are so much nicer!

And I've started this quilt. I bought this pattern many years ago, like 25 years maybe?  and it was the most expensive pattern I'd ever bought. $15.00

It's not a great pattern in my opinion-I'm glad I didn't start it 20 years ago!

You have to trace off all the pieces and cut the templates out and then the 2nd blocks have paper piecing-which I kind of like.

I'm using a pile of batiks that I got a couple of summers ago at a yard sale. 

These first blocks are kind of wonky, but I think it will work out in the long run.

More to come on this one!

And the Electrician came and did the check up on the generator. It's ready when ever another storm comes along!

And the saddest news too, My Mom is dying. She moved to Iowa River Hospice this week. Iowa River Hospice Is a really nice facility, they have been so accomodating. She is suffering with congestive heart failure and kidney failure. 

This was back in July, not lomg ago at all and time just keeps rushing along.

Love those smiles!!!

Courtside With Caitlyn Quilt

 So, I had the Caitlyn Clark fabric from the Shop Hop and it was crying to be sewn! So I was browsing my patterns and saw this one from Villa Rosa and thought it might work pretty well. 

These Villa Rosa Patterns are just one post card size of instructions, so they are pretty easy.  I had 2 of the Clark prints and a blender and a stripe. I think I talked about these fabrics earlier, they're a weird color.

Anyway, they sewed up pretty easy. 

Except for those half square triangles that make the little jog in the design! I had to unsew a few of them to get the triangle to go the right way. 

The layout is pretty easy, but it's a good thing I could lay it out on the bed because you do really need to see where you're going with the design!

So, I got the quilt top done and thought it would be great to quilt a basketball design on it. A long hunt on line didn't turn up any nice looking basketballs. I did find this cool  design of a tiger hawk inside an outline of the state. Here's the link to go see it. Oh Sew Kute Hawkeye Panto 

SO I bought the download and figured out the way to get it onto Freddie and stitched it out on a sample piece of fabric. Can you see it? Yeah, that's the lesson here. It's a busy little design and it gets lost on the busy hawkeye fabric, so I'm glad a did a little sample first because it would not look good on the Clark quilt at all. 

SO Instead, I chose a circle design that is a bonus design that came loaded on Freddie. 

I like the way it looks, kind of gives the impression of a ball, don't you think?

Freddie did a great job on the quilt. I used a gold colored thread, 40wt Glide, and wound matching bobbins. Here it is fresh off the machine.

This was the 2nd time I tried out fleece on the back. I tested with the blue fleece earlier and had no trouble at all with it so I was confident it would be great and it was! No tension issues or anything bad at all. 

I thought it would be pretty cool if I could find Indiana Fever fabric for the back (that's who Caitlyn plays for now in the WNBA), but no luck with that! SO I went with the Hawkeye fleece form Joann. 

And then outside to hang it up. 

Here's the back...

And a little close up-It's about 50"X60" so just a throw size, but it fit on the 60" fleece backing nicely.

And doesn't it look great! I'm so happy with the way this came out!