Progress towards some finishes...

My tumbler quilt is nearly done...

I added the orange (Kona Tangerine) outer border to this quilt top earlier this week and took it to my long arm quilters. He quilted it with hearts and stars and today, I picked it up. Tonight, I made the binding and got most of it hand sewn down...

My husband and quilt holder extraordinaire held it up for a picture before I did any hand sewing on the binding...

I wanted to take this picture outside and it might rain tomorrow, so it had to be done tonight. While watching a bit of TV (a show about quilts on PBS that my husband had recorded earlier in the week) tonight, I hand sewed the binding 3/4 of the way around the quilt before I got too tired to sew.

The binding is striped and the same material also shows up in some of the tumblers. I had hoped to deliver this quilt to my friend this weekend but she won't be home. I will try to deliver it one evening next week. My friend is having a rough patch health-wise and could use a warm hug and a reminder that I am thinking of her.

Christine and I got together earlier this week for an evening of sewing and visiting...  We both worked on our Mexican Stars wall-hangings...

I worked on finishing off the curved bits...

I love how the curves add movement to the design...

I have one more border to add and then I will be ready to take this one off to the quilter's house for some curvy quilting to accent the stars.

Christine made great progress on her wall-hanging too.

I saw Karen's finished flimsy earlier today as well and it looks great. Our guild, the London Friendship Quilters' Guild has a quilt show this fall and these wall hangings will all be there!

I also finished off the last border on my mystery quilt. I think I would like the finished quilt to be a bit bigger so I am trying to figure out an extra border to add using the material that I have leftover from the fat quarter bundle I have been using. I can't wait to show off this flannel quilt but that will have to wait until the Sept meeting of the guild when everyone who participated in the mystery quilt will be revealing their projects. I will be having this quilt quilted before the end of the summer as well.

I am trying hard to finish off some UFO's before I dig into another scrappy quilt with thousands of pieces...I am finding it hard to resist the scrappy quilt magnet!  Soon!  Soon!

Mexican Stars and some Rubber Chickens

I made this rubber chicken pillowcase for my husband for Father's Day. He has a rubber chicken that Santa gave him in his Christmas stocking one year. The rubber chicken has been on vacation with us a few times and has had his picture taken in many exotic locales...  These pictures were taken at Bouctouche Beach in New Brunswick. The rubber chicken had a travelling companion...Nutty the Squirrel, a beanie baby.

On Thursday night, Karen, Christine and I took a class to make a Mexican Stars wall hanging from my friend Pat. I finished off my homework yesterday and I am ready for the 2nd and last class this week. I am using batiks for my project.

I also made a bit of progress on my orange and yellow tumbler quilt. All the pieces are arranged and ready to sew together. It might rain this afternoon so I will try to get these put together.

My husband and I spent a few hours mulching all of our gardens yesterday--what a job!  Mulch mountain (4 cubic yards!) is no longer in our driveway! The gardens look great and now there will be less weeding to do. Here are a few pictures of what's blooming this week.

Echinacea

Orange Echinacea

Karl Forrester Reed Grass

Echinacea

While we ate supper, this robin worked on finishing off this nest on our light fixture at the back of the house. She kept making trips out to get more mud and then came back to add it to the nest. She did this funny vibrating dance in the nest to pat it down. We have had lots of nests before but this is the first time we have had one on this light fixture.

I Gotta GO!

I celebrated yet another birthday earlier this week. My daughter is home for a week from university later this month so we will do the big family dinner/celebration when she is home but my husband did give me my birthday gift on the actual day of my birthday (and he took me out for supper too!). He bought me a GO!

I have been looking at the Accuquilt GO in stores and on the internet for quite a while and decided that I would like one. He has also seen the GO in the quilt stores when we were doing a shop hop together. Last night, my friend Karen and I tried it out and I made this little block.

I also made a post card for our guild postcard exchange this month. I have not made a postcard in quite a while!

The heart blocks that I made for the Quilted Table Yahoo group swap arrived safely to the swap queen's house and have been sorted out and mailed out to all the participants in the swap. I wonder where my new heart blocks will come from???  I will post a picture when they arrive.

This weekend, I plan on working on more arcs... 

I may dream a bit about what dies I would like to have for my GO as well...

If you have a GO and you have some favourite dies, let me know!