I Spy Sunday

Paint Chips on Our Bed

Remember Judy Laquidara's blogging efforts to help the neighboring community of Joplin, MO who have suffered through so much since the tornado and Judy's Quilt Give Away to inspire many of us to donate to this worthwhile cause?

Judy has received $11, 470 in donations for the Red Cross as of this date! Plus some quilters sent her quilts to give to residents in Joplin.

She generously gave away 12 of her own beautiful quilts in a Quilt Give Away to people who sent in money. For every $25.00 you donated to the Red Cross, your name went into the drawing and you had a chance to win one of Judy's quilts.

We won one of the quilts! "Paint Chips" by Judy Laquidara. It looks wonderful in our bedroom!

It is so pretty! And--- If you want to make this quilt, it is one of 23 quilt patterns in McCalls latest issue of "America Quilts for the Home". We love it!

Thank you Judy for all you have done.

Update for Summer

I haven't blogged for awhile. A lot going on around here considering we live a very low key lifestyle.

We had our puppy, Sassy, spayed June 8th, and she did not do well with the procedure. We spent a lot of time day and night nursing her through it all. It was days before she would walk, or eat well. She is finally ---two weeks later---recovering.

Sassy

We had a wonderful visit from our granddaughter Holly, who we don't see often enough. Our grandaughter Amanda, who lives close by is spending part of her summer vacation with us. We are doing some gardening, and reading out under the cool shade of trees in the back yard. Summer has been in full swing here with 90 degree temps most days. But, hey---we are not complaining as it has been a cold wet Spring up until this past week. Welcome! Summer!

Bill, Holly, Angie and Amanda

Here are some results of that overabundance of rain.
Our favorite reading spot. The lawn has never been so green!










I'm sitting and quilting on "Patriots Dream". It's slow going--as compared to the long arm. But, I wanted to do a lot of straight line quilting in very small areas, and this is still the best way to machine quilt on smaller projects for me.

Patriots Dream

Hoping you are enjoying your Summer-time!

On The Long Arm Today

Actually it was on the long arm yesterday, but this is as far as I got. More quilting today as it's another rainy day.

I decided to quilt this on the frame instead of doing the traditional tying that is frequently used for crazy quilts.

The free motion quilting does not show up too well on the borders when you are looking directly down onto the quilt, but that's O.K. as it's more about the embroidery blocks than the quilting. I'm doing a bit of straight stitching on the inside of some of the crazy quilt blocks to 'tack' them down. I'm using Essential Pro Thread from Connecting threads in a light teal color. Hobbs 80/20 batting----more later.