Last week while my blog was posting about Flora's quilts I was actually spending a lot of time staring at this. It was my family's annual trip to Hatteras, NC. This was the view from the house deck and we had perfect weather all week. I got to spend a lot of time on the  beach walking and reading.

But someone of Scots-Irish heritage can't spend too many hours in the sun so I set up a little sewing space outside our bedroom and worked on my 4th of July quilt.

I got the rest of these sections done for the center blocks of the quilt. I think I'm ready to start working on the border blocks, unless I decide to make a queen size.

We all love our annual get-together and I hope we can keep doing it for many years to come.

We got back Sunday and I spent yesterday washing cars and doing laundry. We have lots of company coming today so I'm slow getting back into gear but I should be mostly back to normal by Wednesday.

I love our Country School Quilters 2-day sewing "retreats" each month. It's so nice to be able to set up all of my stuff, leave it overnight and just focus on sewing one project and still sleep at home. I could theoretically get more done at home because I spend so much time visiting and talking but, in reality, the distractions at home are even greater. 

​This is the project that I'm currently working on and I only work on this as a retreat/travel project. It stays packed up the rest of the time. I've had this pattern so long that it's now out of print.

I've cut out fabric and foundations for the 54" x 71" quilt but I have foundations for a queen size one. I'm going to make all the blocks for the standard size and see how I feel about continuing with it. First I'm working on the center blocks and I have all of the elements done except the big middle piece and I made good progress on those. 

I've been unsure about this quilt from the beginning because I made some pretty random choices about color placement and fabric selection. After this week I had enough pieces of blocks to get an idea of how it's all going to look together and I'm really pleased! Yes, I have a green spike piece turned wrong but you can still get the idea.

Now this project goes back on the shelf until next time. This week I'm determined to get some mulching done and to get dog beds made with the giant piles of scraps I created from trimming all those veterans quilts.

I really look forward to our Country School Quilters sewing weekend. It's really the only time each month that I get any concentrated sewing time. Of course, that's my own fault for having too many other things going on at home. I got all of these rings done for my 4th of July quilt.

As a reminder, this is the quilt that I'm making. I have fabrics cut for the 54 x 71 quilt and I have extra foundations if I want to make a queen size version.

For now I got all of the short rings done and I started on the 5-pointed starbursts. I'll pick up with those next month.

I really enjoy doing foundation piecing and am already looking forward to working on it again next month. 

We also went to the opening of my friend's quilt exhibit. If you are in the Richmond area you can see the exhibit through May at Randolph Macon College in the Flippo Gallery. If you aren't in the area and want to see some her amazing work, check out this post at the Country School Quilter's blog.

We also have our first Bluebird nest of the season!

Well, this weekend didn't go quite as planned. My dentist appointments last weekend turned into more involved work. It all went great but it took more time and it all happened sooner than I expected. So that took up all of Friday. I got to go to CSQ sewing on Saturday and got all of these parts of my 4th of July quilt made. Yesterday was dedicated to getting the taxes together.

I don't know what's worse: the dentist or preparing taxes. But both are now out of the way and after I drop off the taxes today I can get on to something else!

One member of this family (not me) had a great February plan to leave town and go golfing in Tampa. We had nothing but gray skies and rain this weekend while he had 78 and sunny. But for me it was sunny and warm inside and perfect quilting weather.

I decided to take a break from Lost My Marbles and see if I could get some veterans quilts done. At last month's meeting the members had finished 16 tops! I don't think they have ever brought me more than 8 at a time. Fortunately I'm not the only quilter in the group anymore so I was able to deliver 4 each to 2 quilters last week and I started working on some this weekend.

These 2 came from Carol C. who is living in Georgia now but visits here frequently. She mailed these 2 tops to me. She said she was making a queen size quilt but didn't like it. So she took it apart and made these 2 veterans quilts. I love both of these quilts and I love getting quilt tops in pairs because I always quilt 2 at a time.

I went bold and quilted both of these in red thread and used a Woodgrain pantograph.

I think the overall texture looks great on the back.

In between quilting sessions I had a lot of cutting sessions. I started Judy Neimeyer's 4th of July quilt last month at the CSQ sewing days and after that weekend I realized that it was a pain to do all of the cutting and sewing there. I had to take a huge back of supplies and try to keep everything in order as I cut and drew 4 blocks at a time. 

It took a long time but I got all of the fabrics cut and foundations ready for the quilt.

The standard quilt is 54 x 71 which is pretty useless for me but it would be a nice sofa size for a gift. For now, I just cut out the regular size but I have all of the foundations to do a queen size. I'll see how I feel after I make the blocks I have prepared.

Now I can leave the bag of leftover fabric and foundations at home and all I have to travel with is the smaller orange bag. It was a ton of work and make a huge mess but it was worth it.

The end of the kitchen work is in sight! Counters are coming Thursday and the tile guy should have the backsplash done a week from today. I have to admit, it hasn't been bad at all so far. We've gotten pretty comfortable eating at the sewing room cutting table and the kitchen is still functional so it hasn't been much of a hardship. 

The hardship has been in Chris. For some reason I've decided that a new countertop means that every appliance and cabinet must be deep cleaned. It took a day last week to clean all of the cabinets and change all of the hardware. Fortunately a friend had a kitchen that needed the old hardware so that was a nice recycle bonus. The fridge is now spotless and the oven has been cleaned. All that's left is the stove and I've convinced Chris to clean the carpets when everything is done. After that we should be able to blindly ignore everything for at least a few years!

But I did get away for 2 days to do some sewing. It was our monthly sewing days with Country School Quilters and this is my project. I got 1 block done last month and one more started. This weekend I finished the second block and cut 4 more. The components are done for are 4 and I got 2 of the blocks sewn together.

I may put these blocks together here. The curved seams will be easier on my Juki with the knee lift. Cutting the parts would be easier here too where I have more room to spread out so I might make kits that I can just sew there. 

I know many of you will think I'm insane, but I forgot just how much I love foundation piecing.v

This week I want to finish all of the little circles on my Marbles quilt and make some more progress on the wall. I also need to make some more postcards for birthdays and Airbnb guests. I'm running low. It's supposed to be crummy weather all week so it should be good for sewing.

It's been a few days since I've posted and that's because I spent most of last week finalizing decisions on countertops, sinks and faucets. We are going back to the tile store today for the third time and we will not leave until we've made a decision. That's the last decision to be made. So far, the project is going very smoothly so I have no complaints.

But we are watching TV in the sewing room and for the first time in a long time I've actually been looking at the shelves on the TV wall. There's a major decluttering about to take place here! Oh, the stuff that we keep......

Another decision that I've needed to make is what to do with these fabrics. This is a stack of gradient samples that I used for display in my booth at the AQS show. I could just store them in my stash but I really wanted to make something with them. There's one of almost every gradient that I have.

I've had this pattern for a long time and it was even on my wish list of project from last year. It turns out that I need a new project to work on for my monthly CSQ sewing weekend. Since all of the veterans quilt kits that I made up for mast week were taken, I needed something to start working on this past weekend. I decided to give this one a try and use it with the stack of gradients.

I don't love the medium blue background of the pattern quilt. Instead I searched through my stash and pulled every dark fabric that I could find for a scrappy dark background. I'll use the mediums and brights from the gradients for the star points.

This is a Judy Neimeyer pattern and you know that they have a lot of prep work...most of which I did not do. But I had to do some and that took some time. I got one block made and 3 parts of a second block. I'm going to make a few and see if I like how it's going. This project might be a 4 block wall hanging.

But it also might be queen size because I apparently bought a pack of extra foundations. I don't know how long I've had this one but it is discontinued now so it's been marinating here for a long time. I'll give it a few months and see how it goes. I do love foundation piecing. I've missed doing it.