I've got another set of star points done. Only 2 left to go.

I've got both quilts arranged differently now so I can start to think about how I want them finished. The big start is arranged with red for the center.

The little star is arranged with gold as the center. Do you have a preference? I think I do but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I also cut out the next doll outfit that will be included in the RSC for pink month.

Boy, the color in this photo (taken from my phone) is not good. But it's good enough to show that I finished another start point. I've taken the blocks into a guest room where no one will be staying for a while, so I can leave them on the floor as I get the rest of the blocks done. I'm seriously going to love this quilt!

This is the little star. The lighting was better for this one.

I didn't get any quilting on Kim's Garden done this weekend. I got side tracked with a little family project and in the evenings I'm taking a free online philosophy class. I'm even taking notes because there are quizzes! I've never taken any philosophy classes so it's been an interesting introduction but those philosophers are some serious deep thinkers. 

Here's the family project. This is going to take some explaining.

Years ago my paternal Grandmother (Ottaway family) gave me this cape. She said it belonged to my Grandfathers "grandmother from Ireland". At the time my grandparents were divorced and being the petty people that they were, she kept a bunch of his college and family stuff. Most of it came to me but some wasn't found until she died because she hid a lot of things and then forgot what she did with them. Craziness...

Somewhere along the way I was told either by my Dad or my Granddad that it belonged to his Grandmother from Ireland and that on a visit to the family in upstate NY, that she might have strong-armed his mother for the cape. She liked having possessions that she thought were important so that's a very plausible story. 

Anyway, because I was a sewing person, she gave me this cape well over 30 years ago. She had kept it on a metal hanger in a plastic dry cleaner bag. (Ugh). I got an acid free box and acid free paper and have had it stored like that ever since. I once took it to a textile museum in Charlotte NC and they verified the timeframe and gave me some advice on caring for it. It's been my lightly pursued goal to find a proper home for it. My nieces and nephews didn't even know my Grandfather (his fault, not theirs) so none of them will want the burden of having this.

Before covid I had started looking for museums in the upstate NY area that might want to have this but I stopped when everything shut down. Meanwhile my friend, Becky, offered to do research on my family tree and she found that not only was my Grandfather's mother (Mary Haugh) an Irish immigrant (which I knew) but his Grandmother (Mary Donovan) was also! So I thought the cape has belonged to the mother of M Haugh, but now I think it most likely belonged to M Donovan. Cool!

The next thing you know Becky gets a message from one of my distant cousins. Her Grandmother was my Grandfather's sister. We've been chatting some. She and another family member are the primary keepers of the family history. Yay!!!

So I spent some time this weekend getting the cape out of storage and taking these photos to send to her with the story. I am very hopeful that she or the other family historian will want the cape. Nothing would make me happier that to see this returned to it's proper home.

The cape is really beautiful black wool with incredible passementerie braid designs on it. The lining is silk that's almost completely disintegrated but the outside is in pretty good shape.

Let's all cross our fingers and toes that one of my relatives in New York can't wait to be the next owner of this family treasure.

So I had my shooting lesson yesterday and I was as rusty as I expected not having practiced in almost 2 months. For those not familiar with clay shooting, the different stations are set up to mimic different bird paths and characteristics but there are also "rabbits". The rabbit stations have clays that roll and jump on the ground. She put me through a rabbit course yesterday too. All I can say is that if I were ever in need to provide my own food from our property, rabbit would never make it on the menu. I'm totally crap at the rabbit shots. It's kind of funny to watch.

​After some other errands I came home to something I'm actually competent at: quilting.

I have a new set of star blocks started on the Summer Sunset quilt.

Today while sewing I remembered that there was one thing that I had meant to share with you the last time. 
When I learned to do foundation piecing I learned to start and stop my seams beyond the line to make sure the seams are locked in. It works great on a paper foundation. You do have to rip the seam through the paper to trim in preparation for the next seam. But with this new "paper" it's beastly to get the paper to tear properly.

About halfway through the last block I finally thought to try stitching only up to where the seam touches another seam and backstitching instead of crossing another seam line. Wow, what a difference! It's definitely cut my sewing time and I'm getting better points. I hope I remember this the next time I start a foundation piecing project.

Look at my beautiful trash pile!

I have an interview today for an elections officer position with my county and then my former work girlfriends are meeting up for drinks for the first time since March! We did meet once in my driveway in May but haven't see each other since. It's going to be great to catch up.
​The rest of the weekend will be working on my 2 projects. Let's hope for some solid focus and productivity.

I finally got a little focused and got some things done this weekend. The weather has also finally started to turn cool so we were about to get out Saturday for a brisk 5 mile walk. Chris is a foot taller than me so all walks with him are brisk for me! But after the walk and breakfast I was ready to get down to some work.

I finished the 3rd set of blocks for my Summer Sunset quilt so 3 of 8 star points are done. This is not a fast project but it's great to work on while listening to a good book.

I got 2 more rows of the pink blocks quilted on Kim's Garden. I have one more row of flower blocks and the pink border blocks and then I can move on to the yellow blocks. I'm very happy with how this is coming along. But it's also a slow project. So for the next few weeks you are likely to see nothing but these two projects. It's probably going to get a bit boring around here.

The 4 bolts of wide backing fabric that I ordered for veterans quilts came in so yesterday I cut one bolt and dyed 7 quilt backs. That will make 14 quilts. I already have tops for 4 of them! I'll get these washed today and started soaking. They need to be done by the time that I start dyeing again Wednesday.

​I don't have any big plans this week so I hope to keep making progress on these 2 projects.

I didn't post yesterday because I didn't accomplish anything except for the weekly fabric dyeing on Wednesday. I did a little bit of crochet Wednesday evening while I watch a lecture in a free online class I'm taking but that's about it. But I made up for all that yesterday.

It rained all day here so I had nothing to do but sew. I started by getting the next 4 blocks of my Summer Sunset quilt started. It doesn't look like much but that's over an hour's worth of work there!

But I spent most of the afternoon quilting on the flower quilt. It's now called Kim's Garden since I finally know who I'm making it for. I have 2 more rows of pink blocks plus the bottom border pink blocks to do and then I can start on the yellow blocks. The yellow ones will have a different fill pattern. The end is in sight on this one!

This is where I am on the current crochet project. I'm at a point where I need to decide if it's going to have a border or not. If not, it will be a rectangle shape. With a border it will be closer to square. If I do a border I will probably have the bright yellow as the center and use the orange and pink as the border. This shell stitch goes really fast.

Expect more of the same on Monday. These are my 3 projects for the weekend and, in my little world, the weekend starts today!.

I wasn't particularly productive Monday and yesterday. There seemed to be a lot of other things to do. I did get to spend a little time with my friend, Marcy, under the pretense of teaching her ruler work on the longarm. She didn't need the lesson but we had a fun visit.

In between I got the next star points done on both quilts. I've positioned them in reverse color order to see if I prefer one over the other. I don't have an opinion yet except that I'm really happy with the way it's looking. 

Today is dyeing day so you might not hear from me tomorrow because there may not be any progress on any of my projects.