Here's another flower blooming right now that I love (but cannot grow) - lavender. It takes a lot of warm sunshine to create a field of lavender in glorious bloom with all that delicious scent wafting about. :)
We have the WARM part down pat here - hot, muggy weather this week. Not as hot as some places (only up to 95 or so) but humid fer shure (50 to 80%). :P My daughter calls this 'swamp weather' and I agree.
So I've been spending as much time as possible indoors. Some of it sewing, some just vegetating or reading. Today, being Friday, was Sewing Together afternoon. Patty was stuck at home supervising the tree guys cutting down dead wood in her yard so it was just Barbara and I getting together.
I managed to accomplish everything I brought along to work on (minor miracle!:). I had finished hand sewing all the seams on my vintage '30s block sewing and gave it a good press:
This is the smaller (nine block) version of the vintage block layout - I really like the way I arranged the 'between' blocks to create butterflies. :) I will applique this vaguely circular piece onto a square background and then quilt it. Not sure whether I will give it to one of my great-niece/nephews or charity. I am thinking to do some big stitch quilting on it with colored perle cotton threads.
I finished (well, used all the roses I've made so far) my Beggar's Garden composition, too, and pressed it out:
I intend to finish it out to a rectangle with improv pieced leaves and maybe more flowers. I am thinking of this as my 'proof of concept' for a larger wonky scrappy rose quilt. :) I am pleased with the setting together (though it was almost all 'y' seams).
I also _finally_ finished attaching the strap for my sashiko pocket:
The gold background print I used for the placket finish and strap is a world map ... seemed appropriate to the sashiko panel. :) I am a little sad that the overall design of the great wave got lost in my pocket assembly ... but I like the finished product quite a lot.
You can't see them very well in this photo but the buttons I used to attach the straps are vintage - maybe from the 40s or 50s, from the look of them. I bought a large antique glass canning jar full of buttons several years ago while we were out on Row by Row adventures (I _think_ it was a small Virginia shop that was part antique store) - that was the source of my two blue flower buttons. :)
This is one of the rare projects I've made that I sewed every bit by hand - even the strap. My motivation for making this was to have a place to carry my iPhone when the clothes I'm wearing does not have pockets. :)
In the evening, after I got home from Barbara's, I had a chat with my new neighbors. Patty still had her crew down working on cutting up the trees/branches. There is a HUGE white pine tree growing in my neighbor's yard that constantly drops branches, needles and pollen on our house and cars. They had just discovered that the tree was split (likely by lightning) and dying ... and had to take it down.
I decided to offer to pay half the cost as the thing causes me constant irritation. Pricey decision (gonna cost _me_ $4K) but a necessary one for safety. One of the many joys of home ownership.
:) Linda
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