So that was July!

July 30th? Every month I think I will get to my blog earlier… and then I don’t… it makes for lots of news!!

Since we last talked I have been stitching.

I made a quilt with the left over squares of Guicy Guice’s Entwine fabric from my quilted jacket. They were all cut so all I had to do was stitch them together. A simple walking foot grid and a striped binding made for  a speedy finished quilt. I listened to a Brené Brown podcast on embracing imperfection while I was quilting. It was strangely appropriate!Here’s a close up…I only had half a dozen small cut squares left over at the end. They went in the scrap bin.

Next up were some of my two inch cut strips, stitched jelly roll race style for a small wall hanging. Steve decided he might like a new quilt for his office wall so I gave it a blue binding…Lots of irregular matchstick quilting with added perle cotton embellishment stitches.I had cut a slice off the side to improve the proportions. I made that bit into a narrow table runner… Wavy lines of quilting and a pink binding!

Then I played with some English Paper Pieced pentagons to make a little bowl.You can find the pattern on the Paper Pieces website, or wait a while and it might be a class…

Once is never enough? I went back to the two inch strips drawer…

This one is smaller and needed to be oriented in the other direction.I don’t think I’m done yet… there will be more in the series 😀

I saw Sue Spargo’s Stitched Storage Pod online and decided I wanted one. Of course I changed things up a bit with a little sashiko style stitching on the Tula Pink Linework fabric. I have yards of it! I love having the grid just ready to stitch.Once all the hand stitching is finished it really only takes 15 minutes to assemble the finished pod.

You’ve guessed it… One is not enough.

My friends at BERNINA of Naperville pointed me in the direction of a Tim Holtz fabric that I needed, Eclectic Elements Multiplication Table. Yes, there’s a grid!

I changed the size a little and made a second pod…Here’s the back…

Now I need to decide what to keep in them!

I have also been knitting.

Here’s one of my latest scarves blocked and drying.
I’ve bought yarn to make a cardigan and I’ve started knitting but I’m a bit intimidated so it’s on hold right now.

I’ve been teaching. I taught two classes at BERNINA of Naperville. We can fit eight in the classroom and I’ve had eight students both times.

First up was my basic walking foot class.Three weeks later I taught my Beneath the Surface technique. Look what came for show and tell.Lovely straight lines and spirals!

Here’s everyone hard at work making their little art quilts in the second class.The Zoom studio is still in use.

I had a full sold out class for the STITCHES at Home Exploration of Folk Art Stitching class. I’m going to be offering it again in September but don’t tell anyone because we haven’t put it up on the website yet! I do a full kit for the class including all sorts of goodies. Each time I assemble them they get better.I’m Zooming for guilds too. Here are the Quilters of Schenectady who joined me for a half day quilting class. They were a fun group of ladies.AND I took another small road trip to Indiana. This time I visited the Kokomo Piecemakers in Kokomo! It was the first meeting back in their pre-Covid meeting place. They had their chairs spread out…There was a webcam set up to stream the meeting to members at home. I have no idea what they could see, and they couldn’t win prizes on our fun Trip Around the World. I hope they had as good a time as we all did in the room.

There was lots of show and tell. Here are just a few quilts.

One made for a freshman off to Purdue in the Fall. Extra long for a tall nephew.
A patriotic lap quilt.Beautiful blue and aqua batiks bought in Florida.Four Patch Posy just returned from the long arm quilter and ready for binding.Mother and son team…And the pieced back.This cute appliquéd rabbit quilt has a story… Construction had involved several generations and many years!And this one has thousands of half square triangle… the maker knows the exact number but I forgot…I drove 373 miles altogether. Kokomo seems to be in the middle of a field, at least I saw a lot of corn and beans along the two lane road I took… I had been booked just for a lecture but I think I might be returning one day?!

Meanwhile… if you read Fons and Porter Love of Quilting magazine, did you see this article in the current (July/August) edition? I need a new headshot?

And there was an international sighting! The December/January edition of the UK Stitch magazine had a review of my Butterfly Stitches book.“a fun and colorful combination of entomology and embroidery”… sounds good?

In between everything I’ve been into Chicago again with friends. We arrived early enough to visit the bean.We were still at the Art Institute for opening time.
First stop was the Obama portraits… a camp field trip had beaten us to them. We learnt a few things while we were looking.They were in the Modern wing so we went upstairs to see the Rothko’s.

This is my favorite one… No. 2 (No. 7 and No. 20)And then we went to visit Bisa Butler’s quilts…

Just one pic, a detail of Southside Sunday Morning.

I’m not sure if I’ll get back again before the exhibit is taken down on September 6th. Maybe one more trip?

Time for a few pretty photographs on one of my Riverwalk walks…

These fungi definitely needed recording…

I’ve saved the best until last.

Just one photograph of Lilly and Lucy in Nashville. (We went for a fun weekend visit in the middle of everything.)Exactly! Life is good. 🦋🦋