Rainy Days!

Happy 4th of July!  Some things you just never outgrow.............

Yes, the 18 (almost 19)-year-old DD was out early this morning lighting black snakes on the driveway and creating a rainbow of smoke for the cats to enjoy.  Of course, once she lit a whole package of firecrackers at once, her audience disappeared.  As you can see (note the raincoat, mud boats, and extremely green yard), the 6.25" of rain we received over the weekend is going to make for a wet 4th!  (Note a previous post on the power of window washing.......still have a few windows to go, but am going to wait awhile now.)

The rainy weekend led to getting some projects closer to completion.

My Seven Fancy Sisters table topper is pieced and I think I'm going to try machine quilting it myself.  

This is a kit I purchased in April from a trunk show our guild hosted with Emily Hardwig of Red Button Quilts.  It is pieced and I laid the cute buttons on it for the picture to see how it would look.  I left my glasses on the table to help with the size perspective.  I've never done anything so tiny - 1" pieces!  I think I will try hand quilting this one since I need a hand project to work on (Big commitment here, HAND quilting something that is smaller than 12" square - it will take me longer than you think!).  With the summer Olympics coming up, I will probably be spending some time in front of the flat screen - I enjoy watching swimming, diving, gymnastics, and ping pong!  

My other rainy day activity was making 52 pints of applesauce yesterday afternoon.  My DH helped (it was raining, what else could he do?)  and we started around 1 in the afternoon and by 4 PM, the applesauce was in the freezer and I was scrubbing the kitchen floor!  I felt so invigorated to have it done that I started contemplating a trip to an Amish produce auction on Wednesday to pick up some sweet corn and peaches.  Of course this morning, my arms and hands are aching, so might do some re-thinking on that idea.  

The best news is that DD has finished her BB-8 Cake for her 4-H cake decorating project.

She's down to 3 projects to get finished by the 12th.  After the cake decorating and applesauce projects, the floor scrubbing was extremely necessary unless you wanted to get permanently stuck in the kitchen.  

Ready to enjoy a fun and safe 4th of July!
Christi