Welcome to Rio!

Have you been watching the Olympics?  We have.  While finishing the binding on my Mom's Surprise Star quilt, we watched the first gold medal of the games go to a 19-year-old American young lady in the air rifle competition (yes, we tend to watch the less popular sports).  We also watched the end of the men's cycling road race yesterday and the exciting crashes on the steep downhill portion at the end of the race (not a good time to have a needle in your hand!), and the first swimming events (also not a good time to have a needle in your hand as you are yelling at the TV for them to swim just a little faster).  Mom's quilt binding is all done and I have started the hand-quilting project I had saved to work on during the Olympics.  This might not have been the wisest of moves as my hand-quilting is not the best, and then when paired with the exciting things happening on TV, well, let's just say I'm going for a "rustic" look on this wall hanging.  Watch for pictures of the completed project.

I'm so happy to finally have these Rudolph placemats finished.  This set of 10 (yes, 10) are going to my sister.  I machine quilted them myself.  The pattern is a take off of Bonnie Hunter's Fair and Square quilt (I refuse to do string blocks, so my setting triangles are solids).  I had 2 layer cakes of the Rudolph fabric and made a small throw/wall hanging and 2 table runners, and then used the scraps to create placemats for my sister.  I love the bias striped fabric as binding.  What little fabric was left has been cut up and added to the scrap bins.  One more thing to check off the UFO list!

We started picking peaches from our tree (first year it has blessed us with enough to worry about).  It was loaded in the spring, so DH picked a third of them so the rest would be bigger, and the summer storms took care of a few, and he still had to create a support system to keep the tree from collapsing under the weight.

We have picked several and are ignoring the ones on the ground.  Much of this week is going to be spent peeling and freezing peaches.

I spent a lovely day with a few fellow quilters just sewing away on a very hot day last week.  I got a good start on my Happily Scrappily Irish quilt (using the 4 patch blocks from our guild exchange).  

This is DD's last week at home before moving to college, so have started some packing.  When I suggested she might need a sewing kit, she said, "What for?"  my response, "You might have to sew on a button."  her response, "Like that's gonna happen!"

I think I have convinced her that we should do one last sewing project together this week.  I have something that is somewhat technical and has a definite plan, so she thinks it might be okay to try it.  We'll see what happens!
Christi