Here is my July pink project – I took many pictures and couldn’t decide which I like best.
I love this simple quilt! I don’t love sewing long rows of squares together however so this quilt is a series of positive and negative 9 patch blocks. Those blocks were all scrappy with 5 different darks and 4 different lights in a positive block. I really used up my 2-1/2” squares in all shades of pink from soft pastel to dark rose along with shades of red, burgundy, orange, some gold, some teal, some yellow. It’s a real mishmash but I love those combinations.
This paper pattern is available for $5.00 sent to Country Threads. It will be online very soon. If you already have lots of 2-1/2” squares cut in all colors, it would be a smash hit! So colorful and small units, 9 patch blocks, to sew.
Reader quilts – some are part of the pink challenge and some are dirty dozen projects.
I left JB3 (Hopalong) alone in the quilt shop too long this morning. He left a bit of destruction.
The corn is needing some rain – Tim’s irrigation was running yesterday – can you see it against the line of trees?
Do you ever pick up a bird nest and examine it? The engineering involved in constructing a nest is simply unbelievable.
I’ve been told this is against the law – to keep a nest but would it be better if I ran over them with the lawn mower???
I tried to mow today and broke a belt – Rick to the rescue. There’s always tomorrow to mow, right?
This is Nathan who got a blue ribbon for his original Lego fire engine – he goes to my church and I just had to take his picture.
Monday is August 1 and I will post the next Dirty Dozen number as well as the color for the month. If the color turns out to be a Dirty Dozen, all the better for me. Just be thinking about which way you’re going to go come Monday.
I am loving our perfect weather but next week it’s getting hot again – enjoy these days while they’re here!
🐰 💗 Your Pink! quilt is so pretty! I like your bird nests. Those are very nicely built. 🐦 Congratulations to Nathan on winning. I’m sure he’s a sweetie pie. 🌝 Enjoy your day!! 🦋🌻
I really like your Pink Quilt. I will send you pictures of my two Pink tops as I am taking them to the quilter on Monday. Fun to use stuff up!!!
I want to comment on the short hand used while texting. As an old note taker in many meetings, no one could read my short hand so I was taught to drop vowels. Most everyone could figure out what was said, but it completely screwed up my spelling. It was not good to start with, but it got really bad.
After I changed jobs, I made notes of the alarms happening after hours and most of the day crew could read aloud my notes and what action I took. It worked for us.
Now days texting short hand works.
I didn’t win…but if I had WE WOULD ALL BE MILLIONAIRES!!!
Your pink quilt is great, Mary! Love the all the photos you took, especially the one of Nathan. It is priceless!
I love your pink quilt, very cheerful.
That Nathan…what a cutie. I love what it says on his shirt.
Your quilt is really nice. I am stumped with mine. It’s done except for the binding and I didn’t have enough of the fabric I want to use. Just shy a few inches. Now I must find another one.
I can understand not taking a nest from a tree, but if they fall to the ground it seems like it should be okay. I have one too. Like you, I find them intricate and so interesting.
What is the white strip with flowers poking out of it? Talk about interesting…
I love your pink quilt!!
How is your foot doing? I go for my year check up after my knee surgery. I will be interested to hear the final report. My god leg has given me problems so I struggle to walk. It doesn’t need knee replacement, The tendons hurt, the knee swells and the Achilles tendon is swollen most of the time which makes it difficult to walk. My chiropractor has been the most help. I often sit with 2 ice packs on my legs and another on the heel. I sure get discouraged.
Love this ‘cooler weather we have had but do need the rain here also. Maybe tomorrow night a little.
That is a beautiful pink quilt, Mary. I will remember to make 9-patches rather than sewing together long strips of singles.
All the finishes are great!
I love your new quilt. I love all the colors, and the dominant pink. I don’t think I’d be able to sew one square at a time to create such a quilt. I did understand that you made nine patch units. I really prefer strip piecing.
Thanks for the pink quilt show as well as all the other beautiful quilts. Most of all, I love the picture of your friend with his blue ribbon. You can just see how proud he is of the ribbon and, that you asked to take his picture!
We found a small bird’s nest in our yard a few years ago. It resides on a shelf in the garage. The lining of the nest contains fur! Which we believe to be from our comb outs of our first golden retriever, Nugget.
The quilts are lovely as always. The variety in patterns chosen for the color of monthly challenges are wonderful and interesting. Beautiful cross stitch.
Nathan is a handsome young man and congratulations to him for entering the fair and earning his blue ribbon!
Summer is here along Lake Michigan. Beach sand, bare feet and sunscreen.
Hi Sue! And hope Nathan keeps on building Lego projects to become an engineer. So many wonderful pink quilts and yours is already quilted!! I need to get my last border on mine later today and will get a picture for you. It’s Canal Days in our village so meeting our kids for music in a park and food truck vendors, then back here swimming so hope I have the energy to sew later. Hot week ahead here too.
Patti in PA – was glad to read your update on travels and many thanks for your dedication to saving animals. I got a lesson that I didn’t give 2 hoots about this morning on solar panels to recharge the battery and the inverter on our motor home. My husband slept out in the back yard in our motor home last night after he pulled it out of the barn as he wanted to see how his new to him Cpap machine worked without running the generator and not being plugged into electric in our barn. So here I was outside this morning in my bathrobe with the dogs doing their business hearing a lesson on how the inverter worked and I thought Patti should be hearing him and not me but I listened like I cared. But I do understand how it would work now in a Walmart parking lot if we had to rest overnight.
I can’t believe that somewhere in this glorious country of ours it is illegal to own a birds nest that has served it’s purpose and is no longer needed by the maker. I know a lot of science teachers in elementary school are in trouble if this is true.
I love your pink quilt, but I too would be doing it as a strip piecing quilt, not the nine patch blocks. I think I would have used the “leaders & enders” method to begin with and then just keep increasing the number of blocks sewn together. Hope this makes sense.
I am not looking forward to the 90 degree temps coming this next week. I sure hope it drops the next week as I will be volunteering at Girl Scout Camp. I think it is my 45th year of being involved with Day Camp. My four daughters, two of my granddaughters and one of my great granddaughters will also be there. It is so much fun.
Marj – I wanted it to be very scrappy and use my 2-1/2” squares instead of strip piecing it which would certainly have saved time.
I, too, love your pink quilt. I think the first picture of it is what catches my eye. I’ve had a bird’s nest sitting on my deck table all summer. Guess I’m breaking the law, too! Sometimes we find them on the ground, but this one was in an apple tree, and the birds were done with it. One year we had Cedar Waxwings nesting near the kitchen. We could see blonde dog hair woven into their nest. Those baby birds must have been hot!
That little boy is so proud of his win! And he should be!
Your pink quilt is very pretty I love the design. Yesterday I went on a 5K run with my niece. On the way there we saw a white shaggy dog running in the highway and I decided I would look for it on the way back. On the way home we didn’t see it until we got 3 miles closer to home he was back in the middle of the highway again and cars were stopped. We pulled over as did another lady and I tried to get it to come to me but it just ran farther away. It broke my heart and I did my best to try to rescue that dog . I hope it’s safe somewhere and that someone will take it in.
Beverly – thanks for trying to save that dog – hope someone can catch it and get it to safety.
Love your pink quilt, Mary. Something about the simple ninepatch speaks comfort and cozy to me.
Mary, I absolutely LOVE your pink quilt. Scrappy is my favorite. I have so many scraps……. I’ll have to make one of these. The reader quilts are fabulous, too. Sounds like we are in for several hot days.
I cannot pass a bird nest up either 😉
Love your pink quilt and it’s a great way to use up all those 2 1/2 in squares!
I love your 9 patch. Excellent color palette, especially the surprise teal here and there.
Love your pink quilt and the method you used to put it together!!
Love the pink quilt, tried sending a picture of mine, but it bounced back, I’m sure the email was right, I tried twice. Will try again. Have a wonderful Sunday, Mary!
I like your pink quilt! Love scrappy quilts. I’m sitting in Minnesota at our lake house and it rained for at least a half hour! Good thing Stanley and I walked earlier or we would’ve come home very wet! They need the rain here so I’m sure people are very happy but I don’t think this shower hit Iowa. Tomorrow I’m leaving to go sew in a grain bin with five friends for most of the week….sure hoping there’s a/c☺️☺️☺️
I save bird nests that fall of the trees here. I usually just find a low spot to stick them back in a tree. Doves like to use old nests. I found a nest one time that had 1 baby bird hiding under it and the mom screeching at me for being near it. The baby bird was too young to survive on the ground so I scooped it up with the nest and put it in a nearby tree. When I went back to check on it later it was gone. The next day my husband was mowing, so I checked to see if I could find the baby bird to keep it from getting run over and there were 2 out under the tree I found the original nest under. I grabbed an old hanging flower basket, stuck tge nest in it and scooped the 2 baby birds up and stuck them in the basket. The mom and dad were both screeching at me and dive bombing me. I am sure people driving by were having a wonderful laugh at me or thought I was crazy 🤪 🤣😂. I hung it in a nearby tree and they stayed for about a week and a half before they were big enough to jump out and survive.
Amy – what a great story! Would make a wonderful childrens book – I’d save it if my printer worked – could you print it and mail it to me? Or just keep it – I still want to come visit you! Would next week work? Give me a couple of choices – how about texting me so I’d see it right away. 641-512-5188
I love this story too! You were the birdie parents’ hero, for sure!
Love your pink quilt, Mary … and the corn field is the perfect backdrop! Thanks for sharing with us. I’m just finishing up the binding on a Two-Step quilt, which I’ll share when done. I’m mad at myself that I trimmed off a little too much after I sewed the binding on, so the binding isn’t as full as I’d like (you’d think I’d never done this before!). I fudged a little by making the binding wider on the back than the front. Oh, well, it’ll be OK when finished.
Candy, stuff a bit of extra batting inside the binding to fill it out. Nobody will ever know!!
Betty in Rapid City
Thanks for the tip, Betty! I’ll make a note of that for next time … I’m about halfway finished stitching down the binding on this one.
I think it’s unanimous — your pink quilt is beautiful, Mary. The little Lego engineer is precious. Just look at that face, so proud! Love the scrappy stars quilt too that was sent in for DD as well as mine at the top of the page! Hahaha! Looking forward to the August DD#/Color.
Your pink 9-patch quilt is my idea of quilting–using up all the scraps so they wouldn’t go to waste. And you would have a nice quilt to snuggle in when cold weather hit. They were made for survival and didn’t waste anything. There are a lot of people, especially the younger generation, who throw out the old and buy new. If hard times return, they may have to change their thinking?
Your 9-patch is beautiful. ONE TIME I made 4″ 9-patches, each patch a different blue, for a big quilt. The rows were so long, I divided the quilt into quarters and actually put 4 smaller quilts together and joining them when I finished. All blues and really nice. I love blue!
The corn is so pretty. We didn’t have irrigation when I lived in Iowa, just prayed for rain. Or tiling the fields, either. How things change. After planting problems, the farmers must be happy–and hope the storms don’t hit. The faith of a farmer.
And that “white strip with flowers”–I’ll let you tell the lady what that is!! Also recycling!!!!
Fairs are wonderful, time for everybody to get together, before cold weather hits.
For today’s spelling. After years of bookkeeping, about all I could spell was bank reconciliation, debit and credit, I decided I should start working crossword puzzles to remember how to spell words. And now spell check can’t help as it doesn’t even know the word I can’t spell. Had to get a dictionary by the computer.
Take care, everybody. Enjoy everything because we have so much to be thankful for. And the hot weather can’t last forever. Betty in Rapid City
I love your pink quilt. I’ve started one in aqua as a leader/ender project.
I also like your use of an old chicken feeder for planting succulents. I planted some marigolds in one of mine for the chickens.
I agree with you Mary, those nests are far better off in my house or on my breezeway than ruined by the lawnmower! I would never pluck a nest from a tree but the ones I find on the ground are fair game – in my opinion of course! Your pink quilt is really sweet, and I love seeing Sue! Hi Sue! Amy’s story would make a great book! The scrappy stars quilt is great! I love scrappy quilts. And do I see another Massachusetts quilter? Is it Denise? I can’t make out the name but if so, Hi Denise! Where are you in MA? Jan in MA
Love your pink quilt!
I’m in NW Indiana, and our corn has been fantastic, too. Some people don’t look favorably on the Midwest, but it’s their loss. You’ll not find better produce, or pretty summers.
I hope all the readers have seen the news about the flooding in Eastern Kentucky. I am about 1 1/2 hours from one of the counties that got hit so hard, so many deaths and so many people have lost everything they worked for all their lives. Please keep these people in your thoughts and prayers.
Just finished Lori Holts Chicken Salad Quilt and I made mine with REAL feed sacks which I love!
Paula in KY
Paula, yes! It is absolutely devastating. Praying continually for all that have family there and those that are directly impacted. Glad to hear that you are ok.
Paula – the Pictures we see on the news of the flooding there are unbelievable- those poor people! What will they do?
I REALLY love your pink quilt.
Your pink quilt is beautiful and a great way to use up scraps. Making nine patches is a great way to break it down into more manageable pieces.
Hi Sue!
Great quilts in the show again today. And a cute winner with the perfect shirt for a little boy!
As for the nests I know you’re not to disturb nests while they’re occupied but didn’t know it applied to empty ones.
Hi Mary,
Thanks for posting Connie’s cross-stitch photo again, and including the name and company. I thought it might be one Brenda Gervais designed. I agree with you about your pink quilt! Nice way to use up “stuff”, but the combination is really pretty. I still need more hours in the day to sew all the projects I want to accomplish!!!
Love your pink quilt.