So, What's New?

It's Saturday night, and I'm feeling like a big ball of dried sweat. Nice image, huh? Rest assured that once I finish this post, I'm planning to go soak in the bathtub for a bit. First, though, I thought I'd tell you what I've been up to.

Last night, I worked on this month's "assignment" for the Thimbleberries block of the month quilt--two rows of tulip blocks. Once I finished those, I put all the blocks made so far up on my design wall in roughly the places they'll go once all the blocks are finished. If you're at all interested in what the original quilt design looks like, click on the link above. I'm making mine half sized, and I'm using fabrics from my stash and charm packs. I'm not too thrilled with the mismatched sashing pieces in the original design, so I think I'm just going to use the cream background fabric in their place. Here's what my blocks look like so far:

Today's been a busy day. The main event was the graduation party at Lisa's this afternoon. Temps here were in the 90s. Normally we don't get much humidity, but it felt a little humid to me--or maybe it's just because this was the first time I'd spent any length of time outside since the hot weather arrived. The party was great, the food was wonderful, but we adults didn't do anything crazy--at least we hadn't by the time my husband and I left the party, although they were just getting ready to throw the grad into the pool. Just before we left, I overheard someone consulting with the grad's older sister about the idea, and the sister said, "No! It takes girls so long to look nice!" Boy, ain't that the truth! I guess she was out voted, though, judging by the splash and cheers we heard as we were walking to our car. Most of our family was there, as were Terry's and Lisa's, so it was a nice crowd. Best of all, perhaps, Terry's nephew, a brew master who recently opened a microbrew pub, showed up with a couple kegs of his beer. Come to think of it, I guess it's quite possible the party got a little crazy after we left! Here's a photo of my son at the pool. I'm not much of a photographer, but I managed to get a couple lame photos. All the little kids just love him, and he's really good about taking time to play with them. (He's currently coaching an under-12s girls competitive soccer team.)

In yesterday's mail, I received a teapot I had "won" in an eBay auction. (Isn't it genius marketing to make us feel like we "won" something we have to pay for?!) I love teapots, but I like them fairly simple--no gold, no floral, just a nice color glaze. I'm really happy with this one:

Inspired by all of the blogs I've been reading about the great thrift items people have found lately, once we got home from the party, I headed back out to one of our local Goodwill stores. Besides a small rust glazed bowl and a bread pan from the Pampered Chef (which I'm hoping will do magic with the darn carrot bread!), I found this popcorn bowl. That bowl reminded me that I needed new mixing bowls, so I stopped and bought a set of red Corningware bowls on the way home. I also stopped at another store and bought a new tabletop ironing board--mine was pretty worn out and I had burned through the cover.

Once I got home after my little shopping spree, I finished sewing up these shoofly blocks for a block swap with my online Thimbleberries group. They'll go in the mail on Monday.

I have two quilt projects that just need a few more blocks made and then need to be assembled into a quilt top. I think tomorrow I'll pull out one of those and get working on it. I'm fairly excited by both projects, so picking which one to work on will be the hard part.

Well, that's all my news--now I'm heading in for that much needed bath. All this partying, shopping, and sewing is pretty dirty and exhausting! Oh, yeah, and I also bought brand new bed pillows for our bed--which are starting to look extremely inviting right about now!