What I've been up to

August has been filled with activity, including some quilting and some crafting, but mostly spending time with Lily. This last month before school begins seems to be the hardest on kids--and parents, too!  I think year- round school, with several generous breaks throughout the year, is a much better way to do it now that so few families in the US need the kids to help with farm chores in the summer.  At any rate, one more week and school will begin.  

I've been working on the My Blue Heaven quilt and have the center put together and one of the borders on, with one or two more borders to go.  My goal is to have the top finished by the end of the week. 

I've also been spending time helping Lily work on her own quilt. I'm cutting and doing some of the pressing while she's doing the sewing and the easier pressing.  She has all the pieces put together and is ready to begin making some blocks--maybe today.  

On Friday, we went to Don's cousin's cabin, about 2 hours drive from here, for the day and in the afternoon we took a girls trip to the local winery.  It was a beautiful little place with lovely flowers and gardens surrounding the building.  In the flower beds, they had some glass ornaments which I've seen in the community gardens here in Menomonie.  I really like the look of them  but instead of buying any (too cheap thrifty) I made a trip to the Goodwill on Saturday and found pieces to assemble my own.  

This one will have a wine bottle as the support but I have to empty a bottle first before I can get it all together.  Shouldn't be too hard to do one of these evenings. ;-)  I'll insert a long length of dowel into the upside down bottle and the bottom of the dowel gets pushed into the ground to hold it all where it should be.

I also got "crystal" dishes to make a few toadstools for the garden. These too will have a dowel inserted in the stem and into the ground so they don't fall over.  I like these so much, I think I'll make a few more and scatter them in the flower beds here at the house.

This morning I finished the embroidery on this piece. It says, "Ghosts, Goblins, Witches, Hooray . . . Halloween Parties Are On The Way."  It gets an hourglass border in black and white (I have some ivory fabric with little black spiders on it) and will finish into a table runner to go in my Etsy shop JollyRuby. It would make a nice rectangular pillow as well but I chose to do the table runner. I then will begin making a Halloween throw quilt and hope to have it in the shop before Halloween as well.  

Over the past few days, I worked on redoing this sad little stool that I got when my Aunt died a couple of years ago.  You can see that the fabric covering is stained and dirty and the legs are slightly tarnished but originally were "gold" over a base metal.  I found a bright piece of upholstery fabric that I thought would do and for the $3.00 price, it definitely will do!  And I got a $3.00 can of spray paint and went to town.  

This morning I put the top back on the painted metal base and this is what I have!

I don't normally go for bright colors--have to stay with neutrals, you know, in case you get tired of the color!--but for 6 bucks, I decided to go for color.  This will go in my sewing/guest room as a little table near the sofa bed.

Today, I have to get ready to help daughter Jo move to her apartment. She's been renting rooms since she returned from Bulgaria 1 1/2 years ago and now she finally will have a place all of her own!  Most of her things have stayed here in the house, so it'll be nice to move them out.

So, that's what I'm up to. How about you?