Finished 6 more rows today, for a total of 10,
including several blocks I had to Franken-piece (sew littler pieces together to make a big enough piece).
You can kinda see them now, but once this is finished and quilted, they should be pretty much invisible.
Only 5 rows to go!
First 4 rows are sewn together. Whoo!
Finished size looks to be about 38 x 38”; so much smaller than it originally looked on the design wall. I think it’s a nice size for a wall hanging.
Spotted this on Pinterest, and while I’d love to make the patriotic version,
I thought it had potential for using up leftover bits and pieces from Around The Lake/Wheels of Fortune.
I still need to cut 30 or so background squares for the bottom row,
Note to self: “I” foot, 0.0 needle position, use right slit as edge guide.
Once I got started on my Wheels of Fortune, I couldn’t stop. Two days and many hours of sewing later, I think it’s done.
Here’s the addictive part - I still have 36 snowballs and a crap-ton (technical term) of 3” half-square triangles that I NEED to make something with.
There’s enough snowballs to add another row to the quilt, but I’m all out of oranges and think it would look weird with just the blues and greens.
Or maybe make a table runner with 4 wheel blocks (technically they’re “X’s and O’s”)
or set them in a different configuration?
Should I use the HST’s with the snowballs?
Or make something smaller with just them??
Decisions are hard! (But fun!)
Confession - I made this fully intending to donate it to my quilt guild.
It was an experiment to try a Fat Quarter Shop tutorial (here), and to use up some gorgeous fat quarters that had been hanging around the stash for a couple of years (here).
It’s not the prettiest pattern (it is fast and easy tho…) but it definitely shows off this fabric to perfection. (Gifted to Cheyenne’s friend Kim, 9/4/2024)
I was searching for fat quarters to make this -
when I unburied a bag holding pieces of Around The Lake, from April 2022.
Making those circles was intimidating 
but maybe I could repurpose the 60(!) finished snowballs into … something?
Hmmm, looking promising….
Despite a *&$# trimming error
(and more swearing when I had to cut into new fabric to remake *one* block)
this one is done and headed to the longarmer in the morning.
I thought it was going in the donate pile,
but hubby likes it best and wants to keep it, so Mighty Star (here) will get donated instead.
The backing is 5 yards of fabric I’ve had since Quilt Ventura days. All this time later, I still like it - glad I finally found a good use for it. (Using this emptied out another bin in my storage room. Whoo! Making progress using up the stash.)
First day of school for the local grands!
Note the hand-colored shoe. So stylish!
Donovan, first grade
Cowboy boots, knee socks and a piggy lunch box. So cute.
Jaclyn, third grade
Leo is pure teenager - no shoes until the very last second. 😂
and Leo, eighth grade.
Technically not a school day pic. Taken at last week’s Bruno Mars concert.
Leia, high school junior and college student, started school last week
More fabulous shoes
as did Cyrus (prefers that to Addy), who is a high school senior and first year college student.
”Are you done yet??”
So exciting, at least for the littles, at least for today. Tomorrow it’ll be, “do I have to go???” 😂😂
We celebrated Two Days Until School Starts
with a surprise trip to Chuck E. Cheese,
where jumping in the bounce house and
collecting balls from the claw machine were the big thrills -
Jac and Donovan each ended up with two balls, one of every color in the machine. Such excitement!
Even the teenager had a great time.
I’m a little bit sad that summer’s almost over …
Still counting down the days til school starts again (hooray!)
pretty clever construction for the stripes -
Donovan discovered a baby lizard on the porch -
so little! so fast! -
and Jac - “Take my picture, pleeeeeeeease!” - found that magni-tiles are even more fun than Legos.
I’m going to miss having them here all day, (almost) every day, but I think we’re all ready for school to start again.
