July! How Can That Be??

Now that I've made the rounds of the rooms in my house and changed all the calendar pages from June (and in one case May!) to July, I think I've finally figured out the date and where I am in the summer.

It only took a month...

May and June went by in a blur.  First came the end of the school year for the College Girl.  She came back home just in time for Mother's Day in May and my birthday.  Then Memorial Day.  Followed quickly by Miss A's birthday and the last day of high school for the three younger kids.  Then the beginning of summer school and Vacation Bible School, to be followed immediately by my attendance as alternate delegate to our church District's convention.  

Whew!  

Vacation Bible School was fun for a couple of reasons.  1.  I was not teaching, just doing craft demonstrations in the Jerusalem Marketplace.  2.  I was NOT acting as a crew leader and having to shuffle kids around in 94 degree heat!  3.  My youngest grand spent the 3 days helping out and staying at my house so we had lots of Gramma time.

She's a joy to be around.  No doom and gloom, no pouting, and she loves the little kids she was working with.  We had lunch together all three days, did some shopping and some crafting, and she helped me plan out a sweater she's asked me to make.  We took our first joint yarn store trip (buying yarn at Michael's doesn't count!)

Until this past weekend I hadn't been in my sewing room for nearly a month.  Can you say withdrawal symptoms?  LOL!  I first had to clean up, since my room becomes a dumping ground for packages and things if I'm not careful.  But just being down in that space makes me happy, and putting things away means handling fabric and notions, and who can say that's a bad thing?

So on July 3rd and 4th I was in the mood for some sewing, regardless of how mindfull or mindless it was going to be.

I seem to have inherited the job of piecing backings for the quilts for our church group, if they're wider than one fabric width.  This makes me truly appreciate extra wide backings and even cotton blends in 54 inch widths.  One quilt we had was 60x80 inches.  We don't generally make them that big, but someone made a quilt top in a bunch of lovely blue fabrics and left it for us to finish.  

There was one piece of a coordinating shade of blue fabric that I thought was large enough, but it missed the mark by about 4 inches in both width and length.  Too bad because it was a pretty good color match, but there just was no way to supplement it and make it work.  A second blue top fit better in size, so a swap was made between what was supposed to back it and the newly pieced back.

This time there was enough yardage, but it was in three sections.  It was the same floral print in all three pieces but one of them looked to be from a different bolt of fabric.  Either that or one was prewashed and the other was not... but nothing else was going to work and all the fabric shops near me were closed.  So after some math and piecing worthy of a Puzzle Master, the blue monster had a backing large enough to go around, and all that remained was a 22-inch by 27-inch piece of that floral fabric.

Good ideas, but my fabric wasn't cooperating!

Victory was sweet!

There are just two more backs to piece, and I'll be ready for the group to get back together in August.

Next thing I did was dig in the scrap bag and pick out a bunch of brightly colored 5 inch squares and sewed up some bean bags.  After VBS marketplace ended we had bags of dried beans and lentils that needed a place to be.  They made nice filling for the bean bags.  I made a total of 8 bean bags, and filled a gallon sized ice cream container and took them to the church's preschool.  Bean bag games are always fun no matter what your age.

Reading before I go to sleep has been a habit for many years.  Even if I just read two paragraphs sometimes, it always helps.  I always try to pray as I'm getting ready for bed, then find a good story to read, one that keeps my attention at least until my eyes start closing.  Lately I've read books by Dana Stabenow, John Sandford, Ann Cleves and Archer Mayor, to name just a few.

These have been read since January 1...

 

And these are the ones that are waiting to be read.

 

No judgments!!  I buy most of my books at thrift stores or garage sales and some were gifts.  And my comfort is that my children and grandchildren love books as much as I do.  It comes down to us honestly from my mother and grandmother, so I can truly say it's a family tradition, and one I treasure.

Many of the books I read that are on the lighter side get passed to aunties and cousins.  Of course, the aunties don't want any swearing or graphic descriptions of amorousness if you know what I mean.  Sex is OK if it's implied but not described.  One of my cousins shares my love of mysteries and detective fiction - again, no hard core.  My daughter loves nonfiction and history. although I'm getting her to branch out into well-written historical fiction and biographies of famous women like Eleanor Roosevelt and Julia Child. 

I did buy her several cookbooks, but it doesn't appear to be working.  LOL!

It appears to be time to close up the computer and put on jammies and find something fun and exciting to read tonight.  And tomorrow after a class at the Y I might snag a few hours in the sewing room again.  I think I might even like July this year!

Sew on...