Checking in For June --- Two Days Late!

Happy July!  Well June turned out to be a whirlwind of a month and not necessarily for the reasons planned.  Following up on my last post: all is well with my friend -- she was able to complete her treatments with no more help from us out-of-town supporters than just weekly check-ins to keep her spirits up and commiserate on the challenges of dealing with illness.  While I still hope to go visit her (and now it can be just for fun!), we got word during the month that someone in DH's family (also in the South), was struck with a serious illness.  Once we heard that, I put planning to visit my friend on hold temporarily until it could be determined if BOTH of us would need to travel down.  If that happened, I'd make any trip South a "two-for-one" excursion. 

With regards to my own health issue, I believe the treatment plan is working although I missed my first follow-up because -- of all things -- food poisoning!!  The night before my appointment, I ate something that totally didn't agree with me and sat me back on my heels for two days!  It took another two days after that to rebuild my appetite and strength.  However, when I called to cancel my appointment, I immediately rescheduled for another so will go to that next week.  Prior to that and once I recouped, I felt fine so I am moving ahead optimistically hoping that the new follow-up appointment will confirm my assessment.

Add to all of that our community garden has been a hive of activity, most of which fortunately happened before my "incident":  we hosted two days of activities for fourth and fifth grade classes from one of the local elementary schools and then the following week hosted a garden outing day for a homeschooling group.  Our community paper also came by to take pictures and videos and interview our gardeners for a new online feature they are developing.  Then our garden was picked to be in another video feature, this time in partnership with the hot sauce company we grow peppers for.  Finally last week, employees from Google came to do a community service day at our garden and help us with some construction and maintenance projects.  Whew!  No wonder I didn't get to blog before now!

So enough about all of that, let's get to the real point of this post:  I'm glad to say that even with all of that going on, I was still able to make time for some quilting and:

Ta-Da! On Ringo Lake Is A Flimsie!!

 

 When I had to change my original quilting plans for the year, I decided to spend my time on what I called "mind-less sewing" and for this past month that was finishing the top construction for Bonnie Hunter's last mystery quilt.  I had started it last November with the intention of using it as a leader/ender while I also finished the 2016-17 mystery "En Provence".  When I last left off I was here:

  

 

 The blocks were laid out on the wall and it was a slow but sure process to begin sewing the diagonal rows of sashing and blocks together (the blocks in this design are placed on-point).  I realize now that when Bonnie announces a mystery, one thing I usually don't take note of is how big the finished quilt will be.  I probably should since Bonnie is one designer (Victoria Findlay-Wolfe is another) that prefers to design what a quilting friend used to affectionately call "BAQs" (Big A** Quilts)!  When I started putting the blocks and sashing on the design wall, I ran out of wall and still had more blocks and sashing to put up! 

 

 

So I had to piece the top half of blocks together in order to make more space on the wall so I could position the remaining bottom half blocks and sashing for sewing together.  While sewing together the top half,  I also started placing and attaching the pieced side setting triangles.

When that was done I had to "scrunch" (technical term!) up the top part to make room to place the rest of the blocks and sashing for the bottom part. 

 

 

After the bottom block and sashing rows were sewn together, I needed to be able to see the fabric placement of the top triangles in order to decide where to place the bottom setting triangles.  With only so much space on the wall, that proved to be a bit of a challenge so I had to tape the scrunched up part on to the ceiling in order to be able to see it all, LOL!!  Sorry, I could have sworn I took a picture of that but I guess I was so anxious to try to get this done by month's end, I just rushed forward without getting a shot of it! 

8/28/18 Edited to Add:

Found It!  I knew I had a shot of it!

It took until yesterday to get all the remaining setting triangles attached and then finally get down to sewing up the last two long seams and four pieced corner triangles but it got done!

 

Needless to say I'm a happy camper since:

1)  I got this done before having to travel which was one of my goals for this.

2) I also completed my goal of completing both of the last two Quiltville mystery tops.

3)  Now I get to enjoy a special treat!

 

 

Back in January when Bonnie released the last three parts of the mystery and the Reveal, she had mentioned that there were Quiltville novelties on Zazzle.  I admit, I'm a sucker for quilty novelties and Quiltville branded ones?  I was in!  Actually this helped me out because a few years ago I had purchased two mugs from Dollar Tree that went with my kitchen décor. 

 

 

 

I also had an orange colored one similar to the color of my walls but I believe one of the guys must have broke that one since I haven't seen it in a long while.

Edited to Add:

Found a shot of the orange mug from back in 2015.

The lime green mug that's left has a big crack down the side of it that leaks a little so who knows how long it is for this world.  Up until then, I had checked to see if the store would get more in these colors but never saw any again. 

So when I saw that I could get Quiltville Mystery mugs in colors and then saw the colors for the mugs for these two projects, well I had to go there!  Since these were definitely more expensive than Dollar Store mugs (although I was able to get them while on sale -- whoot! whoot!),  I will be guarding these with my life!  Originally, I hadn't planned to put these into service until both projects were quilted but with my electronic machines still out of commission (who's had the time/focus to take them in?), I don't expect these to get quilted any time soon --- not to mention I still have backings to make and plan to piece those too.

Panel purchased to piece into the On Ringo Lake backing.

So that was my June!  Let's hope July will be a little more calm (but I doubt it).  A very Happy Fourth of July to everyone!