Stars Upon Stars July

Plugging Away

If I was going to make progress on this block, I had to give something up. So the minute I finished breakfast, I was at the sewing machine in my pajamas. Yesterday I squeezed in 2 half blocks, and today the same plus a corner. The final 3 are underway, and I should be able to finish it by tonight. We've had house and garden projects without end to work through this spring, and sometimes I'm just too tired to work on something hard. 

This has been the summer of smog here in Ohio. The Canadian wildfires have meant poor air quality, but even worse is little sun. Foggy mornings have been more common, and slow to burn off. 

The garden is fairly large this year, and I love it! Raised beds mean I get an extra month at least on either end of the growing season, and with some crops nearly year round. My first potatoes, 75 pounds or more, have already been harvested a week, and are curing on the porch. But the heat of summer is really here now, and some crops like lettuces are hurting. One day they're fine, and the next day they've turned bitter from heat.

Tucked away in the greenhouse are flats ready to go out soon. Some of these will be under shade cloth, and hopefully not bolt straight away. Continual cropping means thinking ahead, and hoping you have room for seedlings when another crop is ready to pull. It's a juggling act.

Some of these are brassicas--cabbages, kale, collards, and as they are cold-hardy will give us greens through the winter. Even many lettuces will be good here until hard frosts, and that can be lengthened with fleece row covers. Late December to about mid-February are the only down months, and still then there is kale under the snow.

So when the weather is too hot or rainy to work outside, I have a long list of things going on in the studio. My last customer quilts are done, and it's time for summer sewing just for me! I needed this break if nothing more than to reorganize. Any project that was on a wall or floor came first. This bright twin quilt will finish today, and is meant for a gift.

The aeroplane blocks finished nicely into a baby quilt, and is beside the machine ready to bind.

And finally the last twin quilt is together awaiting backing to come from the dryer, and will be loaded next. It's been busy, but productive even here, and I am looking forward to some more relaxing days of summer. I think nearly every day how nice it would be to take my featherweight onto the back porch, and chain sew scraps? I think that may be a sewing craving if there is such a thing. 

Have you been finding time to work on your own projects this summer? I hope so. Sewing centers us when the world is chaotic, and even if it isn't a logical time to do it, the peace it creates is worth it. 

Come on, Doxie girls.

Let's go sew.