Happy Independence Day!

 Hi all -

Time sure is flying! Can you believe Independence Day is just 2 days away? Although summer has just begun, I know it'll be over before I know it. So I'm trying to enjoy every day! I have someone working to build me a new shed. He has finished demolishing the old shed and is ready to pour the concrete foundation for the new one. There were some unexpected problems with the demolition so that took a little longer than expected, but I think things should go fairly quickly now. Unfortunately, Grace is very protective of her yard so I have to keep her in the house while they work. But she's really good about chilling out in the house. I can't wait until the shed is finished! Right now everything from the shed is sitting on the deck. I've gone through a lot of the stuff and scrubbed it and decided to get rid of some of it, but I'll have to wait until the shed is ready to finish that job since it'll be easier to finish that when I can put the clean stuff in the shed and get it out of the way. The guy said he could also haul away the broken down hot tub that I've been trying to get hauled away for many years and can clean up the big tree that fell down in the spring storms. I'm looking forward to all of these improvements!! If everything goes well with the shed, I'll have him come back next spring to rebuild my deck which needs some work and, if not too expensive, would be nice to make a little bigger. Grace, Buttercup and I love sitting out on the deck!!

I had a finish this week! I finished my Mondo Bag designed by Mattie Rhoades:

Mondo Bag

Mondo Bag

The bag is a good size and is easy to make. Now that I know how the bag is made, I can use it for a while and see if I like the design and then make others with some improvements. I already know some changes I would make if I make another one. First, the pattern has an optional pocket which I included in the bag. The pocket from the pattern ends up being crooked and doesn't seem very useful. If I make another bag, I'll sew together the lining without the optional pocket then will add more conventional pockets that are straight up and down and more useful. I understand why the designer made the pocket like she did, but I think my pockets will be better. The other change I will make will be to fuse the fleece inside the bag to the outside panels rather than fusing it to the lining panels. I'm sure the designer fused the fleece to the lining panels because the outside panels in the pattern are sewn on the printed stabilizer. But if I make another bag I won't be using the printed stabilizer and I like the outside of the bag to have the stability for the bag, if that makes sense.

I've also made progress on my Verba Top designed by Victoria Chaplina:

Verba Top

As you can see, I've joined the front and back and ame making progress down the body of the top. I'll probably knit about 4 more inches on the body before adding the 1.25" hem. Then I'll be picking up stitches around the arms and neck and adding an I-cord edging which will be pretty and should also control some of the curling. I don't look forward to picking up the stitches, which has proved difficult with this yarn, but I am excited to be nearing the finish of this top!

Finally, I felt like doing some piecing so I started working on a Prickly Pear quilt designed by Georgette Dell'Orco. This is a quilt kit that I've had in my stash for a long time now. Connecting Threads used to have incredible sales on their quilt kits and I would pick up anything that was interesting and cheap in preparation for retirement. This is one of those kits. So far, I've got 13 blocks finished:

Prickly Pear

I have 26 more blocks to make for a twin sized quilt. I think I'll finish the top, but then put it in my pile of tops that need to be quilted. I really should be working on a couple of other quilts instead of this one but I really wanted to just do some mindless piecing so this one got pulled out for now.

Well, that's everything I've been working on this week. We'll see what sparks my interest in the next week....   😄

Nancy