I thought I’d pop on with an update on what I’ve been working on this summer so far. I was moving several things along fairly well, once my slump was over, but got immediately waylaid by elbow replacement surgery, which I was not expecting to have to have. But here I am, back at square one with healing up my broken right elbow, while still having my left wrist in a cast part of the time, so all I can do for the moment is wander around my studio looking wistfully at all the things I want to work on.

In April and May, I had to do some secret Sewing for a fabric company, and none of it was quilts, and I can’t show any of it to you, and therefore, I didn’t take a single photo. But I can tell you that one of the items I made was called a Cookie Basket, and it is so stinkin’ adorable, I had to at least give you a link to this lady’s Etsy shop where the pattern came from, because all of her little projects are soooo cute! Her shop is called Tomato Candy, and you can find her on Etsy under TomatoQuilt.

I did steal one of her photos, just to show you how cute it is:

She has some sewing basket patterns that I’m sorely tempted to try next. It’s all so adorable! I won’t say the Cookie Basket was super easy, but I had to make two of them, and I had the hang of it by the second one, so it went a bit easier. She shows a lot of hand sewing on the project, but I used the machine wherever possible, and it worked just fine. You purchase a pattern, and then the instructions come in a YouTube video, so it’s very clear how to do it; it’s just that some of the steps are a bit fussy, because the projects are not large. The Cookie Basket is little, and that’s part of its appeal — did I mention it’s so dang cute? So. Dang. Cute. Go look it up. Cookie Basket.

In addition to the Cookie Baskets, I also made a shirt, 2 can koozies, 2 sunglasses cases, 3 bucket hats, a tote bag, 2 pillows, a pair of short summer pajamas, a pair of long summer pajamas, and a toddler’s suspender skirt (also adorable). It gave me a break from my normal sewing, and I think it kind of helped me out of my slump to sew some different things. I haven’t sewn garments in years!

I had to make a prototype bucket hat because I was having issues with the pattern and didn’t want to ruin the fabric company’s fabric, so I made the prototype for my nephew’s baby girl out of my stash:

In other sewing . . . I finished sewing up the pile of pillowcases that’s been laying around on my cutting table for over a year. As I was finishing them up, I couldn’t resist cutting out “just a few more”, so I ended up with more than I had in the pile to begin with, but now they’re all finished and ready to donate.

I also put the binding on six more wheelchair quilts, pushing me closer to having all the ones I intend to donate finished. I think I have eight more to quilt and bind, then I can deliver them. I’ll show them all to you as a group when I’m finished.

In all this time, I finally finished one customer quilt that was on the longarm for way too long, but it hurts my wrist to do ruler work, so I had to take more breaks than normal, and we had several days of storms, during which I will not even plug my machine in, so I’m glad it’s done because I was really ready to move on! Since then, I’ve already quilted seven more, but that came to a screeching halt last week. I hope I can get back to it soon.

I’m so close to finishing all the blocks for my Down Home Darling quilt that was a sew-along with Temecula Quilt Company. I only have one more log to add to all the blocks. Then I’ll need to decide on a layout for them. They did theirs in diagonal lines, but I saw one done in a barn-raising pattern, and now I’m torn.

I’ve almost got the 36-patch all set together, but I’m not gonna show it to you until I have it quilted and bound and delivered (just in case the recipient might see it before I want her to).

I sewed all the scraps left over from Brooks’ quilt into blocks for another baby quilt. I didn’t want to add the leftovers back into my stash, and I’m trying to make some more baby quilts to donate, so this seemed quite logical to me. I’m just waiting till the design wall is empty so I can lay them all out in a proper setting.

I’m up to Block 6 on Blast from the Past blocks. I’m a little bit behind there, and I also don’t like that top right block and may take the time to re-do it before moving on.

And I couldn’t help myself . . . I jumped in on Edyta Sitar’s Summer Mystery over at Laundry Basket Quilts. The first three installments were fairly simple, Week 4 was a lot of sewing with 20 blocks, and Week 5 went fairly smoothly. I was managing to stay caught up with that, unbelievably, up until Week 6. I have it partially done, but I haven’t touched Weeks 7 or 8 yet. I can’t rotary cut right now, so I’ll have to do some catching up on that later as well. Had I known elbow surgery was imminent, I might not have started this one, but in the end, I won’t be sorry! Here’s a sampling of some of my blocks:

I really didn’t need to start another project, but I’m telling myself this one is justified because I took an old UFO I didn’t want to finish, and am using all the fabrics in this quilt instead. That’s a good reason, right? And if there is any fabric left over after this, I’ll do something with it right away so as not to add any of it back into my stash. I’m gonna get that stash beast tamed one way or the other! And this didn’t make my UFO count go up!

However, the count was not safe, because I did start another quilt on July 1. Every year, my sister and I usually go to Paducah, altho we haven’t been since 2019. Each year, while we’re there, we choose a “sister’s project” to work on. This year, she went without me, and she picked our sister’s project out for us while she was there. We’re making a Lori Smith pattern called Martha Washington’s Finest, and we agreed we’d wait till July 1 to start, which back in April, sounded like a long way off, but here we are!

I have seven blocks made so far. This will all be from stash, so no guilt in that department.

We are also beginning another sister’s project on August 1st, but I’ll wait and show you that one later on. It’s a doozy! I hope I’m healed up enough by then to get started.

I also began work again on my Patchwork City quilt.

I was going to treat it like my next 100 Days Project, even tho there are only 75 blocks, but since I’ve been halted in my tracks, I’ll have to rethink that, and just do what I can when I can for now. I’m up to nine blocks, and not sure when I’ll do any more on it. Sweet Thelma had to help me show them off!

I’ve also been chipping away at my Mad Dash stockpile of blocks — they’re so cute!

So that’s a sampling of what’s been going on around here in the studio, pre-elbow surgery.

I hope you’re having a wonderful summer, and getting to do all the things you want to, whether it’s sewing or some other fun hobby.